4 ms·
The cost of doing nothing for two years
- LurkingGrue 16y ago"You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," - Dick Cheney
- AndyKelley 16y agoWhat would happen if we made it unconstitutional to change the budget in a such a way that expenses were greater than income?
- iwr 16y agoThat's not enough. As we've seen, government income can occasionally spike. You also need a flexible way to cut expenses further. It's probably not possible to economize on government budgets, why they periodically go bust (debt is cleared by sticking it to the creditors). It happens more often than people think. In the last century, the US did in 1971, the USSR was bankrupt at the end, Russia itself reneged again in 1998. The worrying trend is that, to prevent smaller bankruptcies, the US, EU, Japan etc. are prepared to stake their collective solvency. I call that the real systemic risk. What was the terrible scenario evoked by the financial papers back in '08? Could it be any worse than the debt collapse of all the major economies?
- AndyKelley 16y agoI guess that's what happens when money is imaginary. I'm sad that more politicians (citizens?) don't care about the budget. It's not that hard to balance a budget!