The Crisis and Your Pocketbook
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Readers have flooded our e-mail with questions about the financial crisis. Here are some answers. Go tohttp:/
Q. How will the soaring budget deficit affect my investments?
A. Not positively.
"If the budget deficit grows, that means the government has to borrow a lot more money," said Reena Aggarwal, a finance professor at Georgetown University. "That means there's a lot more demand for capital because the budget deficit has to be financed somehow. Non-government entities are also competing for the same capital."
What does that spell? Higher interest rates. "It's a supply and demand thing," Aggarwal said. The more people want a certain good, the scarcer that good becomes and the more a provider can charge for that good. Put simply, the cost of the debt goes up.
"The debt has to find a buyer," said Benjamin Friedman, a Harvard University political economist.
On the bright side, investors are likely to see higher interest rates for their savings accounts.
The not-so-bright side isn't so much fun: Interest rates on everything from mortgages to car loans could go up, Aggarwal said. The higher interest rates could mean that it will cost companies more to borrow, so they may cut back on capital expenditures or take profit hits, which could hurt their stock prices, which could negatively affect already sagging 401(k) plans.
"It's not a good outlook for investments right now," Aggarwal said. "Ultimately it's the common person who gets affected by all of this."
Why is the bailout directed at financial institutions instead of ordinary citizens?
The problem the federal government is trying to address is at the macro level. An immediate concern is job loss, said Susan Wachter, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
