CB: > Can capitalism totally destruct based on a financial or economic crisis ?
Bernanke's not talking about about "total destruction" of _capitalism_; he's talking about the government's budget (and the chaos it might cause) instead. >Bernanke explained that the Congressional Budget Office's calculations miss an >important reality. As the government's debt and deficits rise, the economy >will slow down—an effect not taken into account by the CBO. So, for instance, >when the CBO says that federal spending for health-care programs will roughly >double as a percentage of GDP in the next 25 years, it is probably being too >optimistic. If debt keeps, rising, GDP will be much lower than the CBO >estimates—which will mean that health care spending will be a much larger >percentage of the overall economy. > Here's Bernanke on the effect of rising debt: >>Sustained high rates of government borrowing would both drain funds away from >>private investment and increase our debt to foreigners, with adverse long-run >>effects on U.S. output, incomes, and standards of living. Moreover, >>diminishing investor confidence that deficits will be brought under control >>would ultimately lead to sharply rising interest rates on government debt >>and, potentially, to broader financial turmoil. In a vicious circle, high and >>rising interest rates would cause debt-service payments on the federal debt >>to grow even faster, resulting in further increases in the debt-to-GDP ratio >>and making fiscal adjustment all the more difficult.<< > In short, the official estimates members of Congress hear from their budget > office are under-estimating our dire economic predicament. If fiscal policy > is not brought under control, things will be much, much worse.< Bernanke seems to be assuming that government deficits are never productive in the sense of promoting long-term supply-side growth (though that assumption may be valid based on the political opposition to the federal government ever playing a productive role), while severely downplaying the independent role of private business in sinking the economy's boat (think 2008). If he's only talking about long-term deficits, then he is accepting the fact that the government's deficit can stimulate demand (to attain supply limits or potential output) and the way in which much of the deficit automatically goes away as GDP rises toward potential. He's also got the wrong emphasis. Instead of yammering about the government deficit, he should be emphasizing the government's real budget problem -- which is the result of the hypertrophied and extremely inefficient private-public partnership that runs the US health care insurance system. He should be talking (as Obama used to do) about some way to make the health-care system much more efficient. (Single-payer, anyone?) More generally, in the current era, there are severe imbalances holding back the "private" sector (the capitalists) such as unused industrial capacity, a large inventory of unsold houses (with falling or stagnant prices), a still very shaky financial sector, and extreme _private sector_ debt (so that businesses are holding onto profits more than reinvesting them). This means that the only way that the economy is going to get back to conventionally-defined full employment in the next few years is to either directly attack the problems I just listed as holding back capital accumulation or to run large government deficits. In the absence of such direct attacks, the size of the government's deficit reflects the failures of the private sector. Most likely is that we'll see a continuation of slow "recovery" of real GDP growth combined with high unemployment rates (even if the official U3 rate doesn't reflect those). The failures of the private sector will continue to cause "cyclical" deficits (due to low tax revenues and high transfer payments that result from high unemployment). Congresscritters will likely call for more austerity (since it's worked so well for Greece, after all) while blocking the common-sense Keynesian policies that Obama once advocated. Continued stagnation and austerity tilts the playing field further in the direction of labor concessions, low wages and benefits, cutting government programs that help people other than business, etc. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac. Social science is in the middle.... and usually in a muddle. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
