Here’s a simple test of whether the economic recovery is self-sustaining or not: cut Federal spending back to 2007 levels (a $1 trillion reduction) and cancel all Fed intervention such as quantitative easing.

Charles Hugh Smith at of two minds.com

EXCERPTS:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has suggested the economic recovery is almost “self-sustaining,” meaning it is no longer totally dependent on Federal stimulus and unprecedented Fed intervention for its “growth.”

The key idea here is simple: all the extraordinary stimulus spending, all the bailouts and all Fed programs–buying up $1 trillion in questionable mortgages, $600 billion in quantititative easing purchases of Treasury bonds, and so on–was all necessary to “get the economy through this rough patch.” At some magical point we are now approaching (or so we are reassured), the private (non-government) economy will start growing organically, meaning that non-State economic activity will generate a virtuous cycle of economic growth that fuels future growth.

The alternative vision is a bit more bleak. In this view, all the Federal Government and Fed spending and intervention have accomplished is encourage the culture of “extend and pretend” and “free money,” and raised the vulnerability of the Status Quo to exceptionally dangerous heights.

In other words, from this height, there can be no “soft landing” when the asset bubbles and stupendous Federal borrowing both collapse.

Here’s a simple test of whether the economic recovery is self-sustaining or not: cut Federal spending back to 2007 levels (a $1 trillion reduction) and cancel all Fed intervention such as quantitative easing. If the economy is self-sustaining, it will move forward without Federal spending and Fed intervention.

If “self-sustaining” is a fiction, an illusion, a mere figment of propaganda deployed to enable the Status Quo to feast off the remaining productive elements of the U.S. economy, then the economy will absolutely crater.

So the Federal government will have spent over $6 trillion–almost 41% of the nation’s annual GDP–just to keep GDP stagnant. That $1 trillion a year in extra spending is 7% of the GDP, which implies that if the Federal budget returned to the carefree, free-money days of 2007, the GDP would contract by 7%.

And that’s not even counting the trillions of dollars injected into the financial system by the Federal Reserve’s opaque machinations and money-printing schemes.

So what is America getting for this extra $1+ trillion in Federal spending a year? Just more of the same old Status Quo that did such an outstanding job circa 2008-2010.

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