I think everybody benefitted from what I am calling a bubble finance system, a bubble economy and if we're ever going to right the system, we're going to have to stop this explosion of the federal debt. We need huge spending cuts, OK? Don't get me wrong, we need to raise regular taxes too but even beyond that it's not going to hurt if we want to reset the system to ask those who have benefitted disproportionately - remember, we got $60 trillion of net worth in the household sector. $45 trillion of that belongs to the top 5 percent.
David StockmanMain Street has too much debt already. It is simply a bonanza for speculators who can borrow the overnight money and then buy something that they can speculate on.
David StockmanThe problem is that you're creating a system of bubble finance where interest rates are so low that people can speculate. An asset value goes up. You put it up as collateral. You borrow against it. You buy more of the asset. You then take the rising asset. You borrow against it again. This is the nature of what's going on in the world. This isn't an excess of real savings. This is an excess of artificial credit that's being fueled by all the central banks.
David StockmanIt's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory.
David StockmanLet's have honest interest rates. Let's let the free market set interest rates in that zone where supply of savings is matched up with demand for real borrowing for capital projects.
David StockmanIf you let interest rates be freed, be set by the free market, they would rise dramatically. There would be a lot of broken furniture on Wall Street. It needs to be broken. The back of the speculative bubble would be broken and we could slowly heal the financial system. That's what I think we need to do but it's never going to happen because there's trillions of asset values dependent on the Fed continuing to suppress, repress interest rates and shovel $85 billion a month of liquidity into the market.
David StockmanThe stock market in Japan was half the world market and where has the Japan economy gone since the 1990s? Nowhere. They've been struggling for two decades in the aftermath of a massive bubble that's collapsed. They've tried to work their way out of it by printing even more money and it hasn't worked. Now, I'm saying this is what all the central banks are doing. There is no honest interest rate in the world today.
David Stockman