Just four months into fiscal 2023 and the US federal budget deficit is already approaching half a trillion dollars. This is a big problem for the Federal Reserve that few people seem to be talking about.
Fight!
The kids are throwing punches in the halls of Congress and there doesn’t seem to be a responsible adult willing to step in to stop it.
We’re talking about the debt ceiling fight that kicked off last week when the US government bumped up against its statutory borrowing limit.
Policy wonks and government people come up with some really dumb ideas. And a lot of those dumb ideas just won’t go away.
Now that we’re in the early stages of the fake debt ceiling fight, a really dumb idea has been resurrected from the dead – the trillion-dollar coin.
Pop some popcorn and get ready for the next political dog and pony show. The US government bumped up against its statutory borrowing limit this week. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the looming debt ceiling fight and the deeper problems that will inevitably get ignored as everybody absorbs the political theater. He also talks about the growing bullishness in the gold market.
Here we go again.
The clock is ticking down to another US debt ceiling fight.
According to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the US government will officially bump up against the debt ceiling Thursday (Jan. 19).
The US government ran an $85 billion budget deficit in December, according to the Monthly Treasury Department Statement. That was much lower than November’s massive $248.5 billion shortfall, but don’t be deceived by the drop. December is typically a low deficit month. The relatively big shortfall indicates the federal government is on a trajectory to blow past the $1.38 trillion fiscal 2022 deficit.
For the last several years, we’ve enjoyed the fruits of an economic bubble blown up by easy money and debt. But ultimately, that debt is going to be the economy’s undoing. Simply put, these debt levels are unsustainable without runaway inflation.
So, pick your poison.
The Federal Reserve is trying to win a war against price inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey highlights two more reasons this is a game the Fed can’t win. He also does a quick overview of the gold market in 2022 as we head toward the end of the year.
The US government ran a massive $248.5 billion deficit in November, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement. There was only one month in fiscal 2022 with a bigger budget shortfall. This is bad news for the Federal Reserve as it tries to raise interest rates and shrink its balance sheet to fight price inflation.
After running a $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal 2022, the US government took up right where it left off to start fiscal 2023 — running a big budget deficit.
The October budget deficit came in at $87.8 billion despite another month of healthy government receipts, according to the latest Treasury statement.
