Forget the fiscal cliff – there’s a much bigger threat out there

US politicians may have reached a deal to avert the ‘fiscal cliff’. But there’s a much bigger threat to your wealth to worry about. John Stepek explains what it is, and what you can do about it.

John Stepek
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With their last-minute deal on the fiscal cliff', US politicians have proven yet again that government promises to cut spending are about as reliable as our own annual vows to do more press-ups, eat less cake, and stick to 21 units of alcohol a week.

It seems the cliff' was more of a speed bump than the precipice that everyone had dreaded. But what does the deal mean for your money?

We'll be back at the cliff edge in a couple of months

Cast your minds back to August 2011. That summer, the US lost its AAA credit rating. Why? Because politicians couldn't agree on what to do about the country's huge debt pile.

Back then, the Democrats and the Republicans were squabbling over raising the federal debt ceiling above $14.5 trillion. The debt ceiling is a completely arbitrary legal ceiling on the amount of money the US government can borrow.

When it was first introduced, the idea was that it would act as some sort of brake on government spending. Instead, it's simply been raised every time a government has decided it wants to spend more.

On this occasion, however, the conflict was more bitter. The ceiling was raised, but only after both sides agreed to a package of automatic spending cuts that would come in from 2 January 2013 ie today unless politicians agreed on an alternative deal. On top of that, temporary' tax cuts introduced by George W Bush were also set to expire at almost the same time.

So Americans would be paying more tax, while government spending would be slashed. That promised to be a painful dose of austerity, which many believed would send the economy tumbling back into recession.

Understandably, markets were nervous about such an outcome. That's why they've all shot up this morning after a deal was reached last night in the US.

But what's the deal?

So far, the Bush-era tax cuts have been kept for everyone except Americans who earn more than $400,000 a year (or $450,000 for families). Meanwhile, the automatic budget cuts have been delayed for at least two months.

In other words, they've kicked the can down the road' yet again. Given that the point of all this panic was to cut spending, it's hardly an impressive outcome. Various proposals floating around until now had looked at ways to cut between $2trn and $4trn over ten years from the national debt. As it stands, this fiscal cliff' deal will actually add $4trn to the debt over ten years.

Amusingly enough, it also means that in just two months' time, America's politicians will find themselves back where they were in August 2011. They'll be squabbling over whether to raise the debt ceiling, and how to cut spending. Only this time, the national debt will be up at $16.4trn, not $14.5trn.

This is the problem. As Reuters points out, the fiscal cliff is now turning into more of a mountain range to be navigated. Once the February deadline is passed, there are other deadlines in March. And at each of these turning points, Republicans will be calling for spending cuts, and Democrats will be looking for tax hikes.

It's not quite as bad as the rolling crises we've seen in the eurozone over the past few years, but there's more than enough potential drama to keep markets on their toes over the coming months. That means you can expect plenty of noise and artificial panic and headline-grabbing on this topic between now and March at least.

Forget the day-to-day drama the end-game is inflation

As an investor, you need to take a step back from all this. What have we learned from Europe, or even the UK's own attempts to cut? It's that when push comes to shove, politicians would rather not take the hard choices.

The path of least resistance is the inflationary path. That means loose monetary policy which we already have almost everywhere and loose fiscal policy, where possible. Like everywhere else, the US would much rather inflate its way out of trouble, rather than repay its debts or live more within its means.

So you can expect deals to be reached every time the politicians meet up. Even if it means the fiscal cliff face just keeps being shunted further off into the future.

Meanwhile, monetary policy will remain extremely slack. As regular contributor James Ferguson explained in MoneyWeek magazine recently, this is an increasingly risky path for the US to take.

Before, quantitative easing (QE) offset deflationary pressure. But now that the US economy is no longer on the brink of collapsing into a black hole, QE could turn out to be far more inflationary. It won't be obvious at first. But by the time it is, it'll be too late to reverse course. James discussed this topic in more detail at our recent New Year roundtable. You can read the whole thing in the next issue of MoneyWeek, out on Friday.

Given our concerns about inflation, we'd keep holding gold in your portfolio as insurance. But we'd also be keeping a tight hold of your Japanese investments. If one country would actively benefit from inflation, it's Japan. And new boss Shinzo Abe seems determined to make it happen. The value of the yen has plunged since he took power, and various lobbyists are now pushing for it to weaken even further.

But it's not just about the weak yen our roundtable experts also give their views on the other reasons to be upbeat about Japan in the next issue. If you're not already a subscriber, now's a great time to start subscribe to MoneyWeek magazine.

This article is taken from the free investment email Money Morning. Sign up to Money Morning here .

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John Stepek
John Stepek

John is the executive editor of MoneyWeek and writes our daily investment email, Money Morning. John graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news. John joined MoneyWeek in 2005.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.

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