Trumped! Washington’s Fiscal Hypocrisy Is Too Rich For Words

You have to love it when one of Donald Trump’s wild pitches sends the beltway hypocrites into high dudgeon. But his rumination about negotiating a discount on the Federal debt was priceless.
No sooner did the unschooled Trump mention out loud what is already the official policy of the US government than a beltway chorus of fiscal house wreckers commenced screaming like banshees about the sanctity of Uncle Sam’s credit promises.
Let’s see. For 89 months now the Federal Reserve has pounded interest rates to the zero bound because come hell or high water the US economy must have 2% inflation in order to grow and prosper. Other than a handful of rubes from the Congressional hinterlands, there is nary a Washington operative from either party who has questioned the appropriateness or effectiveness, let alone the sanity, of Bernanke-Yellen’s 2% inflation totem.
That means, of course, exactly 30 years from today investors would get back54.5 cents per dollar of inflation-adjusted money on the principle of a 30-year treasury bond if the Fed hits its sacred targets.
If that’s not default, it is surely a deeper ‘discount’ than even the Donald had in mind while jabbering to CNBC about his years as the King of Debt.

This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner by David Stockman ‘ May 16, 2016.