2010-08-29

OSO's Debt Watch - September 2010


GDP = $14.575 Trillion (Current Dollar, 2010 Q2 second estimate)
Real GDP = $13.1915 Trillion
Public Debt = $8.84951313100647 Trillion (2010-08-26)
Total debt owed to foreign holders of treasury securities = $4.0092 Trillion (2010-08-16)
Debt/GDP ratio = 60.72%
Foreign ownership of debt/GDP ratio = 27.51%
Population = 310,062,271 (Resident Population + Armed Forces Overseas, 2010-08-01)
GDP (Current Dollar) per capita = $47,006.69
GDP (Real) per capita = $42,544.68
Public Debt / person = $28,541.08
Foreign Public Debt/ person = $12,930.31
GDP per capita minus Public Debt per person = $18,465.60
Tax Receipts = $2.116950 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, Monthly Treasury Statement, 2010-07-01)
Tax Receipts as percentage of GDP = 14.52%
Debt/Receipt ratio² = 418.03%
Federal Government Outlays = $3.434780 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, Monthly Treasury Statement, 2010-07-01)
Federal Government Outlays as percentage of GDP = 23.57%
For every $1.00 the US government gains, it spends $1.62
Fiscal Surplus/Deficit = -$-1.31783 Trillion
Surplus/Deficit as percentage of GDP = -9.04%
Interest paid on Treasury Debt Securities (Gross, Twelve month moving average, Monthly Treasury Statement, 2010-07-01) = $0.418149 Trillion
Interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of revenue = 19.75%
Interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of GDP = 2.87%

Notes:
  • Debt/GDP ratio has now exceeded 60% of GDP





In October 2008, GDP was $14.2003 Trillion (Current Dollar, 2008 Q4 final estimate)
In October 2008, Public Debt was $6.18964742400511 Trillion (2008-10-20)
In October 2008, the total debt owed to foreign holders of treasury securities was $2.9797 Trillion
In October 2008, the Debt/GDP ratio was 43.59%
In October 2008, the foreign ownership of debt/GDP ratio was 20.98%
In October 2008, the Population (resident population + Armed Forces overseas) was 305,554,049 (2008-10-01)
In October 2008, GDP per capita was $46,473.94
In October 2008, Public Debt / person was $20,257.13
In October 2008, Foreign Public Debt/ person was $9,751.79
In October 2008, GDP per capita minus Public Debt per person was $26,216.81
In October 2008, Tax Receipts were $2.578156 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, November 2008 Monthly Treasury Statement)
In October 2008, Tax Receipts represented 18.16% of GDP
In October 2008, the Debt/Receipt² ratio was 240.08%
In October 2008, Federal Government outlays were $2.747197 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, November 2008 Monthly Treasury Statement)
In October 2008, Federal Government outlays represented 19.35% of GDP
In October 2008, for every $1.00 the US government gained, it spent $1.07.
In October 2008, the Fiscal Surplus/Deficit was −$0.169041 Trillion
In October 2008 the Surplus/Deficit as percentage of GDP was -1.19%
In October 2008, interest paid on Treasury Debt Securities (Twelve month moving average, Monthly Treasury Statements) was $0.429994 Trillion
In October 2008, interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of revenue was 16.68%
In October 2008, interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of GDP was 3.03%

The historical tables of the FY2010 budget (page 24-25) show that:

Highest tax receipts as percentage of GDP: 20.9% in 1944 and 2000.
Lowest tax receipts as percentage of GDP: 2.8% in 1932.
The last time tax receipts were lower than they are now: 13.3% in 1943.
Highest Federal Government outlays as percentage of GDP: 43.6% in 1943 and 1944.
Lowest Federal Government outlays as percentage of GDP: 3.4% in 1930.
The last time Federal Government outlays were higher than they are now: 24.8% in 1946.
Fiscal Deficit - Worst: -30.3% in 1943
Fiscal Surplus - Best: 4.6% in 1948


¹ Measures total tax receipts/outlays over the previous 12 months from the last month measured. eg April 2009 to March 2010.
² The Debt/Receipt ratio measures government revenue (twelve month moving average) as a percentage of current public debt. A good way to compare it would be to compare your current income to what you owe on your mortgage.





2010-08-26

Random thoughts on Krugman and Treasuries

This came to me about halfway through watching Taxi Driver with Robert DeNiro:

Paul Krugman argues that further spending is necessary to stimulate the economy and prevent further contractions. Those who disagree with him, including myself, warn that excess government borrowings (in the form of increasing Debt/GDP ratio) will lead to a deterioration in market expectations that the debt will be paid off. Krugman's response is that if the market is spooked with treasuries, then why aren't bond rates going through the roof? He rightly points out that bond rates have fallen, not risen, in recent months.

My response to Krugman requires a bit of explaining on how bond markets work. When I first began to wrap my mind around bond investing, one thing which seemed incongruous was the fact that bond rates went down when the market purchased them, and went up when the market sold them off. It took me a while to realise that, while bonds are subject to the laws of supply and demand, the price measurement is inverted, which means that the interest rates on bonds drop whenever there is an increase in demand, and increase whenever there is a drop in demand.

In other words, if during a market day bond rates drop from, say, 2.8% to 2.7%, this means that there has been an increased demand for bonds. If the bond rates increase from, say, 2.8% to 2.9%, this means that there has been a decreased demand for bonds.

Bonds, like all investments, are driven by supply and demand. Moreover they are also subject to basic market failure which includes investment bubbles.

Many economists, Krugman included, warned the world that property prices in the US had developed a bubble and that a correction was overdue. In 2007 the market corrected and house prices began falling, which eventually led to the 2008 credit crisis and the subsequent "Great Recession". Those who predicted that property prices would not fall, or who then argued that the correction would be minor (Bernanke - I'm looking at you) were left with egg on their face. Moreover, market "experts" pre 2007 argued very strongly that the rise in property prices would continue and that the market was NOT going abandon it. Their reasoning was simple: "if the market was spooked, then why are property prices still rising?"

Let me just repeat that:

"If the market was spooked, then why are property prices still rising?"

Now compare that to what Krugman is saying:

"If the market is spooked, then why are bond rates falling and not increasing?"

I suppose you might guess what I am trying to say: Krugman's argument that the market will not be spooked by an oversupply of treasuries (due to increased deficit and government spending) is based upon the same logic that kept the market believing that the property prices will continue to increase, namely that the market obviously knows what is good for it. Paul Krugman, amongst others, knows just how limited and stupid the market can become but argues that, in the case of treasuries, the market does know what it is doing.

The property bubble between 2002 and 2007 was caused by a market failure. Too much money invested into one sector in too quick a time led to an investment bubble that popped and lost a lot of people a lot of money. In the same way US treasuries have developed an investment bubble. The market has dropped rates down to around 2.5%. With such a drastic increase in demand for bonds, the potential for a correction grows daily.

And what happens when investors lose confidence in both US shares and US bonds? A drop in the value of the US Dollar.

2010-08-21

A mild contraction under way?

This is an interesting chart. It is 10-year bond rates since 2008:


For whatever reason I decided to look at this chart as though the US economy was a submarine that hit a seamount, specifically the USS San Francisco incident in 2005 when the nuclear powered sub ploughed straight into the side of an undersea mountain (see this pic). For a while it was touch and go but the crew eventually survived the ordeal.

From looking at these bond rates we see very, very clearly the Q4 2008 financial distress. Bond rates plummeted as investors fled from shares to secure investments. GDP in that quarter plunged by -1.7%, or -7.0% in annualized terms, the worst quarter since Q2 1980. It was a huge financial and economic hit. Remember Lehman/WAMU/AIG? Q4 was quarter which immediately followed those collapses.

By July 2009, however, bond rates had returned to around 4%, and have hovered there since about March-April 2010. Since April, though, rates have begun sinking again.

These rates are dropping slowly, which means that the US economy is probably not going to hit another financial seamount, but will experience, at the very best, very little change in GDP. My opinion is that a contraction is under way and that GDP Q3 and/or Q4 will be mildly negative.

A major indicator will be August CPI figures. If there is a month-on-month decline in the price index, the chances of an economic contraction increase. Prices declined in April, May and June and only an increase in July prevented a four in a row reading (which has not been experienced since 1954). Weekly jobless figures are increasing too, indicating a slowdown.

2010-08-13

July 2010 US CPI

Update 12.58 UTC / 08.58 EST:

Historic Inflation index numbers are here at the St Louis Fed. They haven't added today's figures yet.

Download today's release here.

---------------------------------------------------------
Update 12.52 UTC / 08.52 EST:

Energy has increased from 199.059 to 204.195 over the past month (page 12 of 19). That means a lot of the inflation has been due to higher oil prices. Indeed, the report says:

The energy index posted its first increase since January and accounted for over two thirds of the seasonally adjusted all items increase.

That's actually NOT a good thing, because it means that most of the inflation has been due to oil price fluctuations and NOT due to an increase in demand.




---------------------------------------------------------
Update 12.42 UTC / 08.42 EST:

This means that real interest rates have remained more or less stable over the past six months. July real interest rates were 1.70% (10 year bond rate minus annual inflation).






---------------------------------------------------------
Update 12.36 UTC/08.36 EST: The number is 217.897, which is an increase.

Annualised, the rate is inflation of 3.70%
Year on year, the rate is 1.31%

This is the largest monthly price boost since August 2009.

---------------------------------------------------------

Just a reminder that CPI figures come out in the next 45 minutes.

If the CPI figures show a monthly decrease, it will be four months in a row of a decreasing CPI. That has not happened since October 1954.

Q2 2010 European GDP grows faster than the US

I predicted this about 2 months ago.

Here's what the Eurostat release says:

GDP increased by 1.0% in both the euro area (EA16) and the EU27 during the second quarter of 2010, compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the first quarter of 2010, growth rates were +0.2% in both zones.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 1.7% in both the euro area and the EU27 in the second quarter of 2010, after +0.6% and +0.5% respectively in the previous quarter.

During the second quarter of 2010, US GDP increased by 0.6% compared with the previous quarter, after +0.9% in the first quarter of 2010. US GDP rose by 3.2% compared with the same quarter of the previous year (+2.4% in the previous quarter).
Actually I love it how people like to report GDP figures differently. 1.0% doesn't sound too much and anyone who read the latest US GDP figures would say "But US GDP grew by 2.4%". Here's two examples:

Example one (Bloomberg, 2010-07-31):

Gross domestic product grew at a 2.4 percent annual pace, less than forecast, after a 3.7 percent first-quarter gain that was larger than previously estimated, according to Commerce Department data issued today in Washington.

Example two (Bloomberg, 2010-08-13):
Gross domestic product in the 16-nation euro area increased 1 percent from the first quarter, when it rose 0.2 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That’s the fastest in four years and the first time the euro region has outpaced the U.S. since the second quarter of 2009.

As anyone who has been trying to decipher GDP reporting over the years knows, there are three (and possibly four) basic ways to measure GDP growth:
  1. Measure the growth from one quarter to the next.
  2. Measure the growth from one quarter to the next, and then "annualize it" by multiplying it by four.
  3. Measure the growth from the latest quarter to what it was 12 months ago, giving an "annual" (but not annualized) figure.
Confusing isn't it? The thing is, when the media reports US figures, it gives the 2nd measurement; when they report EU figures, they use the first measurement. What ends up happening is that the US looks "better". So how do the US and EU really compare?


Of course the recovery has hit Europe one quarter after it has hit the US, which is why the annual figure for the US exceeds that of the EU. Q3 2010 should look interesting, as should further revisions of these GDP numbers for both Europe and the US.

2010-08-11

Optimum Sovereign Debt Levels

Over at Angry Bear, Bruce Webb asks the question "What is the optimal level of US Public Debt?". I felt compelled to reply to this, even though it will be seen as heterodox.

But first, some history. Back in the late 1990s when I was working out my economic understanding, I came to the mistaken conclusion that government deficits were bad and government surpluses were good. This was, in part, due to the influence of then Australian treasurer Peter Costello, who, with PM John Howard, made deep budget cuts after the 1996 Federal election. These budget cuts were made because the previous government, the ALP under Paul Keating, had run budget deficits and increased debt to around 20% of GDP. At the time I thought such debt levels were terrible but in hindsight they are very small compared to the gigantic levels of government debt experienced by the US and Europe. Chalk that one up to successful Liberal party propaganda.

So, armed with a dangerous amount of a little knowledge, I began to play around with the idea of governments running huge surpluses. Never being burdened with Randian anti-government attitudes helped me through this process. I began to understand that any government with huge amounts of savings had the luxury of increasing spending or lowering taxes as time went by. After all, with the money in these surpluses being ploughed back into the economy in the form of buying shares or depositing with banks, the interest and earnings of these investments would act as a secondary source of income to taxation. Taxes could therefore be cut, and spending could be increased, without having the problem of running deficits and increasing debt. Taken to its logical extreme, taxes could be cut altogether as revenue from investments covered the entire budget. Nevertheless I still believed that running a surplus over the course of the business cycle was the best thing to do.

Of course this is an interesting idea, but after a while I began to understand the balance between the government and rest of the economy - if government went into debt, the rest of the economy saved; if the government saved, the economy went into debt. You can't have both the government AND the rest of the economy saving at the same time (at least if you ignore external forces coming into play). If the government saved, and saving was good, then the rest of the economy borrowed, and borrowing was "bad" apparently. But of course I knew that not all debt was bad, so my thinking began to change.

Since then my view has been that the optimal, long term, debt level should be zero. And by that I do wish to stress the importance of the phrase long term - I have no problem with governments getting into debt or having net savings. This is where I'm happy to be a Keynesian, whereby governments respond to economic downturns by running deficits (as a result of less tax revenue and increased spending due to automatic stabilisers such as unemployment benefits) and to economic expansions by running surpluses (as a result of increased tax revenue and decreased spending on such things as automatic stabilisers). Yet over the course of the business cycle - that is, when expansions and contractions balance each other out over many years - net government debt should be zero, and budgets should be balanced.

Unfortunately I can only offer axiomatic and logical arguments for this point of view. Most advanced nations have erred on the side of deficits and debt. Australia, by contrast, is perhaps the only nation around at the moment whose level of government debt is nearest to zero. Norway, by contrast, has been running massive surpluses for years now and has government savings of around 119% of GDP. While my younger self would congratulate Norway on this, my current view is that Norway's fiscal situation is just as bad as Greece or Italy. The aim should be zero net debt, not large net debt, nor large net savings.

The axiomatic argument that I have is that, in a perfect economic model, borrowing matches savings and money owed matches money lent. Moreover, sectors like the government, business and households do not actually exist but all are one. Since the government represents a huge percentage of national GDP (15-25% in the case of the US, more so in European social democracies), how a government operates naturally affects the rest of the economy. My argument therefore is that balance is best: a government that is neither a net saver nor net lender allows the non-government sector to operate in balance as well. One argument that I have heard from fiscal doves is that government deficits increases non-government sector saving, and that is a good thing isn't it? Well no it's not. The reason is that the non-government sector should be allowed to function as close to a theoretical "perfect economic model" as possible. As soon as a government runs a massive long term deficit, the non-government sector naturally gears itself towards savings. Similarly, if a government runs massive long term surpluses, the non-government sector gears itself towards deficits.

It's the "gearing" here which is important - and by "gearing" I mean that the economy begins to focus upon that which will make the most profit. A government that borrows too much will create a non-government sector that saves and invests too much since it is more profitable to do that than to borrow. Similarly a government that saves too much will create a non-government sector that borrows and spends too much, since that will be the most profitable thing for the non-government sector to do. If you have a long-term balance, whereby the government neither borrows nor saves too much, you will have a non-government sector that is in balance as well.

Of course my argument for this issue is axiomatic and not dependent upon hard evidence. This is because international trade and investments gets in the way. The presence of massive current account deficits in the US and massive current account surpluses in Japan and China affect my whole argument and render hard evidence impossible to gain. Yet my attitude towards current account imbalances is the same: over the course of the business cycle, a nation's current account should be balanced. In short, the US should not be running huge current account deficits and Japan and China should not be running huge current account surpluses: massive deficits are just as bad as massive surpluses. In the case of the US, massive deficits have created an economy that is geared towards borrowing and consumption, while massive surpluses in Japan and China (a hangover of mercantilism) have created economies that are geared towards saving and production. For the world economy to function better, nations need to ensure that their current accounts remain balanced over the course of the business cycle (ie long term).

But then it is also obvious that some nations need more investment than others, while some patently need less investment. In this situation, imbalances can exist so long as a common currency is used. And this is also one reason why I am pro-Euro and pro-internationalist and see an eventual one-world government and one-world currency as a good idea in the end.

But there's one more thing to add: inflation and deflation. Since inflation represents a devaluing of currency it is therefore a period when the economy gears itself towards consumption and borrowing. Deflation represents a devaluing of goods and services and is thus a period when the economy gears itself towards saving and production. In a perfect economic model, prices are stable over the long term as the force of saving and spending, of production and consumption, balance each other out. Unlike most economists, I see no room for a little inflation over the long term. If an inflation index is 100 today, it should be 100 in 25 years time, with brief deflationary forays below 98 and brief inflationary forays above 102.

So, in short, this is my position:
  1. Governments (no matter how large or small) should have zero net debt and run balanced budgets over the long term.
  2. Currency areas should have balanced current accounts over the long term.
  3. Prices should be stable, neither inflating nor deflating, over the long term (absolute price stability)
Balance is the key. Do we dare to aim for an economy in which the government sector has zero net debt, in which the nation or currency area runs a balanced current account, and in which prices are neither allowed to rise too much or fall too much but remain stable?

2010-08-03

OSO's Debt Watch - August 2010


GDP = $14.5977 Trillion (Current Dollar, 2010 Q2 first estimate)
Public Debt = $8.70245776640564 Trillion (2010-07-30)
Total debt owed to foreign holders of treasury securities = $3.9636 Trillion (2010-07-16)
Debt/GDP ratio = 59.59%
Foreign ownership of debt/GDP ratio = 27.15%
Population = 309,829,236 (Resident Population + Armed Forces Overseas, 2010-07-01)
GDP per capita = $47,115.31
Public Debt / person = $28,087.92
Foreign Public Debt/ person = $12,792.85
GDP per capita minus Public Debt per person = $19,027.39
Tax Receipts = $2.112888 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, Monthly Treasury Statement, 2010-05-01)
Tax Receipts as percentage of GDP = 14.47%
Debt/Receipt ratio² = 411.88%
Federal Government Outlays = $3.446357 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, Monthly Treasury Statement, 2010-06-01)
Federal Government Outlays as percentage of GDP = 23.61%
For every $1.00 the US government gains, it spends $1.63
Fiscal Surplus/Deficit = -$-1.33347 Trillion
Surplus/Deficit as percentage of GDP = -9.13%
Interest paid on Treasury Debt Securities (Gross, Twelve month moving average, Monthly Treasury Statement, 2010-05-01) = $0.417576 Trillion
Interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of revenue = 19.76%
Interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of GDP = 2.86%

Notes:
  • Debt/GDP ratio is now near 60% of GDP
  • Americans owe $7830.79 more than they did in October 2008, and $686.11 more than they did last month.
  • Increased revenue has led to a slightly smaller budget deficit.












In October 2008, GDP was $14.2003 Trillion (Current Dollar, 2008 Q4 final estimate)
In October 2008, Public Debt was $6.18964742400511 Trillion (2008-10-20)
In October 2008, the total debt owed to foreign holders of treasury securities was $2.9797 Trillion
In October 2008, the Debt/GDP ratio was 43.59%
In October 2008, the foreign ownership of debt/GDP ratio was 20.98%
In October 2008, the Population (resident population + Armed Forces overseas) was 305,554,049 (2008-10-01)
In October 2008, GDP per capita was $46,473.94
In October 2008, Public Debt / person was $20,257.13
In October 2008, Foreign Public Debt/ person was $9,751.79
In October 2008, GDP per capita minus Public Debt per person was $26,216.81
In October 2008, Tax Receipts were $2.578156 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, November 2008 Monthly Treasury Statement)
In October 2008, Tax Receipts represented 18.16% of GDP
In October 2008, the Debt/Receipt² ratio was 240.08%
In October 2008, Federal Government outlays were $2.747197 Trillion (Twelve month moving average¹, November 2008 Monthly Treasury Statement)
In October 2008, Federal Government outlays represented 19.35% of GDP
In October 2008, for every $1.00 the US government gained, it spent $1.07.
In October 2008, the Fiscal Surplus/Deficit was −$0.169041 Trillion
In October 2008 the Surplus/Deficit as percentage of GDP was -1.19%
In October 2008, interest paid on Treasury Debt Securities (Twelve month moving average, Monthly Treasury Statements) was $0.429994 Trillion
In October 2008, interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of revenue was 16.68%
In October 2008, interest paid on Treasury Debt as percentage of GDP was 3.03%

The historical tables of the FY2010 budget (page 24-25) show that:

Highest tax receipts as percentage of GDP: 20.9% in 1944 and 2000.
Lowest tax receipts as percentage of GDP: 2.8% in 1932.
The last time tax receipts were lower than they are now: 13.3% in 1943.
Highest Federal Government outlays as percentage of GDP: 43.6% in 1943 and 1944.
Lowest Federal Government outlays as percentage of GDP: 3.4% in 1930.
The last time Federal Government outlays were higher than they are now: 24.8% in 1946.
Fiscal Deficit - Worst: -30.3% in 1943
Fiscal Surplus - Best: 4.6% in 1948


¹ Measures total tax receipts/outlays over the previous 12 months from the last month measured. eg April 2009 to March 2010.
² The Debt/Receipt ratio measures government revenue (twelve month moving average) as a percentage of current public debt. A good way to compare it would be to compare your current income to what you owe on your mortgage.