{"id":2328,"date":"2009-06-10T17:35:29","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T21:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/?p=2328"},"modified":"2009-06-10T17:39:46","modified_gmt":"2009-06-10T21:39:46","slug":"arthur-laffer-get-ready-for-inflation-and-higher-interest-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/10\/arthur-laffer-get-ready-for-inflation-and-higher-interest-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Arthur Laffer: Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t read economist Arthur Laffer’s Op Ed<\/a> in today’s Wall Street Journal you should. Mr. Laffer explains how the Federal Reserves unprecedented expansion of the money supply could lead to rising inflation and interest rates that would make the ’70s look benign:<\/p>\n

Rahm Emanuel was only giving voice to widespread political wisdom when he said that a crisis should never be “wasted.” Crises enable vastly accelerated political agendas and initiatives scarcely conceivable under calmer circumstances. So it goes now.<\/p>\n

Here we stand more than a year into a grave economic crisis with a projected budget deficit of 13% of GDP. That’s more than twice the size of the next largest deficit since World War II. And this projected deficit is the culmination of a year when the federal government, at taxpayers’ expense, acquired enormous stakes in the banking, auto, mortgage, health-care and insurance industries.<\/p>\n

With the crisis, the ill-conceived government reactions, and the ensuing economic downturn, the unfunded liabilities of federal programs — such as Social Security, civil-service and military pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, Medicare and Medicaid — are over the $100 trillion mark. With U.S. GDP and federal tax receipts at about $14 trillion and $2.4 trillion respectively, such a debt all but guarantees higher interest rates, massive tax increases, and partial default on government promises.<\/p>\n

But as bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences. We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and employment not unlike the late 1970s.<\/p>\n

About eight months ago, starting in early September 2008, the Bernanke Fed did an abrupt about-face and radically increased the monetary base — which is comprised of currency in circulation, member bank reserves held at the Fed, and vault cash — by a little less than $1 trillion. The Fed controls the monetary base 100% and does so by purchasing and selling assets in the open market. By such a radical move, the Fed signaled a 180-degree shift in its focus from an anti-inflation position to an anti-deflation position.<\/p>\n

The percentage increase in the monetary base is the largest increase in the past 50 years by a factor of 10 (see chart nearby). It is so far outside the realm of our prior experiential base that historical comparisons are rendered difficult if not meaningless. The currency-in-circulation component of the monetary base — which prior to the expansion had comprised 95% of the monetary base — has risen by a little less than 10%, while bank reserves have increased almost 20-fold. Now the currency-in-circulation component of the monetary base is a smidgen less than 50% of the monetary base. Yikes!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I really don’t have anything to add… Read the whole thing<\/a> and then start asking your elected representatives some though questions about government spending, taxes and the economy.<\/p>\n

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