Bruce Bartlett: When the Treasury Runs Out of Cash

Bruce Bartlett's latest article describes what happens if there is no agreement on the debt limit before the October 17th deadline. The ex-Reagan policy adviser and G. W. Bush Treasure official addresses, among other things, why default really is a big deal (despite statements to the contrary) and the problems with government prioritizing debts. A couple of excerpts:

"Should this [RC insert: government's ability to pay all outstanding debts] lead to bondholders not receiving their payments exactly on time, however, it creates huge financial problems, because the Treasury would now be in default, and defaulted securities cannot be traded, accepted by the Federal Reserve as collateral or held by money market funds. In a note published on Oct. 5, Goldman Sachs said money managers would be forced to dump Treasury securities before Oct. 17 to avoid being stuck with securities that could not be traded."

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"What we know for certain is that we will be in uncharted waters. And given that United States Treasury securities are essentially the foundation upon which the entire world financial system rests, those are dangerous waters indeed. Only a fool would enter them if they could be avoided."

Read the entire article at:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/when-the-treasury-runs-out-of-cash/?_r=0

Bruce Bartlett: MLK's greatest gift to America

Bruce Bartlett's latest column makes an excellent point that I agree with, which is that Martin Luther King Jr.'s greatest accomplishment was not in choosing to lead the civil rights struggle with a strategy of non-violence but in somehow being able to pull it off. From Mr. Bartlett:

"The really big problem with a nonviolence strategy is that is needs to be comprehensive to work; a few hotheads who take matters into their own hands can set back the entire movement, undo all its progress in a matter of moments. Convincing everyone in the civil rights movement to follow his nonviolence strategy was Dr. King’s greatest accomplishment, one that was truly extraordinary and still underappreciated."

 The key is that a non-violent strategy is, in the end, the quickest and most effective way to address a moral issue. More from the article:

"... although nonviolence seemed like a long-term strategy, in fact it worked remarkably fast. The Montgomery bus boycott started on December 1, 1955, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law less than 10 years later on July 2, 1964. That’s lightning speed by the standards of such things, historically speaking."

All this was done to realize the next major step in addressing the slavery issue - a terminal condition that our nation was born with and from which violence and brutality naturally flowed - and its natural by-product, segregation. The non-violent nature of the civil rights movement not only brought necessary change to our nation but saved countless lives and much suffering in the process.  Thank you, Dr. King.

Read Bruce Bartlett's article at:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/08/30/What-Martin-Luther-King-Really-Gave-to-America.aspx#page1

Article worth reading from Bruce Bartlett...

Bruce Bartlett is an interesting man.

Formerly the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department under President George H. W. Bush, he also served in the Reagan administration as a senior policy analyst. He's worked with both Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy” (Doubleday, 2006) and “The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). His latest book, “The Benefit and the Burden” (Simon & Schuster, 2012), is a history and review of issues related to tax reform. 

He writes regularly for the Economix Blog at the New York Times, the Fiscal Times and several other outlets. He's a serious guy with a long successful career who not afraid to speak his mind. I came to learn about Mr. Bartlett via the "Stand up with Pete Dominick" program broadcast on Sirius XM's "POTUS" (channel 124), where he is a frequent guest.

Bartlett's expertise is in taxes and economic matters. His political background is that of a Republican. To say he is disenchanted with the GOP is accurate. Like myself, after supporting conservative candidates and policies for much of my adult life, he needed a change. Clearly the Party has changed in many ways, very few of which I'm comfortable with. After hearing him several times on POTUS, I decided his was a voice I respected, valued and would take seriously.

Earlier this week, Mr. Bartlett penned an article in The American Conservative that chronicles his journey out of the embrace of the Republican Party and Fox News, where he had been a guest on many occasions. Its an interesting read about one very reasonable man's experience. It's called "Revenge of the Reality-Based Community", but as he said on Dominick's show yesterday, he could've used the original title, "I told you so..."

A preview: 

"Revenge of the Reality-Based Community" by Bruce Bartlett
My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong.

I know that it’s unattractive and bad form to say “I told you so” when one’s advice was ignored yet ultimately proved correct. But in the wake of the Republican election debacle, it’s essential that conservatives undertake a clear-eyed assessment of who on their side was right and who was wrong. Those who were wrong should be purged and ignored; those who were right, especially those who inflicted maximum discomfort on movement conservatives in being right, ought to get credit for it and become regular reading for them once again.

I’m not going to beat around the bush and pretend I don’t have a vested interest here. Frankly, I think I’m at ground zero in the saga of Republicans closing their eyes to any facts or evidence that conflict with their dogma. Rather than listen to me, they threw me under a bus. To this day, I don’t think they understand that my motives were to help them avoid the permanent decline that now seems inevitable.

For more than 30 years, I was very comfortable within the conservative wing of the Republican Party. I still recall supporting Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater as a schoolchild. As a student, I was a member of Young Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom at the height of the Vietnam War, when conservatives on college campuses mostly kept their heads down.

We need more people like Mr. Bartlett who are smart, serious professionals who have the integrity and character to step up and speak candidly about their former party's shortcomings and delusions. We need more guys like him from both sides and from all points to view to reject the blinding, mind-numbing narratives that too many people bow down to. The average American relies on people like Bartlett and others of his ilk to provide us a perspective that isn't being provided very often anywhere else, least of all cable news channels. 

Read Mr. Bartlett's full article here...Its worth your time...

Source: 

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/economy/bruce-bartlett-bio.html

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revenge-of-the-reality-based-community/