Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Marc Faber : The Government Debt since 2007 has increased by more than 6 Trillion Dollars

David McAlvany : As you say, things are not evenly distributed. The misery index has, over the 5-year period from here going back to about 2007, gone from 7½ to 9½ . We have had, as you said, median household income decline from just shy of $55,000 to $50,000. People’s primary asset, the median existing home, has declined. When we look at consumer confidence, this is where we see something of a divergence. Where do you see this divergence between the S&P and consumer confidence taking us?
Marc Faber : In principle, it is possible that as a result of rising stock prices and recovering real estate prices, confidence will increase somewhat, but I have to go back to what life is for the typical household, and what life is for the holders of capital, in other words, the 1%, or ½% of the population. For the typical middle class, the standard of living is not going up because the insurance costs are going up, healthcare costs are going up, taxes are going up. Everything is going up in price, but employment has improved.
But then, if we decompose the improvement in employment, and we analyze what kind of jobs people get, then the jobs that are being created are mostly low-paying jobs, and the jobs that were lost were high-paying jobs, so I don’t think we should just look at the number of jobs.
In the meantime, I also need to mention that the government debt since 2007 has increased by more than 6 trillion dollars, and we have deficits of around 1 trillion dollars. Having these deficits will become, one day, a problem. They may not seem a problem now because the Fed basically finances the deficit through the purchases of assets, but will they be able to do it forever? That is the big question mark.
- in a recent interview with McAlvany
Click here to watch the full interview >>>>>>

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