Financial Armageddon Looms Large.

October 4, 2012 – Financial Armageddon Looms Large: Bill Gross, Managing Director of PIMCO Bond Fund, “Damages are Accruing.”

“Fiscal cliff” is the popular shorthand term used to describe the challenge that the U.S. government will face at the end of 2012, when the terms of the Budget Control Act of 2011 are scheduled to go into effect.

Among the laws set to change at midnight on December 31, 2012, are the end of last year’s temporary payroll tax cuts (resulting in a 2% tax increase for workers), the end of certain tax breaks for businesses, shifts in the alternative minimum tax that would take a larger bite, the end of the tax cuts from 2001-2003, and the beginning of taxes related to President Obama’s health care law. At the same time, the spending cuts agreed upon as part of the debt ceiling deal of 2011 will begin to go into effect. According to Barron’s, over 1,000 government programs – including the defense budget and Medicare are in line for “deep, automatic cuts.”

In dealing with the fiscal cliff, U.S. lawmakers have a choice among three options, none of which are particularly attractive:

•They can let the current policy scheduled for the beginning of 2013 – which features a number of tax increases and spending cuts that are expected to weigh heavily on growth and possibly drive the economy back into a recession – go into effect. The plus side: the deficit, as a percentage of GDP, would be cut in half. Given the current political climate – this probably is not going to happen.

•They can cancel some or all of the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts, which would add to the deficit and increase the odds that the United States could face a crisis similar to that which is occurring in Europe. The flip side of this, of course, is that the United States’ debt will continue to grow. This probably won’t happen either given the consequences of this action.

•They could take a middle course, opting for an approach that would address the budget issues to a limited extent, but that would have a more modest impact on growth. Washington, known for muddling through with middle of the road actions will no doubt invoke this approach.

The oncoming fiscal cliff is a concern for investors since the highly partisan nature of the current political environment could make a compromise difficult to reach. This problem isn’t new, after all: lawmakers have had three years to address this issue, but Congress – mired in political gridlock – has largely put off the search for a solution rather than seeking to solve the problem directly. Republicans want to cut spending and avoid raising taxes, while Democrats are looking for a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. Although both parties want to avoid the fiscal cliff, compromise is seen as being difficult to achieve – particularly in an election year. The most likely result, in any event, is that the problem will linger at least until after the election, and there’s a strong possibility that Congress won’t act until the eleventh hour. This will cause chaos in the bond, stock and commodities markets as the on again, off again nature of this crisis will agitate markets.

The most likely result is another set of stop-gap measures that would delay a more permanent policy change until 2013 or later. The election will almost certainly have an impact on the direction of future policy, particularly if one party earns a decisive victory. Nevertheless, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that if Congress takes the middle ground – extending the Bush-era tax cuts but cancelling the automatic spending cuts – the result, in the short-term, would be modest growth but no major economic hit.

If the current laws slated for 2013 go into effect, the impact on the economy could be dramatic. While the combination of higher taxes and spending cuts would reduce the deficit by an estimated $560 billion, the CBO estimates that the policies set to go into effect would cut gross domestic product (GDP) by four percentage points in 2013, sending the economy into a recession (i.e., negative growth). At the same time, it predicts unemployment would rise by almost a full percentage point, with a loss of about two million jobs. A Wall St. Journal article from May 16, 2012 estimates the following impact in dollar terms: “In all, according to an analysis by J.P. Morgan economist Michael Feroli, $280 billion would be pulled out of the economy by the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts; $125 million from the expiration of the Obama payroll-tax holiday; $40 million from the expiration of emergency unemployment benefits; and $98 billion from Budget Control Act spending cuts. In all, the tax increases and spending cuts make up about 3.5% of GDP, with the Bush tax cuts making up about half of that, according to the J.P. Morgan report.” Amid an already-fragile recovery and elevated unemployment, the economy is not in a position to avoid this type of shock.

The cost of indecision is likely to have an effect on the economy before 2013 even begins. The CBO anticipates that a lack of resolution will cause households and businesses to begin changing their spending in anticipation of the changes, possible reducing GDP by a full half-percent in the second half of 2012.

Bill Gross stated that:

•The U.S. has federal debt/GDP less than 100%, Aaa/AA+ credit ratings, and the benefit of being the world’s reserve currency.

•Studies by the CBO, IMF and BIS (when averaged) suggest that the U.S. needs to cut spending or raise taxes by 11% of GDP and rather quickly.

•Unless the U.S. begins to close this gap, then the inevitable result will be that the debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise, the Fed would print money to pay for the deficiency, inflation would follow, and the dollar would inevitably decline. (Credits: Narrative – Thomas Kenny, About.com Guide, Bill Gross Managing Director of PIMCO and W. G. Foster, Picture – Futures Magazine).

The Master of Disaster