Professor Kotlikoff has an impressive resume, including serving on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. He was recently in the news for calculating that U.S. debt currently totals $211 trillion (excluding derivative exposure) vs. the claimed number of only 17 trillion.
This article is well worth a read, IMHO
Here’s the part I can never understand.
If QE is sooo great, why would they ever want to stop?
It’s gonna blow either way, just playing with the timing a little bit. With unlimited QE we can proudly go over the cliff with the throttle on the floor, instead of trying to slam on the brakes and clumsily bumping over the edge.
When the Treasury prints bonds and sells them to the public for cash and the Fed prints cash and uses it to buy the newly printed bonds back from the public, the Treasury ends up with the extra cash, the public ends up with the same cash it had initially, and the Fed ends up with the new bonds. and there it is...
Real income is down 5% since O arrived on the scene. The American public can not fuel inflation. Something else will have to give.
This might be interesting.
Weimar days are here again.
He did say that the spending and taxes would have to be lowered but not until after the debt zeros out. He claimed the additional revenue and spending cuts would also solve the social security issue as well.
He made a pretty good argument but I know the left would never stop spending or cut any taxes?
Old Charlie even argued with him because he didn't agree with future tax or spending cuts.