Latest / Trumponomics / Episode 9: The U.S. Government's $18 Trillion Debt Problem
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The phony bookkeeping goes merrily on. You know, we borrow
- 0:02Speaker 1: money from the Social Security Trust Fund and we call
- 0:05Speaker 1: it income Now corporation did something like that, the management
- 0:08Speaker 1: would all be watching each other's laundry and club fed.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Hi and welcome back to Bloomberg Benchmark, a podcast about
- 0:18Speaker 1: the global economy. It's Thursday, October Tween night. I'm Tori Stillwell,
- 0:22Speaker 1: the US economics reporter in DC with Bloomberg News. I'm
- 0:26Speaker 1: with my colleagues inco hosts Dan Moss, our executive editor
- 0:29Speaker 1: for International Economics here in d C with me and Akiedo,
- 0:32Speaker 1: our editor for Benchmark in San Francisco. Hello, Tory, how's
- 0:37Speaker 1: it going. It's going. You know, it's pretty it's pretty
- 0:40Speaker 1: miserable weather here and just waiting for a debt deal
- 0:43Speaker 1: to come down, so you know the usual. Well, this
- 0:48Speaker 1: has been another very exciting week in the global economy. Um, Dan,
- 0:52Speaker 1: what's cut your eye over the past week? I was
- 0:54Speaker 1: looking at the Ali Baba earnings released yesterday. The general
- 0:59Speaker 1: nar clity of was that Ali Barbera hit it out
- 1:02Speaker 1: of the park. Sales were up by almost a third
- 1:05Speaker 1: despite a slowing Chinese economy, Defying the slowdown overcoming the slowdown.
- 1:12Speaker 1: And yes it's true China's headline GDP is slowing, but
- 1:17Speaker 1: the mix of what's driving Chinese growth has changed dramatically
- 1:21Speaker 1: in recent years. Services now accounts for more than half consumption,
- 1:27Speaker 1: which is what Ali Barbera is is doing pretty well,
- 1:31Speaker 1: getting stronger, exports getting weaker, manufacturing getting weaker, fixed their sets,
- 1:36Speaker 1: investment getting weaker. So it's not that Ali Barbera overcame
- 1:41Speaker 1: the slowdown. Ali barber is the Chinese economy. Yeah, that's
- 1:45Speaker 1: a great point, and that's also a great plug for
- 1:48Speaker 1: our second episode on the Chinese financial market crisis for
- 1:53Speaker 1: people who haven't digging to listen to that show yet,
- 1:55Speaker 1: which I get out tor, what's been interesting for you? Yeah?
- 1:59Speaker 1: I want to share from services to goods. We got
- 2:02Speaker 1: the Advanced Trade report this morning, so that be Wednesday morning,
- 2:07Speaker 1: and before your eyes glaze over, I swear it's interesting
- 2:12Speaker 1: the US merchandise trade deficits, so for goods it actually
- 2:17Speaker 1: shrank um and that was due to higher exports. Shipments
- 2:23Speaker 1: of goods to overseas customers climbed two point four percent,
- 2:26Speaker 1: which is the biggest increase since March. And this is
- 2:30Speaker 1: great news because you know, we've talked in many episodes
- 2:33Speaker 1: about there being a strong dollar and that being bad
- 2:36Speaker 1: for manufacturers here because it makes them goods more expensive
- 2:39Speaker 1: to foreign customers. Some of that may be starting to abate,
- 2:42Speaker 1: which would be excellent news for our economy. Well, you, guys,
- 2:45Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about the deal that the White
- 2:48Speaker 1: House made with Republicans. They reached this deal late Monday
- 2:52Speaker 1: night to raise the eighteen point one trillion dollar debt
- 2:56Speaker 1: ceiling and thus prevent the US government from de fall
- 3:00Speaker 1: thing on its debt. So yeah, the government was able
- 3:02Speaker 1: to avoid a lot of potential chaos with with the steal.
- 3:07Speaker 1: But first let's introduce our guests. John Steel Gordon, a
- 3:10Speaker 1: historian and author of the book Hamilton's Blessing, The Extraordinary
- 3:14Speaker 1: Life and Times of our National Debt. Hello John, Hello,
- 3:17Speaker 1: I'm glad to be here for people who are listening
- 3:20Speaker 1: and are like I know that the death ceiling is
- 3:22Speaker 1: a big deal, but I don't quite know what it is. Tori.
- 3:25Speaker 1: Can you can you give a quick explainer on what
- 3:28Speaker 1: exactly this mysterious term is. Yes, I will do you
- 3:32Speaker 1: one better. I will define a couple of terms. So
- 3:35Speaker 1: we have all our ducks in our own. So the
- 3:38Speaker 1: debt is just the total of federal budget deficits you
- 3:43Speaker 1: know throughout history, minus federal budget surpluses. That's all of
- 3:47Speaker 1: them put together. Now, the deficit is just how much
- 3:51Speaker 1: spending exceeds revenues in one given fiscal year. And that's
- 3:57Speaker 1: that's sort of easy to imagine as a consumer, how
- 3:59Speaker 1: much you're spending versus how much you're getting in. So
- 4:01Speaker 1: you can have a surplus and it's still to exactly
- 4:04Speaker 1: for for one year. You can have a surplus and
- 4:06Speaker 1: they're still debt exactly. UM. Now, the debt ceiling is
- 4:10Speaker 1: the legal limit on how much total debt the government
- 4:13Speaker 1: can issue. And that's not just the amounts borrowed in
- 4:17Speaker 1: credit markets, but also insecurities treasuries issued to UM other
- 4:23Speaker 1: parts of the government for example, John, how many countries
- 4:26Speaker 1: have a debt ceiling? Is this a unique situation here?
- 4:29Speaker 1: It's it's the only one that I know of, UM,
- 4:31Speaker 1: And that may be because we have a presidential um
- 4:34Speaker 1: form of government as opposed to a parliamentary form of
- 4:37Speaker 1: government where the where the government and the parliament are
- 4:40Speaker 1: essentially one and the same, and so they don't need
- 4:43Speaker 1: a debt ceiling. Why do we have it in the
- 4:45Speaker 1: first place, and what are the pros and cons of it? Well,
- 4:48Speaker 1: the death ceiling. Before nineteen seventeen, Congress authorized all issue
- 4:53Speaker 1: of debt. If the Treasury wanted to issue you know,
- 4:55Speaker 1: a billion dollars worth of treasury bonds, that Congress had
- 4:58Speaker 1: to say, Okay, you can spend it on building bridges
- 5:00Speaker 1: or whatever. And then in nineteen seventeen they put a
- 5:03Speaker 1: limit on the various forms of debt. I mean, how
- 5:06Speaker 1: many Treasury bills, how many Treasury notes, how many Treasury
- 5:09Speaker 1: bonds um the Treasury could issue. And then in nineteen
- 5:13Speaker 1: thirty nine they established the debt ceiling, and you know,
- 5:15Speaker 1: the total debt cannot exceed this number without Congressional permission.
- 5:19Speaker 1: This seems like it was just kind of a control measure,
- 5:22Speaker 1: like Congress wanting some measure of control over what the
- 5:26Speaker 1: Treasury is doing. Yes, um, that's that's the point of it.
- 5:30Speaker 1: But of course, if Congress appropriates money to spend um,
- 5:34Speaker 1: and then it has to provide the money to do
- 5:37Speaker 1: the spending. And if you don't don't have the you know,
- 5:40Speaker 1: tax revenues coming in, and you have no choice but
- 5:42Speaker 1: to borrow the money. So it's kind of a you know,
- 5:45Speaker 1: dog chasing its tail kind of a thing. John, Was
- 5:47Speaker 1: it always this contentious, No, not usually. It's in the
- 5:52Speaker 1: last UMF twenty years that has really gotten heated, and
- 5:55Speaker 1: especially under Obama. How do you account for that? Well,
- 5:59Speaker 1: I've I think partly it's the American politics is polarizing.
- 6:05Speaker 1: You know. It used to be used to have liberal
- 6:06Speaker 1: Democrats and conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans.
- 6:11Speaker 1: You don't anymore. Old Democrats are liberal, Republicans are conservative. Yeah,
- 6:15Speaker 1: And for our listeners, let's just sort of establish where
- 6:17Speaker 1: we are in the In the debt ceiling talks in Washington, UM,
- 6:23Speaker 1: the Republicans and the White House came to agreement, az
- 6:25Speaker 1: Aki said, And so now it's got to pass both
- 6:28Speaker 1: the House and the Senate. UM. Our congressional reporters say
- 6:32Speaker 1: that will probably happen in the House sometime Wednesday today,
- 6:35Speaker 1: the day we're recording, and then it'll have to go
- 6:39Speaker 1: to the Senate for approval as well. And they have
- 6:41Speaker 1: until November three is our deadline. Basically, that's before the
- 6:46Speaker 1: US gets very close to defaulting on its obligations, which
- 6:50Speaker 1: would be an extraordinarily bad scenario. Let's back up a
- 6:54Speaker 1: little bit here. When I first learned what the debt
- 6:58Speaker 1: ceiling was, I was astonished, because every year Congress decides
- 7:02Speaker 1: on the budget, you know, it decides on how much
- 7:05Speaker 1: it wants to spend and how much approximately it's going
- 7:08Speaker 1: to take in and revenue, and then decides, uh, these
- 7:11Speaker 1: are the bonds that we have to issue in order
- 7:14Speaker 1: to borrow enough to actually be able to spend that
- 7:17Speaker 1: amount of money. So they already decide on all of this,
- 7:20Speaker 1: and then later they also have to go through this
- 7:23Speaker 1: thing where they authorize the amount that the of the
- 7:28Speaker 1: total total debt of the government. And it just seems
- 7:32Speaker 1: like this very weird thing where you already say that
- 7:36Speaker 1: you're going to spend this amount and you already decide
- 7:38Speaker 1: on it, but then you have to go through this
- 7:40Speaker 1: separate process of then getting approval to do all of
- 7:44Speaker 1: that all over again. It's so confusing to me, very bizarre.
- 7:47Speaker 1: Probably has something to do with getting good headlines the
- 7:50Speaker 1: next morning you can spending John, do you think things
- 7:54Speaker 1: would be better if we just got rid of this
- 7:56Speaker 1: debt ceiling altogether or if we just kind of tried
- 7:59Speaker 1: to meld it in together with the budget making process. Yes,
- 8:03Speaker 1: I do, because I think it's now become a political football, um,
- 8:08Speaker 1: and it doesn't serve any purpose other than to get
- 8:10Speaker 1: politicians to get good headlines the next morning, which is
- 8:13Speaker 1: of course half of politics. I guess every every year
- 8:16Speaker 1: when this issue comes up, it does give us a
- 8:19Speaker 1: good chance, though, to reflect on how much the US
- 8:23Speaker 1: government owes to everyone else, both US citizens and US
- 8:29Speaker 1: businesses and companies and individuals around the world. Tori, do
- 8:34Speaker 1: you want to give us a quick primer on what
- 8:38Speaker 1: this debt looks like? Now? Yes, sell debt comes in
- 8:42Speaker 1: many different shades, and there's many different labels for the
- 8:46Speaker 1: different kinds of debt. So I'll walk through a couple
- 8:48Speaker 1: of them. So, the US public debt subject to limit,
- 8:52Speaker 1: which includes um even debt that is accumulated when parts
- 8:57Speaker 1: of the government borrow or lend from or to other
- 9:01Speaker 1: parts of the government. So that amount right there is
- 9:04Speaker 1: eighteen point one trillion dollars right now, and that's right
- 9:07Speaker 1: at the limit that is the debt ceiling right there.
- 9:11Speaker 1: That's a lot of money. Yeah. Then we have the
- 9:15Speaker 1: US public debt held by the public, and this is uh,
- 9:19Speaker 1: this is more often used by economists. This is what
- 9:22Speaker 1: people are really concerned about. And this is thirteen trillion
- 9:25Speaker 1: dollars um. To give you some context, before the recession
- 9:31Speaker 1: um in December two thousand seven, that number was five
- 9:34Speaker 1: point one trillion dollars. So we've we've more than doubled
- 9:38Speaker 1: that level since then, and you know that has to
- 9:41Speaker 1: do with revenues decreasing during the recession. Also, you know
- 9:45Speaker 1: we spent to try to get the economy going back
- 9:48Speaker 1: up again, so we've definitely seen debt balloon recently. Let's
- 9:52Speaker 1: put these numbers into some kind of perspective, because taken
- 9:56Speaker 1: in and of themselves, they sound stratus eric. But how
- 10:01Speaker 1: is the US doing relative to other major economies? Is
- 10:05Speaker 1: that a lot of debt? Is it average? Is it
- 10:08Speaker 1: not very much? It's well above average. We're currently about
- 10:13Speaker 1: a hundred and three hundred four percent of g d P.
- 10:16Speaker 1: There are countries in worthshape. Greece is a hundred and
- 10:19Speaker 1: fifty eight percent, Japan is about a hundred and seventy
- 10:22Speaker 1: four percent. But Japan, the Japanese are very thrifty people,
- 10:26Speaker 1: and the Japanese national debt is almost entirely internally held.
- 10:31Speaker 1: The UK is around ninety percent, Frances around eighty six percent.
- 10:34Speaker 1: These numbers have all been getting steadily worse over the
- 10:37Speaker 1: last um several decades, and it's important to look at
- 10:41Speaker 1: these debt to GDP ratios instead of just the absolute
- 10:45Speaker 1: amount in trillions of dollars. Because your economy produces a
- 10:49Speaker 1: lot every year and you have some amount of debt,
- 10:51Speaker 1: that's totally fine. But if your economy doesn't produce a
- 10:54Speaker 1: whole lot, but the debt size is actually a lot,
- 10:57Speaker 1: that's when you're kind of in trouble. But on Japan
- 11:00Speaker 1: and Act, you may also be able to provide some
- 11:03Speaker 1: perspective of this. Shouldn't it to GDP of the magnitude
- 11:09Speaker 1: that John does just described If you believe half of
- 11:13Speaker 1: what's said about the US debt, shouldn't that be leading
- 11:16Speaker 1: to a catastrophe in Japan? Yet Japanese bonds are in
- 11:20Speaker 1: more demand than ever. The country is not falling apart.
- 11:25Speaker 1: Why is it such a big deal. So part of
- 11:27Speaker 1: the reason why people aren't panicked about Japan right now
- 11:31Speaker 1: is because, like John said, most of the debt is
- 11:33Speaker 1: actually owed to its own citizens, its own companies. So
- 11:37Speaker 1: when the death's kind of internal like that, you're just
- 11:39Speaker 1: it's kind of like you're pushing money around within the
- 11:42Speaker 1: same country, it's not that big of a deal. Whereas
- 11:45Speaker 1: when you have foreign investors, that's when things get a
- 11:47Speaker 1: little bit more worrying. That was the case for Greece,
- 11:50Speaker 1: that was the case for Spain, etcetera during the European
- 11:54Speaker 1: sovereign debt crisis. UM. But at the end of the day,
- 11:57Speaker 1: this is really about market psychology. You know, investors can
- 12:00Speaker 1: really wake up tomorrow and decide that the US or
- 12:03Speaker 1: Japan or any of these other countries just aren't trustworthy anymore,
- 12:08Speaker 1: and that's when interest rates go up very quickly and
- 12:11Speaker 1: you quickly tumble into a financial crisis. I suppose they could.
- 12:15Speaker 1: But don't you think comparisons with Greece and Spain are
- 12:18Speaker 1: somewhat exaggerated. I mean, here in the US, we or
- 12:23Speaker 1: you do actually control your own currency. That's not the
- 12:26Speaker 1: case in Greece and not the case in Spain. John,
- 12:30Speaker 1: what do you think of those comparisons, Well, I think
- 12:32Speaker 1: that's perfectly true. I mean, we are the reserve currency
- 12:35Speaker 1: and that is a huge economic advantage for US UM
- 12:39Speaker 1: and there's no other country that really could provide the
- 12:41Speaker 1: reserve currency at this point, so we're very lucky in
- 12:44Speaker 1: that regard. So we're okay for now. Well, we can
- 12:49Speaker 1: afford the debt right now because interest rates are extraordinarily
- 12:52Speaker 1: low and have been for several years. But if they
- 12:55Speaker 1: go back up to normal rates, suddenly the interest on
- 12:58Speaker 1: the debt is going to be eating up an awful
- 13:00Speaker 1: lot of tax revenue. How worried should we be about
- 13:04Speaker 1: the size of the US debt? I think we should
- 13:06Speaker 1: be moderately worried about it. It's not a crisis, but
- 13:09Speaker 1: it can quickly become one. And what are we borrowing
- 13:12Speaker 1: this money for. In the nineteenth century, we use the
- 13:16Speaker 1: national debt to save the Union, you know. In the
- 13:18Speaker 1: nineteen thirties we used it to save the American economy.
- 13:21Speaker 1: In the nineteen four Days, we used it to save
- 13:23Speaker 1: the world. What have we spent this all this money on?
- 13:26Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy the national debt was of g d P.
- 13:30Speaker 1: Today it's over and we've had no great war, no
- 13:34Speaker 1: great depression. But we do have an aging population. We
- 13:37Speaker 1: do have an aging population, but it's not as bad
- 13:40Speaker 1: as say Japan is at the moment. And so what
- 13:42Speaker 1: we've basically done is we have borrowed money from our
- 13:45Speaker 1: grandchildren so that we can enjoy it today. And you know,
- 13:49Speaker 1: don't forget today's borrowing is necessarily tomorrow's taxes. We're taking
- 13:53Speaker 1: this money from our grandchildren so that we can have
- 13:54Speaker 1: a nice lifestyle. When I when I talked to an
- 13:58Speaker 1: economist yesterday, John Nale over at LPL Financial, he told
- 14:03Speaker 1: me that when he talks to clients UM and investors,
- 14:07Speaker 1: the debt is the number one question that people have
- 14:12Speaker 1: for him. It is the thing that people are most
- 14:14Speaker 1: worried about. Do you think that's why that is? It's
- 14:16Speaker 1: just this whole feeling that it's getting unsustainable and it's
- 14:20Speaker 1: getting out of hand, and it jeopardizes serve the U
- 14:23Speaker 1: S as we know it, and just kind of curious
- 14:25Speaker 1: why they would be so worried about it. Why that's
- 14:27Speaker 1: the first question. Well, I think one thing is that
- 14:30Speaker 1: this could this could suddenly become a crisis, very very quickly.
- 14:34Speaker 1: It's again it's psychology. I mean, in the nineteen seventies,
- 14:37Speaker 1: New York City trotted on down to Wall Street and
- 14:41Speaker 1: asked to borrow more money. UM and Wall Street just said, sorry,
- 14:44Speaker 1: we're not lending the City of New York any more money.
- 14:47Speaker 1: And suddenly it was forward the city dropped debt. Fortunately,
- 14:51Speaker 1: the State of New York bailed out New York City
- 14:54Speaker 1: and put it under strict control. I mean, one thing
- 14:56Speaker 1: they did was required New York City to keep its
- 14:58Speaker 1: books according to generally accept at accounting principles. It would
- 15:01Speaker 1: certainly help if the federal government had to do that.
- 15:04Speaker 1: What they don't. You know, you know those surpluses we
- 15:06Speaker 1: had in nine, two thousand, two thousand one, the national
- 15:10Speaker 1: debt went up every one of those years. Now, how
- 15:13Speaker 1: can you be running a surplus and yet you're debt
- 15:15Speaker 1: is increasing? It was phony bookkeeping is how you do it.
- 15:18Speaker 1: And the phony bookkeeping ended in two thousand and one. No,
- 15:21Speaker 1: that's when we slipped into deafic set again. Now the
- 15:24Speaker 1: phony bookkeeping goes merrily on, and you know, we borrow
- 15:27Speaker 1: money from the Social Security Trust Fund and we call
- 15:29Speaker 1: it income. Now a corporation did something like that, the
- 15:33Speaker 1: management would all be watching each other's laundry and club fed.
- 15:36Speaker 1: I'm wondering. You know, this is a conversation with a
- 15:39Speaker 1: lot of numbers and a lot of vocabulary. That's pretty difficult.
- 15:44Speaker 1: Talking about sovereign debt is not my favorite thing in
- 15:47Speaker 1: the world, because it's so complicated. But if you're a
- 15:50Speaker 1: normal person out there, if you're like a normal American citizen, Um,
- 15:55Speaker 1: why should you care about the debt ceiling? And why
- 15:57Speaker 1: should you care about the US debt? I think the
- 16:00Speaker 1: debt ceiling is they don't care about it. Most people
- 16:03Speaker 1: don't care about politics, and people who do care about
- 16:06Speaker 1: politics find that absolutely incomprehensible. But ninety percent of the
- 16:10Speaker 1: American people don't like politics very much. It's sort of
- 16:13Speaker 1: now they deal with it as much as they have to,
- 16:15Speaker 1: sort of like nobody likes going to the dentist, but
- 16:16Speaker 1: we do. Anyway, I can personally attest to that. Well,
- 16:19Speaker 1: I'm wondering, John, what do you think Alexander Hamilton's would
- 16:22Speaker 1: have said if there was a time machine that he
- 16:25Speaker 1: teleported into modern day America and saw that the US
- 16:30Speaker 1: debt is now around eighteen trillion dollars and that the
- 16:33Speaker 1: debt ceiling becomes this huge political debating point every year. Well,
- 16:39Speaker 1: I mean, Alexander Hamilton's said that you know that the
- 16:41Speaker 1: national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to
- 16:44Speaker 1: us a national blessing, and it has many times proved
- 16:46Speaker 1: to be exactly that we could not have won the
- 16:48Speaker 1: Civil War without it. Now what Hamilton's who died in
- 16:52Speaker 1: eighteen o four, would say about twenty fifteen, I think
- 16:55Speaker 1: he'd be probably more interested in things like airplanes and
- 16:59Speaker 1: television and ray idea and what have you and snapchat. Right.
- 17:03Speaker 1: There are a number of prominent economists, such as Paul Krookman,
- 17:07Speaker 1: though he's not the only one who would say, with
- 17:10Speaker 1: interest rates the slow ought we not be borrowing to invest?
- 17:14Speaker 1: What would hamilton have made of that? Well on thing,
- 17:17Speaker 1: about one third of the national debt turns over every
- 17:21Speaker 1: couple of years UM, so it wouldn't be very long
- 17:24Speaker 1: before if interest rates go back up to normal, when
- 17:26Speaker 1: the amount of tax revenue needed to service the debt
- 17:29Speaker 1: would go straight up. And then you know, either we
- 17:33Speaker 1: keep borrowing um and pretending everything's fine, or there has
- 17:38Speaker 1: to be drastic tax increases which would certainly slow the economy,
- 17:42Speaker 1: or there's going to have to be big government cuts
- 17:44Speaker 1: which would also slow the economy. So we better to
- 17:47Speaker 1: do something about his starting now. But I wouldn't hold
- 17:50Speaker 1: my brand well. I want to end on a light note.
- 17:54Speaker 1: Have you seen that Hamilton's and musical yet? I have not? Um,
- 17:58Speaker 1: I hear it's very good hip hop. Not exactly my
- 18:01Speaker 1: kind of music. I'm more Rogers and Hamistan musical type. Um,
- 18:05Speaker 1: but everybody was saying it said it was absolutely great. Yeah.
- 18:08Speaker 1: I saw it a few weeks back back in August
- 18:10Speaker 1: and it's it's amazing. I am going to plug it.
- 18:13Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that you should watch it. The hip
- 18:15Speaker 1: hop is it's very well done and uh it's hilarious
- 18:20Speaker 1: to boot. So on that note, thank you so much
- 18:23Speaker 1: for joining us. Thank you, and thanks to all of
- 18:27Speaker 1: you for listening to Bloomberg Benchmark. We will be back
- 18:29Speaker 1: next week. You can find us on Bloomberg dot com, iTunes, Podecast, SoundCloud, Stitcher,
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- 18:45Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at Daniel Mass, d C, Tori
- 18:49Speaker 1: Stillwell and Akio seven. See you next week.