Дэвид Стокман, являвшийся директором по бюджету в администрации президента Рейгана, дает интервью Блумбергу. Он считает, что ни одно из серьезных противоречий между демократами и республиканцами о том, как заткнуть дыру в бюджете в 1,5 трлн. долларов, решить не удастся. Это не переговоры, а один свист...
На вопрос, будет ли кризис, подобный 11 сентября, он отвечает: Да, будет. Это будет мощная распродажа на рынке облигаций. Она произойдет гораздо быстрее, чем многие себе представляют. И может быть это будет сигналом к пробуждению.
Проблема не в потолке госдолга. Проблема в политике двух партий, которая ведет к одному исходу – дефолту.
ZH дает нам полный текст интервью. Весь текст очень важен и заслуживает перевода ( но у меня такой возможности к сожалению нет).
On the debt ceiling negotiations in Washington D.C.:
"Between now and November 2012, it is virtually certain [Congress] can't pass a large, permanent increase in the debt ceiling. We'll have periodic short-term fixes, a month, two months, and then they'll back to squabbling and this enormous political battle we're having over the major components of the budget: revenues, Social Security, Medicare and so forth. It will be back to the same old gong show.”
"I don't have any hope they'll come to a substantive agreement on the big things that need to be done because both parties have ruled off the table the essential things that are necessary.”
“We have to raise revenue, there is no doubt about that. We have to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for everybody, not just the rich. We have to reset Social Security if we're doing to make any headway in denting this massive, $6 billion a day borrowing spree we're on... Neither [political] party is facing up to the real truth or telling the public."
On broadening the tax base through VAT taxes or taxes for Wall Street:
"At the moment it is very unlikely [that any of these taxes will be implemented], but that is simply a measure of how unrealistic the debate is down in Washington today."
"If they were realistic, they would be discussing what are the new revenue sources we can possibly tap in order to fill this gigantic $1.5 trillion hole in the budget. What are the pros and cons, what are the tradeoffs? You hear none of that discussion. They're whistling past the grave. They should be talking about new sources of revenue and possibly increasing some of the existing taxes we have in place today."
On when Washington will get to the point of discussing raising taxes:
"I think [Washington will discuss raising taxes] only when we get a major, thundering conflagration in the bond market."
"For the last 10 years, Congress has been lulled to sleep by the central banks that keep buying all the debt and therefore holding down the real cost of interest on the middle and long term debt that we are issuing every day.
"And frankly, bond fund managers who somehow think that the tooth fairy is going to arrive and fix this problem, when it's clear that is not going to happen, and that we have sovereign risk on the debt of the United States, just as clearly as the world is now discovering there are sovereign risks in the European debt issues and so forth."
On whether there will be a 9/11-style crisis in the economy:
"That kind of crisis would be a vicious sell-off in the global bond market. That could come sooner than people think, because the Fed is getting out of the market with QE2 ending.”
"For the last six months, the Fed has bought nearly 100% of this $6 billion a day that's been issued. Once they are out of the market, where is the new bid, where is the new demand going to come from? The Chinese are getting out of the market because finally they are having to deal with the rip-roaring inflation they have had. The people's printing press of China will not be buying as much U.S. debt because of its own internal problems.”
"When we get to real investors, what are some of the real investors saying today? PIMCO is short the bond, they're selling, they're not buying.
"When we get into a two-way market when real investors began to look at real risk, begin to look at the gong show in Washington and the magnitude of the gap that we are borrowing, I think we're going to get a re-rating of sovereign risk. We're going to get a huge dislocation in the global bond market, and then maybe the wake-up call will finally come."
On political problems in solving the debt problem:
"The problem is not the debt ceiling. When push comes to shove, at the 11th-hour, they will do it for a couple of weeks or months and we will have a little more borrowing headroom and will be back to the same impasse where we are now."
"The real problem is the de facto policy of both parties is default. When the Republicans say no tax increases, they're saying we want the U.S. government to default. Because there isn't enough political will in this country to solve the problem even halfway on spending cuts.
When the Democrats say you can't touch Social Security, when you have Obama sponsoring a war budget for defense that is even bigger than Bush, then I say the policy of the White House is default as well."
"That is the question that really needs to be understood better and appraised by the bond market. Both parties are advocating default even as they point the finger at each other."
"We have not had a two-way bond market. We have had a rigged market that has been dominated by not just the Fed, but all the central banks. Today over half of the $9 trillion in publicly-held debt is in central bank vaults. I call it the 'Monetary Roach Hotel.' Bonds go in and never come out. If the central banks stopped buying the debt, which will happen with the end of QE2, then we're going to get back into a real investor's market, a two-way market where some people don't believe that Congress and the White House have the capacity to deal with our problems. I think then we run the risk that we'll get real pricing on the debt, which has to be a lot more than 3%."
On how the debt ceiling debate will be resolved:
"I do not know that there's any process that can solve it. We're so far down the road here that I think it will take a thundering conflagration in the global bond market to wake up the process and get people out of their positions...Look at the current White House. We had Geithner last night saying, you don't dare not raise the debt ceiling, but the policy of this administration is de facto default. They have a war budget as big as Bush ever had, therefore, extending 75% of the Bush tax cuts. The only thing they have objected to is the 2% risk."
On why we should care about the debt ceiling:
"I do not think we should care about the debt ceiling, because they will extend it when push comes to shove at the 11th hour after a lot of smoke and mirrors and tricks have been played...What we should care about is the fact that we're borrowing $6 billion every business day. Both parties have taken fiscal positions that will not even begin to close the gap. Both parties are simply aligned, deceiving the public that there will not be sacrifice. There will be. Tax increases across the board for the entire middle class, not just the rich."
Stockman on whether the tax base needs to be broadened:
"I think bring the tax base or have new tax revenue sources. We are in a stage where I think a tax on imported oil might be one way to get two birds with one stone. Revenue into the coffers of the Treasury and also some incentive for more conservation, domestic production, and alternative energy.
"Secondly, Wall Street needs to have a transaction tax. I know they won't like it. A tax on every trade, a small amount, would go a long way to putting money in the coffers."
Здесь важная мысль. Стокман говорит:
У нас нет двухстороннего рынка облигаций. У нас манипулируемый рынок, на котором доминируют помимо Феда все центральные банки. Сегодня свыше половины публичного долга находится в хранилищах центарльных банков. Я называю это: «Отель монетарных монстров». Облигации туда входят и никогда не выходят. Когда центральные банки прекратят покупать долг, а это случится с окончанием QE2, тогда мы возвратимся в рынок реального инвестора, в котором люди не верят в то, что конгресс и Белый Дом способны справиться с их проблемами. Тогда мы получим реальную оценку долга, которая будет значительно выше 3%.
Письмо информирует конгресс об экстраординарных мерах, которые Казначейство начнет предпринимать в ближайшее время, чтобы избежать дефолта.
Вкратце: 6 мая Казначейство приостанавливает выпуск бумаг SLGS –серий ( штатов и местных правительств). 16 мая объявляется так называемый “debt issuance suspension period” (период приостановки выпуска долга).
Эти меры позволят отсрочить дефолт до 2 августа, что примерно на 3 недели дальше срока, который фигурировал месяц назад.
Это дает конгрессу в теории дополнительное время на завершение работы по увеличению лимита госдолга, но Тимоти Гейтнер сильно предостерегает от откладывания решения этого вопроса и очень ярко перечисляет те убийственные последствия, которые будет иметь наступление дефолта для США.
Вот полный текст письма Гейтнера, где выделены наиболее важные места:
Dear Mr. Speaker:
Further to my letters of January 6 and April 4, 2011, I am writing again to Members of Congress regarding the importance of protecting America’s creditworthiness by enacting an increase in the statutory debt limit. This letter is to inform you of the extraordinary measures the Treasury Department will begin taking this week in anticipation of the date the debt limit will be reached, and to provide an updated estimate of the Department’s ability to use these measures to preserve lawful borrowing authority without exceeding the debt limit.In my last letter, I described in detail the set of extraordinary measures Treasury is prepared to take in order to extend temporarily our ability to meet the Nation’s obligations if an increase is not enacted by May 16, when we estimate the limit will be reached. Because it appears that Congress will not act by May 16, it will be necessary for the Treasury to begin implementing these extraordinary measures this week.
On Friday, May 6, Treasury will suspend until further notice the issuance of State and Local Government Series (SLGS) Treasury securities. SLGS are special-purpose Treasury securities issued to states and municipalities to help them conform to tax rules that restrict the investment of proceeds from the issuance of tax-exempt bonds. These bonds are used to fund a variety of expenditures, including infrastructure improvements across the country. When Treasury issues SLGS, they count against the debt limit. Because the United States is very close to reaching the debt limit, Treasury must take this action now. However, it is not without costs; it will deprive state and local governments of an important tool to manage their outstanding debt expenses.
If Congress does not increase the debt limit by May 16, the Treasury Department will be forced to employ further extraordinary measures on that date to provide headroom under the limit. Therefore, on May 16, I will (1) declare a “debt issuance suspension period” under the statute governing the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, permitting us to redeem existing Treasury securities held by that fund as investments, and to suspend issuance of new Treasury securities to that fund as investments and (2) suspend the daily reinvestment of Treasury securities held as investments by the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan. (Under the law, Federal employees are protected by a requirement that both funds be made whole after a debt limit increase is enacted.)
In addition, it may become necessary, at a time to be determined, to suspend the daily reinvestment of Treasury securities held as investments by the Exchange Stabilization Fund.
Largely as a result of stronger than expected tax receipts, we now estimate that these extraordinary measures would allow the Treasury to extend borrowing authority until about August 2, 2011, approximately three weeks later than was forecast last month. This is a projection and is subject to change based on government receipts and other factors during the next three months. While this updated estimate in theory gives Congress additional time to complete work on increasing the debt limit, I caution strongly against delaying action. The economy is still in the early stages of recovery, and financial markets here and around the world are watching the United States closely. Delaying action risks a loss of confidence and accompanying negative economic effects.
As I have written previously, default by the United States on its obligations would have a catastrophic economic impact that would be felt by every American. A broad range of government payments would have to be stopped, limited or delayed, including military salaries, Social Security and Medicare payments, interest on debt, unemployment benefits and tax refunds. A default on the Nation’s legal obligations would lead to sharply higher interest rates and borrowing costs, declining home values and reduced retirement savings for Americans. Default would cause a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only now starting to recover.
I want to emphasize that, contrary to a common misperception, the debt limit has never served as a constraint on future spending, nor would refusing to increase the debt limit reduce the obligations the country has already incurred. Increasing the debt limit merely permits payment of obligations Congress has already approved to citizens, servicemen and women, businesses and investors. In order to honor those obligations, increasing the debt limit is unavoidable. In fact, under both the President’s budget and the House-passed Republican budget, the debt limit would need to be raised by roughly the same amount in order to fund the government through the end of FY2012.
Protecting America’s creditworthiness and our economic leadership position in the world is a duty to our country that is shared by policymakers in both parties, in the Legislative Branch as well as the Executive Branch. Therefore any attempt by either party to use the full faith and credit of the United States as a bargaining chip to advance partisan policy agendas would be irresponsible.
President Obama is strongly committed to restoring fiscal responsibility to our government, and he has put forward a specific framework and set in motion a process to work with both parties to accomplish this critically important objective. As that process moves forward, I again urge Congress to act to protect America’s economic interests by approving an increase in the debt limit as soon as possible.
Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced its current estimates of net marketable borrowing for the April – June 2011 and the July – September 2011 quarters:
During the April – June 2011 quarter, Treasury expects to issue $142 billion in net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-June cash balance of $95 billion, which includes $5 billion for the Supplementary Financing Program (SFP). This borrowing estimate is $156 billion lower than announced in January 2011. The decrease in borrowing largely relates to higher receipts and lower outlays.
During the July – September 2011 quarter, Treasury expects to issue $405 billion in net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $115 billion, which includes $5 billion for the SFP.
During the January – March 2011 quarter, Treasury issued $265 billion in net marketable debt, and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $118 billion, of which $5 billion was attributable to the SFP. In January 2011, Treasury estimated $237 billion in net marketable borrowing and assumed an end-of-March cash balance of $65 billion, which included an SFP balance of $5 billion. The higher cash balance resulted primarily from higher receipts and lower outlays. Additional financing details relating to Treasury’s Quarterly Refunding will be released at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
На второй квартал Казначейство каким-то образом сумело уменьшить выпуск бумаг вдвое.
В среду, в 17.00 по Москве выйдет квартальный бюллетень Казначейства по фондированию, где будут даны дополнительные детали.
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