Well, at first I was actually going to post a video warning about the possible repercussions of a U.S. default. As many of us may have already heard, the U.S. has less than a week to decide what they are going to do about their massive 14+ trillion dollar debt. Until now, deadlock between the President and Republican-controlled House of Representatives has been the main theme in all their interactions, and although multiple calls for compromises between the two sides have been put forth by both, neither has made any progress. It is this gloomy picture that has people fearing (and others aspiring) the seeming inevitability of a U.S. default, and asking what in Earth will this mean for the world order? for power structures? for global economic stability? and, ultimately, for the legitimacy of Capitalism as the dominant economic system.

However, while looking for a video of this nature I came across another one that posits virtually the exact opposite outlook in regards to the U.S. debt.  Mike Norman, John Thomas Financial Chief Economist, exclaims that there is “absolutely no risk whatsoever of the [U.S.] not being able to pay its debts…[primarily] because its debt is denominated in its own currency – the U.S. dollar – of which it is the issuer”.  He believes that this is not the problem, but that instead the rise of inflation if the country continues to spend without producing is really what people should be worried about.  To off-put this, he proposes that the government implement some type of stimulus plan where health-care, education and infrastructure, among other things, are invested on in order to reap those rewards.

The interview itself is relatively short (a little over three minutes), but a lot is said.  I encourage all those interested in economics and finance to please share all your input and tell us if you think there is any truth or sense or probability to these comments, and if really what is going on is that people are, like Norman suggests, looking at things “through a prism of misinformation”.

ARB Team
Arbitrage Magazine
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