Government budget deficits take away savings.
Fact:
Government budget deficits ADD to savings.
Meeting with Lawrence Summers
Several years ago I had a meeting with Senator Tom Daschle and then Asst. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. I had been discussing these innocent frauds with the Senator, and explaining how they were working against the well being of those who voted for him. So he set up this meeting with the Asst. Treasury Secretary, who was also a former Harvard economics professor and had two uncles who had won Nobel prizes in economics, to get his response and hopefully confirm what I was saying.
I opened with a question:
“Larry, what’s wrong with the budget deficit?”
To which he replied:
“It takes away savings that could be used for investment.’
To which I replied:
“No it doesn’t, all Treasury securities do is offset operating factors at the Fed. It has nothing to do with savings and investment”
To which he replied:
“Well, I really don’t understand reserve accounting so I can’t discuss it at that level.”
Senator Daschle was looking at all this in disbelief. The Harvard professor of economics Asst. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers didn’t understand reserve accounting? Sad but true. So I spent the next twenty minutes explaining the ‘paradox of thrift’ (more detail on this innocent fraud #6 later) step by step, which he sort of got right when he finally responded
“…so we need more investment which will show up as savings?”
I responded with a friendly ‘yes’ after giving this first year economics lesson to the good Harvard professor and ended the meeting. And the next day I saw him on a podium with the Concord Coalition- a band of deficit terrorists- talking about the grave dangers of the budget deficit.
This third deadly innocent fraud was and is alive and well at the very highest levels.
So here’s how it really works, and it could not be simpler:
Any $US government deficit exactly EQUALS the total net increase in the holdings $US financial assets of the rest of us- businesses and households, residents and non residents- what’s called the ‘non government’ sector.
In other words,
Government deficits = increased ‘monetary savings’ for the rest of us. To the penny.
Most simply- Government deficits ADD to ‘our’ savings, to the penny.
This is accounting fact, not theory or philosophy. There is no dispute. It is basic national income accounting.
So, for example, if the government deficit was $1 trillion last year, it means the net increase in savings of financial assets for everyone else combined was exactly $1 trillion.
To the penny.
(For those who took some economics courses, you might remember that net savings of financial assets is held as some combination of actual cash, Treasury securities, and member bank deposits at the Federal Reserve.)
This is economics 101, and first year money banking. It is beyond dispute. It’s an accounting identity. Yet it’s misrepresented continuously, and at the highest levels of political authority. They are just plain wrong.
Just ask anyone at the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), as I have, and they will tell you they have to ‘balance the check book’ and make sure the government deficit equals our new savings, or they have to stay late and find their accounting mistake.
As before, it’s just a bunch of spread sheet entries on the government’s own spreadsheet. When the accountants debit (subtract from) the account called ‘government’ when government spends, they also credit (add to) the accounts of whoever gets those funds. When the government account goes down, some other account goes up, by exactly the same amount.
Next is an example of how operationally government deficits add to savings. This also puts to rest a ridiculous new take on this innocent fraud that’s popped up recently:
“Deficit spending means the government borrows from one person and gives it to another, so nothing new is added- it’s just a shift of money from one person to another.”
In other words, they are saying deficits don’t add to our savings, but just shift savings around. This could not be more wrong! So let’s demonstrate how deficits do ADD to savings, and not just shift savings:
1. Start with the government selling $100 billion of Treasury securities.
(Note this sale is voluntary, which means the buyer buys the securities because he wants to. Presumably because he believes he is better off buying them than not buying them. No one is ever forced to buy government securities. They get sold at auction to the highest bidder who is willing to accept the lowest yield.)
2. When the buyers of these securities pay for them, bank accounts at the Fed are reduced by $100 billion to make the payment.
In other words, money in bank accounts at the Fed is exchanged for the new Treasury securities (which are also accounts at the Fed). At this point (non government) savings is unchanged. The buyers now have new Treasury securities as savings, rather than the money that was in their bank accounts before they bought the Treasury securities.
3. Now the Treasury spends $100 billion after the sale of the $100 billion of new Treasury securities.
4. This Treasury spending adds back $100 billion to someone’s bank accounts.
5. The non government sector now has its $100 billion of bank accounts back
AND $100 billion of new Treasury securities.
Bottom line-
The deficit spending of $100 billion directly added $100 billion of savings in the form of new Treasury securities to non government savings (which includes everyone but the government).
The savings of the buyer of the $100 billion of new treasury securities shifted from money in his bank account to his holdings of the Treasury securities.
Then the Treasury spent $100 billion after selling the Treasury securities, and the savings of recipients of those funds saw their bank accounts and savings increase by that amount.
So, to the original point, deficit spending doesn’t just shift financial assets (money and Treasury securities) outside of the government.
Instead, deficit spending directly adds that amount of savings of financial assets to the non govt sector.
And, likewise,
A federal budget surplus directly subtracts exactly that much from our savings.
And the media and politicians and even top economists all have it BACKWARDS!
In July 1999 the front page of the Wall St. Journal had two headlines. Towards the left was a headline praising President Clinton and the record government budget surplus, and explaining how well fiscal policy was working. On the right margin was a headline that said Americans weren’t saving enough and we had to work harder to save more. Then a few pages later there was a graph with one line showing the surplus going up, and another line showing savings going down.
They were nearly identical, but going in opposite directions, and clearly showing the gains in the government surplus roughly equaled the losses in private savings.
There can’t be a budget surplus with private savings increasing (including nonresident savings of $US financial assets). There is no such thing, yet not a single mainstream economist or government official had it right.
Meeting with Al Gore
Early in 2000, in a private home in Boca Raton Florida, I was seated next to then Presidential Candidate Al Gore at a fundraiser/dinner to discuss the economy.
The first thing he asked was how I thought the next president should spend the coming $5.6 trillion surplus forecast for the next 10 years. I explained that there wasn’t going to be a $5.6 trillion surplus, because that would mean a $5.6 trillion drop in non government savings of financial assets, which was a ridiculous proposition. At that time the private sector didn’t even have that much in savings to be taxed away by the government, and the latest surpluses of several hundred billion dollars had already removed more than enough private savings to turn the Clinton boom to the soon to come bust.
I pointed out to Candidate Gore how the last 6 periods of surplus in our 200+ year history had been followed by the only 6 depressions in our history, and how the coming bust due to allowing the budget to go into surplus and drain our savings would result in a recession that would not end until the deficit got high enough to add back our lost income and savings, and deliver the aggregate demand needed to restore output and employment. I suggested the $5.6 trillion surplus forecast for the next decade would more likely be a $5.6 trillion deficit, as normal savings desires are likely to average 5% of GDP over that period of time.
And that’s pretty much what happened. The economy fell apart, and President Bush temporarily reversed it with his then massive deficit spending of 2003, but after that, and before we had enough deficit spending to replace the financial assets lost to the Clinton surplus years (a budget surplus takes away exactly that much savings from the rest of us), we let the deficit get too small again, and after the sub-prime debt driven bubble burst we again fell apart due to a deficit that was and remains far too small for the circumstances.
For the current level of government spending, govt is over taxing us and we don’t have enough after tax income to buy what’s for sale in that big department store called the economy.
Anyway, Al was a good student, and went over all the details, and agreed it made sense and was indeed what might happen, but said he couldn’t ‘go there.’ And I said I understood the political realities, as he got up and gave his talk about how he was going to spend the coming surpluses.
Meeting with Robert Rubin
Maybe 10 years ago, around the turn of the century, just before it all fell apart, I found myself in a private client meeting at Citibank with Robert Rubin and about 20 Citibank clients. Rubin gave his take on the economy, and indicated the low savings rate might turn out to be a problem. With just a few minutes left, I told him I agreed about the low savings rate being an issue, and added:
“Bob, does anyone in Washington realize that the budget surplus takes away savings from the non government sectors?
To which he replied:
“No, the surplus adds to savings. When the govt runs a surplus, it buys Treasury securities in the market, and that adds to savings and investment.
To which I replied:
“No, when you run a surplus we have to sell our securities to get the money to pay our taxes, and our net financial assets and savings go down by the amount of the surplus.”
Rubin: “No, I think you’re wrong.”
I let it go and the meeting was over. My question was answered. If he didn’t understand surpluses removed savings no one in the administration did. And the economy crashed soon afterwards.
When the January 09 savings report was released, and the press noted that the rise in savings to 5% of GDP was the highest since 1995, they failed to note the current budget deficit passed 5% of GDP, which also happens to be the highest it’s been since 1995.
Clearly the mainstream doesn’t yet realize deficits add to savings. And if Al Gore does, he isn’t saying anything. So watch this year as the federal deficit goes up and savings goes up. Again, the only source of ‘net $ US monetary savings’ (financial assets) for the non government sectors combined (both residents and non residents) is US government deficit spending.
And watch how the same people who want us to save more at the same time want to ‘balance the budget’ by taking away our savings, either through spending cuts or tax increases.
They are all talking out of both sides of their mouths.
They are part of the problem, not part of the answer.
And they are at the very highest levels.
Professor Wynne Godley
Except for one. Professor Wynne Godley, retired head of Economics at Cambridge University and now over 80 years old, was widely renounced as the most successful forecaster of the British economy for multiple decades. And he did it all with his ‘sector analysis’ which had at its core the fact that the government deficit equals the savings of financial assets of the other sectors combined. And even the success of his forecasting, the iron clad support from the pure accounting facts, and the weight of his office, all of which continues to this day, he has yet to convince the mainstream of the validity of his understandings.
So now we know deficits aren’t the ‘bad things’ the way the mainstream thinks they are.
The government won’t go broke;
Federal deficits don’t burden our children;
Federal deficits don’t just shift funds from one person to another; and
Federal deficits add to our savings.
Taxes function to regulate our spending power and the economy in general.
If the ‘right’ level of taxation needed to support output and employment happens to be a lot less than government spending, that resulting budget deficit is nothing to be afraid of regarding solvency, sustainability, or doing bad by our children.
The only risk is inflation (to be discussed in detail later in this book).
So what is the role for deficits in regard to policy?
It’s very simple. Whenever spending falls short of sustaining our output and employment; when we don’t have enough spending power to buy what’s for sale in that big department store we call the economy for ANY reason; government can act to see to it our own output is sold by either cutting taxes or increasing govt. spending.
So if everyone wants to work and earn money but doesn’t want to spend it, fine!
Government can either buy the output (hand out contracts for infrastructure repairs, national security, medical research, and the like or spend directly)
and/or keep cutting taxes until we decide to spend and buy our own output. The choices are political. ‘Finance’ and the size of the deficit offers no useful information in making that decision.
The right sized deficit is the one that gets us to where we want to be with regards to output and employment, as well as the size of government we want, no matter how large or how small a deficit that might be.
What matters is real life- output and employment- not the size of the deficit, which is an accounting statistic. In the 1940’s an economist named Abba Lerner called this ‘Functional Finance’ and wrote a book by that name that is still very relevant today.
More on this later, as we now move on to the next innocent fraud.
