The Free Lunch Is Over

Jeff Deist

If there is one overriding economic myth that plagues us today it is the notion that society can do collectively what we cannot do individually: get rich by living today at the expense of tomorrow. It is the doctrine of the political class, professional economists, and central bankers. It is monetary and fiscal hedonism masquerading as technical analysis. And, it leads to fiscal default. It is arguably the biggest untold story of our time, but you won’t hear about it from Hillary or Bernie or Donald.

Consuming Today — Paying Tomorrow

Part of the problem lies in the fact that the cumulative impact of bad policies will in most cases be felt only many years down the line. Murray Rothbard pointed out when this is the case, voters will support destructive policies. The idea persists that we really can live at someone else’s expense. At least for now.

This is what the Fed has been doing with all of its “extraordinary” monetary policy since 2008. But even the Fed admits this comes with big risks for future fiscal solvency. In a November 2010 speech, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said: “The [FOMC] has often stated its intention to return the Fed balance sheet to normal, pre-crisis levels over time. Once that occurs, the Treasury will be left with just as much debt held by the public as before the Fed took any of these actions.”
The problem is, the Fed has yet to figure out how it will return things to “pre-crisis” levels. In other words, the end of the Fed’s experiment in massive debt and easy money will come “some day.” But definitely not today.

I’ll leave it to you to decide if extraordinary monetary policy is really the new normal. It’s hard to conceive of an event where the Fed would reverse this trend or significantly raise interest rates......To Read More....