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We've been paying with the deficit for how many decades now? The economy has pretty consistently getting better and poverty has been going down since the 70s d
by caslon 5y ago
We've been paying with the deficit for how many decades now?
The economy has pretty consistently getting better and poverty has been going down since the 70s despite increasing our deficit spend rising every single year and inflation steadily going up.
Having an outlier period in inflation over the past three years because of a deadly pandemic is hardly a condemnation of the idea of deficit spending.
- chrisco255 5y agoWhat, in your opinion, are the limits of deficit spending? If there are none, then why not spend 500% of GDP and end poverty once and for all? Or is this time really different, as we approach 125% of GDP?
- WalterBright 5y agoHaving a pandemic doesn't suspend the laws of economics. I didn't condemn deficit spending. I simply pointed out that the extra money doesn't come for free - you and I are inevitably going to pay the bill.
- caslon 5y agoIf poverty is going down, how are we paying the bill? Our people are getting wealthier.
- howinteresting 5y agoThere's no such thing as "the laws of economics". There are goods and services and constraints, and there are economic models.
- WalterBright 5y agoCommunists, for example, are always trying to rewrite the laws of economics. They've failed at that 100% of the time. Wishful economic thinking never works. It's almost as if it's fundamentally a law!
- howinteresting 5y agoIt's not as if capitalist models of economics are that successful either at important goals like equality or sustainability. All models are wrong; some are useful.
- SamReidHughes 5y agoWhat are constraints if not laws?
- howinteresting 5y agoThey're constraints. "Laws" bring up connotations related to laws of physics.
- 8note 5y agoLaws in physics can be broken too. Eg. Energy is not conserved in some circumstances
- LaMarseillaise 5y agoEconomics is not physics. It has no laws. And the field could not exist if it were zero-sum. Edit: I should clarify that economics does not have laws in the same way physics does. The ‘law of diminishing returns’, for example, is more of a trend or generalization than an absolute, and is frequently violated in a way that gravity is not. Economics is also still not a well understood field. There may be government policies with unexpected effects due to that incomplete understanding. We have seen this many times.
- yardstick 5y ago> And the field could not exist if it were zero-sum. Is that an Economics law?
- WalterBright 5y agoThe money supply increases naturally with supply & demand. Inflation happens when the government prints money it has no intention of ever covering. > Economics is not physics Countries often deny the reality of economics, until their economies crash. Not one has successfully repealed the laws of economics.
- atlantas 5y agoLook up power laws.
- barrenko 5y agoWe don't understand our actions. We call it economics. But does not mean there are no laws because we don't want to see them.
- Buttons840 5y ago> deficit spend rising every single year We had a budget surplus in 2001 didn't we?
- magila 5y agoSort of. For the Federal Government having a budget surplus is not the same thing as actually spending less than it takes in. Due to various off budget expenditures the fed's total debt continued to increase even when it declared a budget surplus.
- WalterBright 5y ago> Due to various off budget expenditures the fed's total debt continued to increase even when it declared a budget surplus. Any private company doing government-style accounting would find themselves in jail for fraud. "off budget expenditures" - what a scam.