People keep talking about the “new normal” we’ll all have to adjust to as we recover from the coronavirus pandemic. So, what does that mean for the economy? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey looks ahead at the new normal, the prospects of an economic recovery and speculates that we might have already caught a glimpse of the future last year. He also covers the gold market and looks at some of the economic data this week.
Twenty-eight days.
That’s how long it took to add another $1 trillion to the national debt.
Welcome to your future. Your government is spending it right now. And your children’s and grandchildren’s future to boot.
The US Treasury plans to borrow $2.99 trillion in the second quarter. The Treasury also plans to borrow another $677 billion in the July-September quarter, bringing the total fiscal 2020 debt to $4.48 trillion.
It’s a level of borrowing that’s difficult to even wrap your head around.
It seems like everybody is getting a bailout right now. The government is handing out money it doesn’t have left and right. This is all justified because of coronavirus. Even conservatives who normally oppose government bailouts have jumped on the stimulus train. “This is a crisis!” they cry. The government has to step in. But as Peter Schiff explains in his podcast, the government crippled the economy in the first place. A government crutch isn’t the solution to the problem.
The US government budget deficit in March came in at $119 billion, according to the latest US Treasury Department Report.
That’s a massive budget shortfall. But it’s actually the calm before the storm.
The US national debt pushed above $24 trillion on Tuesday.
The US government was already running massive budget deficits long before the coronavirus pandemic and the debt was piling up at a dizzying pace. Response to the outbreak has put spending and debt in hyperdrive.
The US is heading for economic lockdown as the impact of the coronavirus grows. To cope with the crisis, President Trump has promised fiscal stimulus. The actual plan remains unclear, but the Trump administration has floated a reduction in payroll taxes, along with bailouts and loan guarantees for struggling industries. While the details are murky, one thing is certain — it will cost billions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the US government is already living far above its means. Uncle Sam recorded another massive budget deficit of $235 billion last month, according to the latest Treasury Department report.
The US government posted another massive deficit to start out calendar-year 2020.
According to the latest data released by the US Treasury Department, Uncle Sam spent $32.6 billion more than it took in last month. That compares with an $8.7 billion surplus in January 2019. Analysts had projected an $11.5 billion shortfall in January.
Last October, the Federal Reserve relaunched quantitative easing. Of course, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell insists it’s not quantitative easing. But as Peter Schiff pointed out in a recent tweet, that debate is really just semantics.
The argument over whether the current Fed balance sheet expansion constitutes QE is pointless. QE was always just a euphemism for debt monetization. The Fed monetized debt in the past, its monetizing more debt in the present, and it will monetize even more debt in the future!”
The CBO projects the federal government will run massive budget deficits into the foreseeable future and says the ballooning national debt poses “significant risk” to the economy and financial system.
According to the CBO, the federal budget shortfall will hit $1.02 trillion in FY 2020 and rise into the foreseeable future. Deficits will average $1.3 trillion per year between 2021 and 2030 and top $1.5 trillion by the end of the decade. The CBO projects cumulative deficits over the next decade to total $13.1 trillion.
