Josh Zumbrun at the WSJ is hilarious

His headline report:

The Federal Deficit is Now Smaller than the Average Since the 1980s 

And he shows this chart.  But he has one problem. Unless Obama is Bill Clinton, the deficit has to get back to its normal giant size.  There is only one way to get the deficit higher, we have to crash the economy.

I don't think we will have a real crash, you know a watched pot never boils.  But in order to drive that deficit higher we will need a long period of the slogs, slow growth, less than 2%, for about a year.

Here is the IMF:

The Washington-based IMF said that more than half a decade in which official borrowing costs have been close to zero had encouraged speculation rather than the hoped-for pick up in investment.

In its half-yearly global financial stability report, it said the risks to stability no longer came from the traditional banks but from the so-called shadow banking system – institutions such as hedge funds, money market funds and investment banks that do not take deposits from the public.

José Viñals, the IMF’s financial counsellor, said: “Policymakers are facing a new global imbalance: not enough economic risk-taking in support of growth, but increasing excesses in financial risk-taking posing stability challenges.”

Viñals said the IMF had analysed 300 large banks in advanced economies, making up the bulk of their banking system. It found that institutions representing almost 40% of total assets lacked the financial muscle to supply adequate credit in support of the recovery. In the eurozone, this proportion rose to about 70%.

“And risks are shifting to the shadow banking system in the form of rising market and liquidity risks,” Viñals said. “If left unaddressed, these risks could compromise global financial stability.”