Charting our Economy
Dr Q
Dr Q
Deficit spending continued out of control until the tax increase of 1994. For just a few years, until 2001, it looked like we had finally found the right balance, bringing the debt down while enjoying a booming economy. Then the triple hit of tax cuts, the Iraq war, and some huge giveaways to the drug industry brought back out-of-control deficits. Even worse, excessive de-regulation of the housing market brought a market crash that nearly destroyed the world economy, and started a recession that took eight years to recover and brought our national debt to $20 trillion ($200,000 per average taxpayer).
We are now at a critical decision point, no less challenging than our ancestors faced going into WWII. Do we go for another round of voodoo economics, or accept some sacrifice and show the world that we can bring our economy back from the edge. We have been very lucky that interest on our $20 trillion debt has been low. The Federal Reserve has been able to set interest rates low without regard to market forces, largely because the dollar is seen as the world's reserve currency and a safe place to hold cash. What happens if interest rates return to normal, say 5%. The interest on our national debt then soars to over a trillion dollars per year, wiping out our federal budget, and quite likely leading to a collapse like we have seen in third-world countries.
It can't happen here, right? Our leaders will put aside their partisan games and do the right thing. Our president will rally the country to get behind a few years of sacrifice and leave a better economy for our kids. Nobody has ever won betting against the USA. I just have a creepy feeling that many of our leaders now spouting lies about their new tax plan are aware of their duplicity and have their own personal exit plans. They and their families will do well, even if our country's economy collapses.
Make no mistake, the top 1% are doing very well indeed in the USA. Here is a chart from a recent report by the World Inequality Database. Looks like that bottom 50% (or is it 47% :>) are lazy SOBs, living off our too-generous welfare state, while the top 1% are working twice as hard as they were 40 years ago !!
Share of National Income
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/14/business/world-inequality.html
Dr Q
So now we have inflation under control, and the economy is soaring, why the worry? What could cause an investment in US Bonds to fail? Take another look at that chart of Federal Debt, and give that question some thought.
Dr Q
Ideally, deficits should be used to cut off a recession, and a small surplus at all other times to get ready for the next recession. Instead what we have is pure short-term opportunism. Politicians borrow our children's money to buy the next election. That is all they care about.
Without a long-term balance, we are doomed to bankruptcy. It could happen in the next few years.
Here is another interesting chart on this topic from Paul Krugman, also a genius on explaining things.
Fiscal stimulus should be high when unemployment is high, as it was until 2009. After that, the Republican Congress forced an austerity policy in the middle of the biggest recession since the 1930s. This had the predictable effect of prolonging the recession. Now that the recession is over, the Republicans are engaging in record levels of deficit spending, exactly the opposite of what they should do.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/opinion/the-perversion-of-fiscal-policy-slightly-wonkish.html?
Dr Q
Link [2] has some confessions of former Fox hosts John Avlon and Alisyn Camerota, now admitting that Republicans' concern about deficits was always a con.