Wednesday, April 13, 2011

IMF: US Has No Credibility On Reigning In Its Debt



US Lacks Credibility On Debt, Says IMF -- Financial Times

The US lacks a “credible strategy” to stabilise its mounting public debt posing a small but significant risk of a new global economic crisis, says the International Monetary Fund.

In an unusually stern rebuke to its largest shareholder, the IMF said the US was the only advanced economy to be increasing its underlying budget deficit in 2011 at a time when its economy was growing fast enough to reduce borrowing.

Read more
....

Update: US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011 -- Yahoo News/AFP

My Comment: The IMF is right .... the US Has no credibility in controlling its debt, especially since everyone now realizes that the US government has no interest to curtail its addiction to spending. My prediction of what will be happening in the next few weeks .... a call to raise taxes and some proposals to limit the growth of spending in Defense .... and that is about it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thee are two ways to cut any deficit:
1. raise taxes to get more money
2. cut spending to reduce outflow.

It is best to do both at same time. But care has to be taken to make sure such measures do not slow economic recovery.
Of course the problem then becomes who get taxed more and what get cut.