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"For decades, politicians and pundits on the right have told us that we need to balance the federal budget in order to keep inflation low; this remains a staple
by noelchurchill 16y ago
"For decades, politicians and pundits on the right have told us that we need to balance the federal budget in order to keep inflation low; this remains a staple of libertarian thinking (even though economic research demonstrates that except in wartime, there is effectively no relationship between the size of government spending and the existence of inflation)."
Well in that case, lets just stay out of war and let the gov hand out monthly payments to everyone so we don't have to work anymore. If government spending doesn't lead to inflation then this should work out fine.
- jacquesm 16y agoI think there is wisdom in the first part of your plan, but I'm not so sure about the second.
- noelchurchill 16y agoLol, ya maybe we should keep our day jobs just in case.
- gaius 16y agoNotice the phrasing. Not government borrowing, not "quantitative easing" (printing money) but spending. In the US and UK there's never been a peacetime high-spending government that didn't also borrow unsustainably. So if you're say Sweden (high tax, high spending) then perhaps you can avoid high inflation, but you can't extrapolate from there to dissimilar economies.
- noelchurchill 16y agoI don't think you read the article, or specifically the quote in my comment you're replying to. It specifically refers to the concern about balancing the budget. You can't run a unbalanced deficit budget without borrowing.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Gormo 16y agoI realize you're being sarcastic, but I don't see how it is possible to hand out payments to everyone and not cause inflation.