Noriel Roubini hasn't been quite this negative on the economic future in a while. His Op-ed in the FT is better to be read sitting down. It's easy to look back at the poor economic advice and policy by White House economists but with the Republicans coming to power, there's a serious challenge ahead that needs attention. The choices are limited and the risks remain very high thanks to the GOP preference for playing political games with the economy.
The coming stalemate will only be made worse by the lack of a reason to act on the deficit. The bond vigilantes are asleep, while borrowing rates remain unusually low. Near zero rates will continue as long as growth and inflation are low (and getting lower) and repeated bouts of global risk aversion – as with this spring’s Greek crisis – will push more investors to safe dollars and US debt. China’s massive interventions to stop renminbi appreciation will mean purchasing yet more treasuries too. In short, kicking the can down the road will be the political path of least resistance.
The risk, however, is that something on the fiscal side will snap, and the bond vigilantes will wake up. The trigger could be a debt rollover crisis in a major US state government, or perhaps even the realization that congressional gridlock means bipartisan solutions to our medium-term fiscal crisis is mission impossible. Only then will our politicians suddenly remember that, on top of our federal debt, the US suffers from unfunded social security and Medicare liabilities, state and local government debt, and public pension bills that add up to many multiples of US GDP.
A bond market shock is thus the only thing likely to break the impasse. Mr Obama may take some comfort from the fact that the worst of the coming fiscal train wreck will be prevented by the Fed’s easing. But the risk is he will then preside not over a bout of inflation but a Japanese style stagnation, where growth is barely positive, and deflationary pressures and high unemployment linger.
