Tag

us deficit

Jun 18
0

6/14/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Surplus for 6/14/2013 was $17B as corporate taxes started flowing in. Though due 6/15…with the 15th on Saturday, $14B of corporate taxes flowed into federal coffersa day early…expect another $30-$40B before the week is out.

06-14-2013 USDD

At first glance…the charts look fairly impressive but a lot of this is timing due to a lot of corporate tax payments being made 6/14 that were made 6/15 last year. This should all flush out in a few days. On the cost side….adding back in the $30B we’ve been discussing for a while shows that cost is still flat….no surprises there.

Tomorrow’s report (for today) should show the majority of the remaining corporate taxes we will see in June. Through 5 months, 2013 corporate taxes have been running about 20% over last year….seeing how June compares to that rate should be a very interesting indicator.


Apr 11
0

4/9/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US Daily cash Deficit for 4/9/2013 was $2.8B pushing the April deficit through 9 days to $63B. Revenues are starting to pick up a bit…I guess not everybody is waiting until the 15th, but no significant pattern changes over last year…still sitting at 5% YOY revenue increase. Expect a large deficit tomorrow with round 2 Social Security Payments..then sit and wait for the 4/15 number next Tuesday. I have a few drafts in process I hope to put out in the meantime to keep it interesting…no promises though… in real life I’m a corporate accountant knee deep in quarter end close 🙁

2013-04-09 USDD

Apr 09
0

4/5/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US daily Cash Deficit for 4/5/2013 was $1.7B bringing the total April Deficit through a week to $66B.

2013-04-05 USDD

Today’s charts give us a glance at 2013/2012 that is more or less aligned…each has 5 business days, and a full Monday-Friday sequence (I included 4/6/2012). Notice anything? Yep…revenues are down. It’s just one week,  and there is plenty of action left, but it’s not what I had expected….which was for 2013 revenues to be over 2012 by $5-7B by now. Instead, tax deposits withheld are only up 2% while total net revenue is actually down. It may be nothing…just a timing quirk, but I will definitely keep an eye on it. If 4/15 goes big one way or another, we may not even notice, but it will be interesting if revenues are still down (or even) through this Friday 4/12. Cost is where expected, and the deficit still has a $33B hole to dig out of….stay tuned.
Apr 05
0

Journalists Don’t Know Nuthin…??

By | Commentary
Over the years, I’ve noticed something about most financial journalists….they generally don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Case in point, today I read “The geeky debt fix that might work” by Jeanne Sahadi at CNN Money. The article is about using “Chained CPI” instead of CPI when computing the monthly increases to Social Security, government Pensions ect… Bottom line, Chained CPI typically runs a fraction of a percent under CPI. According to the article:

Social Security payments would continue to grow every year, but by 2030, the median payment would be 3% less than it would be if today’s inflation measure were used.

Got that? I thought it was a joke at first. In 17 years…2030, this switch would result in Social Security being 3% less than the current trajectory. So I went to my CBO vs CBO file, and took a look at 9/2030. Using some pretty conservative estimates (6% annual growth through 2023, then 3%), I get annual spending growing to $1.654T. The TTM right now is $689B. So if we adopt this now, we get $50B of annual savings in 2030…$4B per month. News flash…we spent about $ $25B just yesterday on Social Security, with another $35B to go this month. I’d be surprised if this train makes it to 2020, much less 2030, and yet Jeanne says:

It’s dull. It’s controversial. And it might work.

I don’t really mean to pick on Ms. Sahadi, but here is my hypothesis about 95% or so of all journalists…print/TV/radio…whatever. It all starts in college. I didn’t find a bio on Jeanne, but let me take a guess. She’s probably an English major, or a lit major, or a history, or maybe, just maybe, a real journalism major….which is probably worse by the way. Now, I’m a little prejudiced…I do not consider any of these to be real college degrees. These are the degrees you get after you flunk out of a real degree your freshman year. Just sayin… From there, if you know somebody, or have a pretty face, maybe you get on with a small media outlet and work your way up, eventually working your way up through the ranks, ultimately appearing on CNN as an “expert” Notice anything missing? Like…a real job maybe?
I can only speak specifically to accounting/finance, but the only way to really learn about business is jump in and do it….for like a decade. I learned more about accounting in my first 3 months on the job than I learned in 4 years of college.  It is quite clear that Jeanne doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about…she just skimmed through a couple government reports, pulled out some talking points, and submitted her piece to a probably even more clueless editor. If she had even the slightest comprehension of what she was talking about….none of this would have made it out of her pretty little head. But it did…and there lies the problem. Think back to 2007…of all the experts crowing about the new market high’s, and of course Bernanke starting off his 0/100 batting streak…how many people said…better watch out because the S&P 500 is going to lose half it’s value and bottom out at 666? I’m sure there were a couple, but they were few and far between. Now we have Jeanne, supposedly a financial journalist who specializes in this topic, buying (and propagating) hook line and sinker the myth that all we have to do is skim a fraction of a percent off CPI calcs and we can fix the deficit. Somebody needs to pull Jeanne out of wardrobe a few minutes early and introduce her to a spreadsheet (and maybe even a calculator)…that’s all I’m saying….can this lady even count??
So I guess my point is, you really shouldn’t trust any of the yokels in the financial media because all they are, for the most part are just entertainers who can read a teleprompter and occasionally pronounce a big word. Can you say “superlative CPI”?? Jeanne can.
Apr 02
0

March 2013 Debt Update

By | Commentary
Over the course of March 2013, total debt outstanding increased $84B up from $16.687T to $16.771T. External debt…the only category that really matters was up $94B, but offset by a $10B decrease in the intragovernmental debt category….basically money we are pretending we loaned to ourselves, rather than admitting we already blew it.

2013-04-02 Monthly Debt Change

Moving on, the TTM (Trailing Twelve Month) change in debt:

2013-04-02 TTM Debt Change

This looks at the TTM change in external debt only for March of 2009-2013. For example, the 2013 amount of $1.070T is the difference between 3/31/2013 and 3/31/2012. …how much debt have we added over the last 12 months. I like TTM when looking at the debt and deficit because there is so much seasonal variation that looking at any one month doesn’t really tell you anything…like this month, April, will likely post a monthly surplus….but that doesn’t really tell you anything about the $1T or so annual deficit.
Looking at the chart (made in Excel 2013…not crazy about the grayish black fade), we can see a $125B improvement…the right direction no doubt, but at a tepid and declining pace…for now. At this pace…we would get to zero in 8.5 years…assuming the pace continued…it will not. What we will likely see is an acceleration through the remainder of the year thanks to the recent tax increases and relatively flat spending. Then, after a year or two of stabilization, it is going to turn the other way as the growth in outlays surpasses any revenue growth, driven primarily by the large welfare programs…Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Yes…I said it….these are all straight up welfare programs where one large voting block has forced a “generational contract” where the old and wealthy steal from the young and poor. This is justified by..” well, we were screwed too, so now we are gonna get ours.” Maybe so…but it’s not gonna work for much longer. This entire system needs to be abandoned and go back to the old way. Either you save enough on your own in your 40+ year career to sustain the retirement you want…or, your kids/extended family supports you…if they like you.. The end. The average person making $50k puts about $7,500 each year into the social security/medicare pot each year…. What could you do with $7500 per year? Probably pay off your house in 10 or 15 years and start amassing a lifetime supply of benefiber…. Ain’t retirement grand?