Your welcome bbsam. Although I came from the "right" if you will, I'm not of what is called "the right" so they may have a different take other than why I'm concerned about the present path. You said:
and you are right we didn't fall but first off, what is GDP? The short simple answer is it's the measure of the value of all goods and services produced within a country in a period of a year. But what do we use as the means to measure that value with? The dollar so to understand the real value and what we have to work with, would it not behove us to also consider the
value of that dollar (or another
fun approach)of which we use to measure GDP? When FDR did what he did, the value of the dollar was vastly stronger then than it is today with current actual value around a nickel and as these created debts begin to transition into real dollars and out into circulation, inflation will rear it's ugly head.
If you the private person go out and spend well beyond your means, what are your options when it comes time to pay the bill? Well if you can make the minimum payments, over time the debt can be retired or you can get banks to increase your credit limits and manipulate new credit lines to mask the underlying reality for a time, you can get a second job to retire the debt or make the current standard workable, you can get a raise (inflate) your salary or wages or you can re-structure the debt and take the hit. Gov't is using 2 of the above with one being more effective than the other. The more effective is seeking greater and greater credit limits, raise the debt ceiling, but the other has thus far elluded them. That is inflation.
Part of the reason inflation hasn't kicked in is that the private sector has been retiring debt as the gov't scambles to increase it thus maintaining a balance on the money supply and checking inflation in the face of vast increases in the national debt. "WAY TO GO AMERICA!" In light of this paying down debt, reducing the money supply (making dollar stronger in value) and thus pressuring de-flation, falling prices, falling wages, falling tax revs, falling GDP thus effecting that prized GDP to debt ratio and most important a stronger dollar actually effects the ability of gov't to service the very debt it created in our nam.
Still the same ole level of debt, I hope it becomes clear why the gov't is cannibalising the economy and the nation's future to keep it's own shell game afloat. Either way, the credit game will run out as the dollar reaches closer to zero, one reason many are fleeing the dollar now and when the borrowing stops, just as an airplane reaches an apex in a vertical ascent and falls backwards, so too will this shell game. It did in the private sector and so shall it also in the public arena.
Doug French wrote a pretty good basic article on
GDP worth consideration IMO and Frank Shostak put it best in his
August 2001' article on GDP when he said the following:
Also the gov't is using debt on future generations to transfer capital (wealth in the form of future tax burden) to today's corporations and yes private persons too as a means to pump up and get the economy rolling. From your POV, Obama and the democrats are trying to do good and help people. But consider this, where does this stand morally and ethically to in effect enslave a yet born or even concieved child with a debt of which we get the money today and they will have to labor tomorrow to pay the bill? How much harder will they have to work, the effect on the standard of living when they are transferring ever larger amounts of capital out of the private business sector just for debt service?
In order to live the good life, I go to Africa and enslave a bunch of folks and by force bring them over to work my fields (pay my burden) so I can enjoy a good life beyond my own ability as a sole individual to maintain/sustain just on my own. Is there really any difference on a moral or ethical level when you actually boil it all down or is it just easier to avoid the root philsophical and moral questions and cast it all aside as nothing more than political hyperbole? Stick your head in that political hole but the bottom line it is morally and ethically wrong no matter how you spin it. To future generations, we are nothing more than welfare queens!
Democrats do indeed IMHO violate all manner and princple of the ideal of the true Free Market, Laissez-Faire but even in their dishonesty, they've never pretended to be something they are not (well to a degree
) but republicans, the "right" if you will are certainly another matter or at least no better. Using economic law and truths applied to what Mises called "human action" IMO exposes the so-called republican right for what they are and what they have always been. I knew what the democrats were and by 1982' it was clear what republicans were so I departed them both as a whole and never looked back and what use to be an empty room that I stood is really starting to fill up with each passing day. The music is coming to an end, the chairs are reducing at ever fastening pace and the comedic irony is that both sides fight for the last chair believing they will stand atop the pinnacle of power but in fact that last chair will seat who everyone will focus as who to blame and then off the head of the poor dis-illusioned soul. Remember the warning of the Roman slave to the Roman general riding in chariot in grand percession? Whispering "all glory is fleeting!" Watch the folks in power as they more and more start to understand what is happening, bail out of the game and head for the exits. When this starts to further accelerate towards critical mass, then the whole thing will fall on it's face as they are on the inside looking out.
Also, if you sit down, shed the party loyality BS and honestly look at the historical record, you'll realize gov't actually causes the very misery they claim they are here to help. Once you begin to understand this everything else changes. I may not agree but enjoy your POV and the fact you are a FedExer makes it even more fun to watch!
