Treasury Department

More stories

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    Inflation and Deficits Don’t Dim the Appeal of U.S. Bonds

    by

    Markets have been in upheaval. The Federal Reserve is taking steps to cool off the economy, as questions loom about the course of the recovery. And headlines are proclaiming that government bond yields are near two-year highs.But the striking thing about bonds isn’t that yields — which influence interest rates throughout the economy — have risen. It’s that they remain so low.In the past year, with consumer prices rising at a pace unseen since the early 1980s, a conventional presumption was that the demand for bonds would slump unless their yields were high enough to substantially offset inflation’s bite on investors’ portfolios.Bond purchases remained near record levels anyway, which pushed yields lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note — the key security in the $22 trillion market for U.S. government bonds — is about 1.8 percent. That’s roughly where it was on the eve of the pandemic, or when Donald J. Trump was elected president, or even a decade ago, when inflation was running at a mere 1.7 percent annual rate — compared with the 7 percent year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index recorded in December.If you had run that data past market experts last spring, “I think you would have been hard-pressed to find anybody on the Street who’d believe you,” said Scott Pavlak, a fixed-income portfolio manager at MetLife Investment Management.Because the 10-year Treasury yield is a benchmark for many other interest rates, the rates on mortgages and corporate debt have been near historical lows as well. And despite a binge of deficit spending by the U.S. government — which standard theories say should make a nation’s borrowing more expensive — continuing demand for government debt securities has meant that investors are, in inflation-adjusted terms, paying to hold Treasury bonds rather than getting a positive return.The major reasons for this odd phenomenon include long-term expectations about inflation, a large (and unequally distributed) surge in wealth worldwide and the growing ranks of retiring baby boomers who want to protect their nest eggs against the volatility of stocks.And that has potentially huge consequences for public finances.“If governments ever wanted to engage in an aggressive program of spending, now is the time,” said Padhraic Garvey, a head of research at ING, a global bank. “This is a perfect time to issue bonds as long as possible and proceed with long-term investment plans — and as long as the rate of return on those plans is in excess of the funding costs, they pay for themselves.”Weighing the Fed’s RoleBecause the government debt issued by the United States is valued, with few exceptions, as the safest financial asset in the global market — and because this debt is used as the collateral for trillions of dollars of systemically important transactions — the monthly and weekly fluctuations of key U.S. Treasuries, like the 10-year note, are watched closely.There are rancorous debates about the added role that the emergency bond-buying program conducted by the Fed since March 2020 — which included hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. debt securities — has played in keeping rates down. Understand Inflation in the U.S.Inflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Your Questions, Answered: We asked readers to send questions about inflation. Top experts and economists weighed in.What’s to Blame: Did the stimulus cause prices to rise? Or did pandemic lockdowns and shortages lead to inflation? A debate is heating up in Washington.Supply Chain’s Role: A key factor in rising inflation is the continuing turmoil in the global supply chain. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.Some of the central bank’s critics concede that the Fed’s aggressive measures (which officials are dialing back) may have proved necessary at the start of the pandemic to stabilize markets. But they insist its program, another form of economic stimulus, continued far too long, egging on inflation by increasing demand and keeping rates low — an equation that hurt savers who could benefit from higher returns to hedge against the price increases.Still, most mainstream analysts also tend to identify a broader gumbo of coalescing factors beyond monetary policy.Several major market participants attribute these stubbornly low yields in spite of a high-growth, high-inflation economy to a widening sense among investors that a time of slower growth and milder price increases may eventually reassert itself.“While inflation has surged, they do not expect it to be persistent,” said Brett Ryan, the senior U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. “In other words, over the long run, the post-pandemic world is likely to look very similar to the prepandemic state of the economy.”Long-run inflation expectations are still relatively anchored at an annual rate of about 2.4 percent over the next 10 years. This indicates that markets think the Fed will prevent inflation from spiraling upward, despite the huge increase in debt and the supply of dollars.Lots of Cash in Search of HavensOne potent element driving down rates is that from 2000 to 2020 — a stretch that included a burst dot-com bubble, a breakdown of the world’s banking system and a pandemic that upended business activity — global wealth in terms of net worth more than tripled to $510 trillion. The resulting savings glut has deeply affected the market, particularly for government bonds.The vast majority of wealth has accumulated to borderless corporations and a multinational elite desperate to park that capital somewhere that is safe and allows its money to earn some level of interest, rather than lose value even more quickly as cash. They view lending the money to a national government in its own currency as a prudent investment because, at worst, the debt can be repaid by creating more of that currency.The downside for these investors is that only so many stable, powerful countries have this privilege: This mix of exorbitant levels of wealth and a scarcity of safe havens for it has whetted, at least for now, a deepening appetite for reliable government debt securities — especially U.S. Treasuries.“To have truly risk-free returns and storage of your dollars, where else are you going to put them?” asked Daniel Alpert, a managing partner of the investment bank Westwood Capital.As the principle of supply and demand would suggest, the combination of high demand and low supply has helped keep Treasury bond prices high, which in turn produces lower yields.Demographic changes are affecting bond trends, too. As they approach or reach retirement, hundreds of millions of people across developed economies are looking for safer places than the stock market for their assets.Even in an inflationary environment, “there’s just this huge demand for yield in fixed income from people,” said Ben Carlson, the director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. “You have all these boomer retirees who have money in the stock market and they’re doing great, but they know soon they’re not going to have a paycheck anymore and they need some portion of their portfolio to provide yield and stability.”Running Room for Federal SpendingThe U.S. Treasury market has grown to roughly $23 trillion, from $3 trillion two decades ago — directly in step with the national debt, which has grown to over 120 percent of gross domestic product, from 55 percent.But borrowing costs for the American government have trended lower, not higher. Congress issued roughly $5 trillion in Treasury debt securities to finance pandemic fiscal relief, “and we had, effectively, zero cost of capital for most of it,” said Yesha Yadav, a law professor at Vanderbilt University whose scholarship covers the Treasury market’s structure and regulations.Since the 1980s, the federal debt has skyrocketed.Total public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product

    Note: Data through the third quarter of 2021Source: Federal Reserve Board of St. LouisBy The New York TimesBut the cost of paying investors back is at its lowest in years.Interest payments on U.S. debt as a percentage of gross domestic product.

    Note: Data through 2020. Federal interest payments are still projected to be low in 2022.Source: Federal Reserve Economic DataBy The New York TimesThe cost of the interest payments that the U.S. government owes on its debt peaked in 1991 at 3.2 percent of gross domestic product, when the national debt was only 44 percent of G.D.P. By that measure, interest costs now are about half what they were back then.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

  • 138 Shares179 Views

    in Economy

    Critics Say I.M.F. Loan Fees Are Hurting Nations in Desperate Need

    by

    Democratic lawmakers say the global fund’s surcharges for emergency relief siphon away money that countries need to fight the pandemic.At a time when the coronavirus pandemic is fueling a rapid rise in inequality and debt, a growing number of policymakers and economists are pressuring the International Monetary Fund to eliminate extra fees it charges on loans to struggling nations because they siphon away scarce funds that could instead be used to battle Covid.The fund, which for decades has backstopped countries in financial distress, imposes these fees for loans that are unusually large or longstanding. They were designed to help protect against hefty losses from high-risk lending.But critics argue that the surcharges come at the worst possible moment, when countries are already in desperate need of funds to provide poverty aid and public health services. Some of the countries paying the fees, including Egypt, Ukraine and Armenia, have vaccinated only about a third of their populations. The result, the critics argue, is that the I.M.F. ends up undermining the financial welfare and stability of the very places it is trying to aid.In the latest critique, a letter this week to Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen from 18 Democrats in Congress, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, asked the United States to support ending the surcharge policy.The surcharge “discourages public health investment by developing countries,” the letter said. “This perverse outcome will undermine global economic recovery.” The letter echoed several other appeals from more than two dozen emerging nations, including Argentina, South Africa and Brazil, as well as economists.Volunteers at a soup kitchen in Buenos Aires last spring. The coronavirus pandemic has further strained Argentina’s poor.Sarah Pabst for The New York Times“Attempts to force excessive repayments are counterproductive because they lower the economy’s productive potential,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kevin Gallagher, a professor of global development at Boston University, wrote in a recent analysis. “Both creditors and the country itself are worse off.”They added: “The I.M.F. should not be in the business of making a profit off of countries in dire straits.”The fund primarily serves as a lender of last resort, although recently it has expanded its mission to include reducing extreme inequality and combating climate change.In addition to building up a reserve, the surcharges were designed to encourage borrowers to repay on time. The poorest countries are exempt.The fees have become a major source of revenue for the I.M.F., which is funded primarily by its 190 member nations, with the United States paying the largest share. The fund estimates that by the end of this year, borrowers will have shelled out $4 billion in extra fees — on top of their regular interest payments — since the pandemic began in 2020.The debate over the surcharge is emblematic of larger contradictions at the heart of the I.M.F.’s structure and mission. The fund was created to provide a lifeline to troubled economies so that they recover “without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity.”But the terms and conditions that accompany its loans have at times ratcheted up the economic pain. “They penalize countries at a time when they are in an adverse situation, forcing them to make greater cuts in order to repay debts,” according to an analysis from the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.“Demanding these surcharges during an ongoing recession caused by a pandemic goes even more against” the I.M.F.’s founding principles, the center argues.Voting power in the fund’s governance is based on the size of each country’s monetary contribution, with only the United States having veto power. That means that countries most in need have the least say in how the I.M.F. carries out its role.In a statement, the Treasury Department reiterated support for the surcharges: “As the I.M.F.’s major shareholder we have an obligation to protect the financial integrity of the I.M.F.” And it pointed out that the interest rates charged by the fund were often far below market rates.A review of the surcharges last month by the fund’s executive directors ended without any agreement to halt the charges. An I.M.F. statement explained that while “some directors were open to exploring temporary surcharge relief” to free up resources to deal with the pandemic, most others preferred a comprehensive review later on in the context of the fund’s “overall financial outlook.”Strapped countries that are subject to the surcharges like Argentina balked earlier at the extra payments, but their campaign has picked up momentum with the spread of Covid-19.“I think the pandemic makes a big difference,” said Martín Guzmán, Argentina’s minister of economy.He argues that the pandemic has turned what may have once been considered unusual circumstances into the commonplace, given the enormous debt that many countries have taken on to meet its rising costs. Government debt in emerging countries has hit its highest level in a half a century.The number of nations subject to surcharges increased to 21 last year from 15 in 2020, according to the I.M.F. Pakistan, Egypt, Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, Tunisia and Ecuador are among those paying.Argentina, which has long had a contentious and bitter relationship with the fund relating to a series of bailouts and defaults that date back decades, has been a leading opponent of the surcharges.The country is trying to work out a new repayment schedule for $45 billion that the previous government borrowed as part of a 2018 loan package. By the end of 2024, the government estimates, it will have run up a tab of more than $5 billion in surcharges alone. This year, 70 percent of Argentina’s nearly $1.6 billion bill from the I.M.F. is for surcharges.A protest against a possible new deal with the I.M.F. in Buenos Aires last month.Alejandro Pagni/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The charges will be undermining the mission of the I.M.F., which is to ensure global stability and balance of payments,” Mr. Guzmán said.According to World Bank estimates, 124 million people were pushed into poverty in 2020, with eight out of 10 of them in middle-income countries.Meanwhile, the costs of basic necessities like food, heating and electricity are surging, adding to political strains. This week, the I.M.F. warned in its blog that continuing Covid outbreaks, combined with rising inflation, debt and interest rates, mean emerging economies should “prepare for potential bouts of economic turbulence.” More

  • 138 Shares119 Views

    in Economy

    As Humanitarian Disaster Looms, U.S. Opens Door for More Afghanistan Aid

    by

    The Treasury Department and the United Nations offered new protection for aid from sanctions meant to pressure the Taliban.Facing pressure to prevent a humanitarian and economic catastrophe in Afghanistan, the Biden administration on Wednesday took steps to allow more aid to flow into the Taliban-led country.The measures exempt aid groups from stringent economic sanctions that were imposed against the Taliban before they seized control of the government and have been strangling Afghanistan’s economy under its leadership. But diplomats and activists said that easing the restrictions might not be enough to rescue the country from what one U.N. official on Wednesday called “shocking” need and suffering.At the same time, some Republicans said the Biden administration risked legitimizing and even funding Taliban leaders.The U.S. actions and mixed response underscore the challenge that Afghanistan continues to pose for the Biden administration four months after the last American troops withdrew from the country. Administration officials have been struggling to address the dire humanitarian needs without empowering the Taliban.The United States fought a 20-year war against the Taliban and does not recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. After the group’s takeover in August, the Biden administration halted most aid to Afghanistan, froze $9.5 billion of its foreign reserves and pressured the International Monetary Fund to delay emergency support.A combination of the coronavirus pandemic, a severe drought, the loss of foreign aid and frozen currency reserves have left Afghanistan’s fragile economy on the brink of collapse, with aid groups warning that the harsh winter could lead to mass starvation and a refugee crisis.After weeks of calls for swifter action, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday that it was issuing new “general licenses” that would make it easier for nongovernmental organizations, international aid groups and the U.S. government to provide relief to Afghans while maintaining economic leverage over the Taliban to prevent human rights abuses and terrorist activity..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The actions came soon after the United Nations Security Council passed a related resolution, sponsored by the United States, that exempts humanitarian activities in Afghanistan from international sanctions for a year.Biden administration officials note that the United States remains the world’s top provider of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, even after it cut off most assistance after the Taliban takeover.“We are committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan,” Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said in a statement.The department’s general licenses allow financial transactions involving the Taliban and members of the Haqqani network, who share power in the new Afghan government, as long as the money is used for purposes such as projects to meet basic human needs, civil society development, environmental and natural resource protection and similar efforts. The United States considers both groups terrorist organizations.The Treasury move expands the type of relief activity that can take place in Afghanistan and broadens the level of contact that international groups can have with the Taliban. It also allows the Taliban to collect taxes related to that assistance.Alex Zerden, the Treasury Department’s financial attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from 2018 to 2019, called the move “absolutely a step in the right direction,” saying it addressed requests for clarity from private sector and nongovernmental organizations about how to operate in Afghanistan without violating U.S. sanctions and providing the Taliban with illegal revenue.But many close observers said far more remained to be done.“We need a bigger humanitarian response, but without a functioning economy and banking system, we are facing terrible odds,” David Miliband, the president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, wrote on Twitter. “Need massive economic stabilization package to stop the rip current.”The United States provided Afghanistan with $3.95 billion in foreign aid last year, about two-thirds of which was security assistance for the former government’s fight against the Taliban. U.S. humanitarian aid for the country and for Afghan refugees in the region has totaled nearly $474 million so far this year.“We’re very conscious of the fact that there is an incredibly difficult humanitarian situation right now, one that could get worse as winter sets in,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a news conference on Tuesday.He added that the United States was determined to ensure “that the Taliban make good on the expectations of the international community,” including by respecting women’s rights, not carrying out reprisals against political enemies and denying safe haven to international terrorist groups.Morgan Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration, condemned the U.S. actions as “extremely dangerous.” She said on Twitter that the Treasury Department licenses “send the signal that if you take over enough territory with enough people in it, you too can gain legitimacy.”The Security Council resolution, which was adopted unanimously, seeks to reduce the legal and political risks of delivering aid to Afghanistan. It exempts humanitarian activities such as payments and delivery of goods and services from U.N. sanctions for a one-year period, and requires updates to ensure that aid is not diverted to the Taliban.China on Monday blocked a narrower version drafted by the United States that would have allowed only case-by-case exemptions.After passage of the broader measure, China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, said on Twitter that the new resolution “can only fix the faucet, but to keep the water running, the international community need to make joint efforts.”Citing “shocking levels of need and suffering,” the top U.N. official for emergency humanitarian efforts, Martin Griffiths, said the effect that the 160 aid organizations working in Afghanistan could have “depends on the cooperation of the de facto authorities in the country and on the flexibility of the funding we receive.”Governments and international organizations have been accelerating their efforts to provide assistance in recent weeks.The World Bank has said that the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund donors would transfer $280 million to UNICEF and the World Food Program by the end of the year to provide humanitarian aid.The Treasury Department this month issued a license allowing personal remittance payments to be sent to people in Afghanistan. And the United States on Wednesday announced that it would donate another million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Afghanistan, bringing the total U.S. contribution to 4.3 million doses.But the need remains enormous. Three former U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan and several former ambassadors and other officials this month signed a letter, published by the Atlantic Council, calling on the Biden administration to show “the courage to act” and expedite creative steps to prop up the Afghan economy and feed the hungry without benefiting the Taliban.“We believe the United States has a reputational interest and a moral obligation in vigorously joining efforts to help the Afghan people preserve at least some of the social and economic gains made over the last 20 years,” the authors wrote. “We believe that ways to do so can be found, while erecting barriers to assistance being diverted to purposes other than those for which it is intended.”Such admonitions came as Taliban officials pleaded for swift international relief, which they said was also in the West’s self-interest.“The impact of the frozen funds is on the common people and not Taliban authorities,” the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, said on Sunday, according to Reuters.Mr. Stanikzai warned that if “the political and economic situation doesn’t change,” Afghan refugees would pour into neighboring countries and Europe.Rick Gladstone More

  • 113 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    Why Janet Yellen’s Signature Is Not on U.S. Currency

    by

    Until a new treasurer is selected, currency will continue to bear the autograph of former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.WASHINGTON — At a now infamous 2017 ceremony inside the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary at the time, and his wife, Louise Linton, posed for the cameras with an uncut sheet of $1 bills, the first to bear his signature.The images went viral, prompting comparisons of Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, to a Bond villain.More than four years later, America has a new Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen. But the U.S. currency continues to bear Mr. Mnuchin’s signature.The reason has to do with the vagaries of Washington bureaucracy and the fact that, despite having a Treasury secretary in place since January, President Biden has yet to appoint a United States treasurer. The two signatures must be added to new series of currency in tandem, meaning that the process of adding Ms. Yellen’s signature to the greenback is frozen for the foreseeable future.Ms. Yellen sat for her currency signing in March, meeting with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing director, Leonard Olijar, and providing her official signature for printing on the new 2021 series of paper currency. At the time, the Treasury Department said in a statement that it would “reveal her signature in the coming weeks.” Nine months later, Ms. Yellen’s signature is nowhere to be seen on America’s bank notes, depriving the first woman to be Treasury secretary of one of the job’s prized perks.“It is a little odd,” said Franklin Noll, the president of the Treasury Historical Association.Previous Treasury secretaries have had their signatures added to money, a process which takes several months, within their first year on the job.The delay owes to the slow pace of White House nominations across the federal government, including at the Treasury Department. By tradition, the treasurer must also sign the money along with the secretary, and both signatures are engraved on plates, printed and submitted to the Federal Reserve, which determines what currency will be added to circulation.Since the Treasury secretary has the ultimate say over currency design, in theory Ms. Yellen could do away with the tradition and incorporate her signature right away.The treasurer post, which oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Mint, does not require Senate confirmation. But even if Mr. Biden appointed someone before year-end, it could take until mid-2022 before the new series of notes was in circulation.The White House appears to be in no rush. A spokesman said that while Mr. Biden is actively considering treasurer candidates, the administration’s priority has been on filling Senate-confirmed positions that are important for protecting national security and combating the pandemic.The Treasury Department declined to comment and referred an inquiry to the White House.The history of who gets to sign the money dates to 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill allowing the Treasury secretary to delegate the treasurer of the United States to sign Treasury notes and bonds. According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1914 was the first year that the Treasury secretary and the treasurer started signing the currency together.In recent years, the signature of the secretary has captured the nation’s attention, as changes to America’s currency are relatively rare.Former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner acknowledged in 2012 that handwriting was not his strong suit and that he polished his penmanship when President Barack Obama offered him the job.“I didn’t try for elegance,” Mr. Geithner said. “I tried for clarity.”Clarity was an Achilles’ heel for Jacob J. Lew, Mr. Geithner’s successor whose loopy autograph was laughed at for being illegible. Mr. Obama joked in 2013 that Mr. Lew, who had been his chief of staff, nearly did not get the job out of concern that his scrawl would debase America’s currency.Early versions of Mr. Mnuchin’s signature on personal documents were not easy to read. But ultimately, former President Donald J. Trump’s Treasury secretary broke with tradition and wrote his name in print rather than cursive.The signatures are closely watched by collectors and students of financial history.Mr. Noll said that during events or lectures at the Treasury Department with former secretaries, attendees would often bring money to be “countersigned” next to their name on the note.“It was kind of cool to get the real signature,” Mr. Noll said.Ms. Yellen’s signature on the money is not the only change to America’s currency that has been delayed. Soon after Mr. Biden took office this year, White House officials said the administration would accelerate efforts to have Harriet Tubman’s portrait grace the front of the $20 bill, a process that stalled under Mr. Mnuchin.However, at a congressional hearing in September, Ms. Yellen indicated that doing so would take some time, saying that redesigning the note is a lengthy process given the need to develop robust anti-counterfeiting features.Rosie Rios, who served as Treasurer under Mr. Geithner and Mr. Lew during the Obama administration, said that it was a privilege to have her signature on nearly $2 trillion worth of currency that is in circulation. Having helped to lead the effort to get images of women added to U.S. currency, she said, she will find it meaningful to have Ms. Yellen’s name on the money.“I’m very excited to see Secretary Yellen’s signature on there,” she said. More

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    Climate Change an ‘Emerging Threat’ to U.S. Financial Stability, Regulators Say

    by

    The Financial Stability Oversight Council issued a formal warning on the economic damage that global warming could inflict.WASHINGTON — Federal regulators warned for the first time in an annual report to Congress on Friday that climate change was an “emerging threat” to the U.S. financial system, laying out how the costs associated with more hurricanes, wildfires and floods caused by global warming could lead to a cascade of damage throughout the economy.The Financial Stability Oversight Council, a group of top financial regulators led by the Treasury secretary, offered a grim assessment of how the fallout from rising temperatures could spread, hurting property values and saddling insurers, banks and pensions that are associated with the sector with heavy losses. The report follows a similar analysis of climate risk that the council released in October.“Increased frequency and severity of acute physical risk events and longer-term chronic phenomena associated with climate change are expected to lead to increased economic and financial costs,” the new document said.However, the report stopped short of the kinds of policy prescriptions that environmental groups and progressive Democrats have been calling for, such as tougher rules requiring banks to assess their ability to withstand climate-related losses, new capital requirements or curbs on extending financing to fossil fuel companies. Instead, it echoed a set of recommendations from the October report that called for improved data for evaluating climate-related financial risks and more uniform disclosure requirements to help investors make better informed decisions.Climate change was not mentioned last year in the Trump administration’s final F.S.O.C. report.The warning on climate change was one of several looming threats to the financial system, which faces ongoing uncertainty nearly two years into a global pandemic that is being gripped by a new variant.What to Know About Inflation in the U.S.Inflation, Explained: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? We answered some common questions.The Fed’s Pivot: Jerome Powell’s abrupt change of course moved the central bank into inflation-fighting mode.Fastest Inflation in Decades: The Consumer Price Index rose 6.8 percent in November from a year earlier, its sharpest increase since 1982.Why Washington Is Worried: Policymakers are acknowledging that price increases have been proving more persistent than expected.The Psychology of Inflation: Americans are flush with cash and jobs, but they also think the economy is awful.In its annual report, the panel also issued a warning about the risk of higher than expected inflation, suggesting that it would lead to higher interest rates and losses at some financial institutions, blunting the momentum of the recovery.The report comes as the Federal Reserve said this week that it would accelerate the end of its monthly bond buying program, which it has used to buttress economic growth during the pandemic, and raise interest rates three times next year to combat inflation.The F.S.O.C. regulators attributed inflation in advanced economies to “an increase in commodity prices, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages.” They warned that a rapid or unexpected rise in interest rates to blunt rising prices could induce “sharp contractionary forces” and acknowledged that it was unclear how long inflation would persist.“The advent of higher inflation also raises the question of whether longer-term inflation expectations of households and businesses will rise or become unanchored,” the report said.The trajectory of the global economy is also a concern, as lockdowns and downturns in other countries could spill over into the U.S. financial system. Regulators pointed specifically to the prospect of a “hard landing” in China as a potential worry and noted that the Chinese real estate sector is “heavily leveraged.” A slowdown in the real estate market there could hurt global commodity markets because China is such a major consumer of steel, copper and iron ore.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

  • 175 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    How $2 Trillion in Tax Increases in Biden's Bill Target Companies and the Rich

    by

    The proposal to fund the president’s sprawling spending plan mostly turns up the dial on more conventional tax policies, while trying to curb maneuvers that allow tax avoidance.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s new plan to pay for his climate change and social policy package includes nearly $2 trillion in tax increases on corporations and the rich. But many of the more contentious and untested proposals that Democrats have been considering in recent weeks were left on the cutting-room floor.The latest proposal reflects the reality that moderate Democrats are unwilling to back certain ideas aimed at raising money, including taxing the unrealized capital gains of billionaires and giving the Internal Revenue Service more insight into the finances of taxpayers. Ultimately, the package of tax increases mostly turns up the dial on more conventional tax policies, while adding some new wrinkles to curb maneuvers that allow tax avoidance.“I think in terms of who they’re targeting, they did decide to target the larger population of very rich people and not just get the money from a very small group of superrich people,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.Here’s a look at what’s in the new tax plan:Taxing the rich.Instead of a wealth tax or a special tax on billionaires, Mr. Biden rolled out a new “surtax” on income for multimillionaires and billionaires. It would effectively raise the top tax rate on ordinary income to 45 percent for the highest earners.Those with adjusted gross income of more than $10 million would face an additional 5 percent tax on top of the 37 percent marginal tax rate they already pay. Those making more than $25 million would face an extra 3 percent surtax.The Biden administration estimates that these tax increases would hit the top .02 percent of taxpayers and raise $230 billion of tax revenue over a decade.The plan also aims to ensure that people making more than $400,000 are not able to use loopholes to avoid paying a 3.8 percent Medicare tax. The White House estimates that provision alone will generate $250 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years.Making corporations pay more.Borrowing a page from his campaign playbook, Mr. Biden wants to impose a 15 percent minimum tax on profitable companies that have little to no federal tax liability. Many profitable companies are able to reduce or eliminate their tax liability through the use of tax credits, deductions and previous losses that can carry over. The new tax would apply to companies with more than $1 billion in so-called book income — profits that firms report to their shareholders but not to the I.R.S.The plan is meant to ensure that the approximately 200 companies that pay no corporate income tax will have to pay some money to the federal government.The White House estimates the provision, which was also included in a plan presented by Senate Democrats, will raise an additional $325 billion in tax revenue over a decade.Chye-Ching Huang, the executive director of the Tax Law Center at New York University, said on Thursday that the proposal could mean that financial statements where book income is reported could become the new “locus for tax avoidance.”A separate proposal would also enact a 1 percent surcharge on corporate stock buybacks. Buybacks have surged along with the stock market, with cash-rich firms like Apple, JPMorgan Chase and Exxon spending billions of dollars each year to buy back, then retire, shares in their own companies. That can help drive up the company’s stock price, enriching both shareholders and corporate executives whose compensation is often tied to their firm’s stock performance.The provision is projected to raise $125 billion over 10 years.Ending the tax race to the bottom.Mr. Biden’s framework would raise the tax that companies pay on foreign earnings to 15 percent, putting the United States in line with a global minimum tax that is being completed at the Group of 20 summit in Rome this week.The Biden administration initially wanted to double the current rate to 21 percent from 10.5 percent. In settling on 15 percent, the U.S. rate would match what was agreed to by the 136 countries participating in the global deal and could blunt criticism that American companies will face a competitive disadvantage.The global agreement is meant to end corporate tax havens and stop what Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen describes as the “race to the bottom” of declining corporate tax rates around the world.To deter companies from finding ways to avoid the tax, the plan would impose a penalty rate on foreign corporations based in countries that are not part of the agreement.The Biden administration projects the international plans would raise $350 billion over a decade.Narrowing the tax gap.White House and Treasury Department officials have spent months pushing a proposal to narrow the $7 trillion gap in taxes that are owed by individuals and businesses but not collected. The administration initially wanted to invest $80 billion in additional enforcement staffing at the I.R.S. and require banks to hand over more information about the finances of their customers.Under the new proposal, the I.R.S. would get more money to ramp up audits of people making more than $400,000. However, the new bank reporting proposal — which the Treasury has called critical to its ability to hunt down hidden revenue — was conspicuously absent. A lobbying campaign from banks prompted huge blowback from lawmakers, including Senator Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia Democrat whose vote is critical to passing the overall package.Treasury officials and a group of Senate Democrats are continuing to negotiate with Mr. Manchin on narrowing the proposal in a way that he could support.As it stands, the plan to bolster I.R.S. enforcement is projected to raise $400 billion over a decade, down from the $700 billion in the original proposal.Reducing the deficit, maybe.Mr. Biden said on Thursday that his plans were “fiscally responsible” and claimed that the proposals, if enacted, would reduce the country’s budget deficit.The $2 trillion of proposed tax increases would more than offset the $1.85 trillion in spending on housing, child care and climate initiatives. However, nonpartisan scorekeepers such as the Congressional Budget Office have in the past offered less rosy projections of what Biden administration proposals might actually raise in revenue.Additional I.R.S. enforcement personnel will take years to get up to speed, and audits could be less effective without the additional bank information the Treasury Department is seeking.Some Democratic lawmakers are also still fighting for the inclusion of provisions that could actually cost money, including a partial or temporary restoration of SALT, the state and local tax deduction that Republicans capped in 2017. Last-minute additions such as that could add to the cost of the overall package. More

  • 100 Shares139 Views

    in Economy

    Biden's Stimulus Is Stoking Inflation, Fed Analysis Suggests

    by

    Inflation is likely getting a temporary boost from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that the Biden administration ushered in early this year, new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco research released on Monday suggested.The analysis may add fuel to a hot debate in Washington over whether the administration’s policies are contributing to a spike in prices. Critics of the government spending package that was signed into law in March, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, have said it was poorly targeted and risked overheating the economy. Supporters of the relief program have said it provided critical aid to workers and businesses still struggling through the pandemic.The new paper comes down somewhere in the middle, finding that the spending had some effect on inflation but suggesting that it is most likely to be temporary. The economists estimated that it would add 0.3 percentage points to the core Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation index in 2021 and “a bit more” than 0.2 percentage points in 2022. Core inflation strips out volatile items like food and fuel.While those numbers are significant, they are not what most people would consider “overheating” — the Fed aims for 2 percent inflation on average over time, and a few tenths of a percent here or there are not a reason for much alarm.But the result is only a rough estimate, one the researchers came up with to help inform an continuing political and economic debate.Both the Trump and Biden administrations signed trillions of dollars in virus relief spending into law. The packages included two bipartisan bills in 2020 that pumped more than $3 trillion into the economy, including direct checks to individuals and generous unemployment benefits. Another $1.9 trillion — called the American Rescue Plan — was passed this year by Democrats after they took control of both Congress and the White House.“The later timing and large size of the A.R.P. stirred debate about whether it is causing an overheating of the economy and fueling a sustained increase in inflation,” the San Francisco Fed researchers noted.The economists tried to answer that question by looking at how much spare capacity is in the economy using a labor market measure — the ratio of job openings to unemployment. The logic is that inflation tends to pick up when there is very little labor market slack, because businesses raise wages to attract workers and then raise prices to cover their climbing labor costs.Government stimulus can push up the number of job openings in the economy as it fuels demand while constraining the number of available workers because it gives would-be employees a financial cushion, allowing them to take their time as they search for a new job.Based on the package’s size and using historical evidence on how fiscal spending affects the labor market, the researchers found that the American Rescue Plan might raise the vacancy-to-unemployment ratio close to its historical peak in 1968, fueling some inflation — but that the price impact would be small and short-lived.U.S. Inflation & Supply Chain ProblemsCard 1 of 6Covid’s impact on supply continues. More

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    Finance Executives Say Risk of Default Is Already Damaging the Economy

    by

    Shortly after the C.E.O.s met with President Biden, Senator Mitch McConnell said he would allow Democrats to raise the debt ceiling enough to push a potential default to December.Finance executives met with President Biden as an Oct. 18 debt-ceiling deadline inched closer, warning that a U.S. default would threaten the global economy. Senate Republicans have promised to filibuster a long-term suspension of the borrowing limit.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Biden met with finance executives on Wednesday as he continued to try to put maximum pressure on Senate Republicans to raise the debt ceiling before Oct. 18, the date the Treasury Department has said the United States would go into default.Shortly after the meeting, Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, seemed to relent from his opposition to allowing Democrats to lift the ceiling in the short term through regular channels. He said he would “allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December.”The White House dismissed Mr. McConnell’s statement as an informal offer and said the president would rather Republicans allow a vote on a spending bill to go forward.The executives all warned that the economy would be threatened should the country default on its debts for the first time in history.“It’s already beginning to cause some damage in the economy,” Jane Fraser, the chief executive of Citigroup, told the president. “It will hurt consumers. It will hurt small businesses.”“It’s not an exaggeration to say that even small distortions in the Treasury market can cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars over many years,” she added, referring to the market for bonds issued by the Treasury Department.Mr. Biden, seeking to convey the consequences to everyday Americans, asked the executives to explain what would happen if the United States went into default for only a day or two.“Certainly, as we know, there are hundreds of millions of investors that are involved in the markets today that have put their hard-earned savings into the markets,” said Adena Friedman, the chief executive of Nasdaq. “And we would expect that the markets will react very, very negatively.”Mr. McConnell of Kentucky had long said Democrats must use a more complicated process known as reconciliation to overcome Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling. In his statement on Wednesday, he reiterated that the reconciliation process was the only option he supported for a longer-term increase in the limit, unless “Democrats abandon their efforts to ram through another historically reckless taxing and spending spree.”The financial sector had been projecting a grim two weeks ahead. A report released by Goldman Sachs said that there was little reason to believe Congress would meet the Oct. 18 deadline, but that “the public and financial market response would likely force a quick political resolution.”Senate Democrats are still weighing their options for a path forward. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that the White House did not want to keep prolonging things with an extension. “We don’t need to go through a cumbersome process that every day brings additional risks,” Ms. Psaki said.Asked why the White House does not support a short-term debt ceiling increase that could, at least temporarily, calm financial markets, Ms. Psaki replied, “Why not just get it done now?” She said Mr. Biden and Mr. McConnell had not yet spoken about the debt limit.The budget process of reconciliation would most likely involve two marathons of politically charged votes that Mr. Biden has predicted would be “fraught with all kinds of potential danger for miscalculation.” Democrats say there is no guarantee that Republicans wouldn’t drag those votes out to inflict procedural and political discomfort.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 9What is the debt ceiling? More