Thursday, May 26, 2011

Bill Clinton Is Now Concerned About Short-Term Default After First Not Having Concern

More evidence that the so-called calamitous consequences of even a short-term default are being used for political reasons to scare the public.

Former President Bill Clinton retracted comments that the U.S. government could default on its debt for a few days without "calamitous" consequences, after being urged to do so by top White House officials, people familiar with the events said Thursday, WSJ is reporting.

After hearing Clinton's comments on Wednesday, WSJ reports that White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, spoke with aides to Mr. Clinton and advised that he clarify his thinking, two people said. The former president did so that afternoon.

The real solution is, of course, not to raise the debt ceiling, but to cut spending in the here and now.

4 comments:

  1. Most people don't realize Clinton's hand in pushing the country closer to the financial edge while at the same time making it much easier for the government to borrow more and more money.

    Good ol' Slick-Willy's administration changed the US Government from financing using 60-70% long term debt to using mostly short term debt thus saving a mountain of interest costs but requiring the government to constantly roll over an enormous amount of debt in a very short period of time. Now we find ourselves rolling something like 70% of our debt every five years and 1/3 of that is rolled every year. That means, when interest rates rise becuase of either inflation or people not wanting to own T-Bills, most of our debt is going to get repriced with the much higher rates which is going to destroy the budget.

    Of course the idiots that worship Slickster love to tell you how he balanced the budget while completely ignoring (or most likely even understanding) how he was able to do it.

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  2. Anonymous@840PM

    I'm not familiar with that tactic, but then again I was a fan when he went into office. It wasn't until post-2001 that I fully embraced the tenets of anarchocapitalism, so it was just before my time. Care to point to an article that explains it clearly. I'll try to google it.

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  3. Here is a link I found googling.
    http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/265199/four-national-debts

    The best discussion I have read on this was written my Martin Armstrong in a 1996 WSJ commentary.

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