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10% unemployment is hardly a doomsday. Look at historical unemployment numbers and you will see it is not quite as bad as it has been portrayed to be. Over the past 20 years we have just become very used to what most egg heads consider "full employment."

From wikipedia:
In 1933, 25% of all workers and 37% of all nonfarm workers were unemployed.[32]

With that said it is still hard on those families hit by those situations and my best wishes go out to those who have lost their jobs.

BrPrometheus wrote:With that said it is still hard on those families hit by those situations and my best wishes go out to those who have lost their jobs.

And to be clear, I agree with this.

I just think it's fairly clear we avoided most of the worst scenarios in this thing.

Unemployment is nowhere near doomsday levels:

From wikipedia:

In 1933, 25% of all workers and 37% of all nonfarm workers were unemployed.[32]

That said my best wishes go out to those families that have lost incomes in this recesion. That is why I support a social safety net offered by the government to help those individuals get back on their feet. This include the healthcare bill as well as unemployment etc.

ComputerGeek01 wrote:As for the rest of you who say that government spending is nothing like personal finance your over simplification to justify what you don't understand is what makes this seem like more of a complex situation then it is.

No, that's just wrong. You even go on to point out situations where government budgets operate entirely differently to personal projects.

-Debt is NEVER paid back in full, so you only pay a fraction of what you borrow at any given time. This means that of the $10 Million you borrowed one year you pay back $500,000 every year after that for a century; and yes that probably is what our interest rate looks like 8-O.

Nonsense. Perpetual debt is incredibly rare. The standard length of bond rarely exceeds ten years. In most cases new bonds are issued in their place, but there are governments working towards or maintaining zero debt.

- Growth in the economy means growth of GDP. The publics works project gave a an anual surplus of $100,000,000.

Sort of. Not all government spending is equally effective at encouraging growth, nor is all spending geared towards long term growth.

Nor is the priority of current spending focussed strictly on long term growth - maintenance of current consumption is the focus.

So you see youbedead as long as the outcome of the deficit spending is more profitable then the cost of not doing it, because keep in mind if you decide not to do something then the money you could have made should be factored as a cost, then there is nothing wrong with it. This is how the big boys play.

You're referencing a solid concept (that debt can continue to grow indefinitely as long as GDP grows quicker, and the debt/GDP ratio will not grow) but mangling it and misapplying it to the current US situation. You're mangling it because you seem to be thinking that GDP growth is primarily driven by government projects - it isn't - government can stimulate and encourage growth but deficit spending on long term projects won't ever be enough by itself. You're misapplying it because debt in the US is growing at a much faster rate than GDP growth - unsustainably fast. You're also assuming the current level of total debt is fine - it isn't and it wasn't fine before Obama came to power and long term it needs to be pulled back considerably.

You're also mistaken in thinking the only cost to the economy is the interest paid. Think of it this way, every trillion dollars owed by government is a trillion dollars that wasn't available to business to invest. Deficit spending has it's place and when used well it is of tremendous benefit but it always comes at a cost to long term growth.


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Frazzled wrote:Ask Argentina this question, or Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic.

Present rate of inflation in the US - 2.1% per year.

Rate of inflation in the Weimar Republic - 29,000% per month.


These are totally and exactly the same thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gorgon wrote:You have a very loose definition of "doomsday."

He has a very specific definition - 'there's a Democrat in charge.'

gorgon wrote:Unemployment hit 10.8% in 1982. It hit 9.5% in the 1957-1958 recession.

You have a very loose definition of "doomsday."

Hey its a recession if its someone else. Its a depression if its you.