Posted on 03/12/2012 9:27:29 PM PDT by Razzz42
ABSTRACT
Historically, periods of high indebtedness have been associated with a rising incidence of default or restructuring of public and private debts. A subtle type of debt restructuring takes the form of financial repression. Financial repression includes directed lending to government by captive domestic audiences (such as pension funds), explicit or implicit caps on interest rates, regulation of cross-border capital movements, and (generally) a tighter connection between government and banks. In the heavily regulated financial markets of the Bretton Woods system, several restrictions facilitated a sharp and rapid reduction in public debt/GDP ratios from the late 1940s to the 1970s. Low nominal interest rates help reduce debt servicing costs while a high incidence of negative real interest rates liquidates or erodes the real of government debt. Thus, financial repression is most successful in liquidating debts when accompanied by a steady dose of inflation. Inflation need not take market participants entirely by surprise and, in effect, it need not be very high (by historic standards). For the advanced economies in our sample, real interest rates were negative roughly ½ of the time during 1945-1980. For the United States and the United Kingdom our estimates of the annual liquidation of debt via negative real interest rates amounted on average from 3 to 4 percent of GDP a year. For Australia and Italy, which recorded higher inflation rates, the liquidation effect was larger (around 5 percent per annum). We describe some of regulatory measures and policy actions that characterized the heyday of the financial repression era.
(Excerpt) Read more at imf.org ...
The Abstract sums the entire writing up nicely. Which by the way is extremely long and detailed.
Going negative with interest rates, for a stealth robbing of citizens monies, would certainly pay off our debts eventually. So, attempting to pay down debt by any means with all the pains of no economic growth and decades of scrimping and saving would go for naught since Congress never stops spending and keeps adding to the debt.
sfl
Or more abstract, "MELLONESQUE LIQUIDATION"
Thus, financial repression is most successful in liquidating debts when accompanied by a steady dose of inflation.
Family guy: 12-30-2010
yitbos
madison sums it up better. he calls it “wickedness.”
Pfl.
THE LIQUIDATION OF GOVERNMENT DEBT...
WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
The problem is the Fed doesn’t just cause inflation, it also causes deflation by destroying trust which radically destroys monetary Velocity. Not getting the inflation they require from money injection spurs the Central Banks to print even more, causing a Biflationary Depression. This has been repeated since Roman times and beyond, there is no Free Lunch.
http//www.futurnamics.com/biflation.php
That should ensure The Obammunists defeat.
yitbos
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