Comments on: The United States Has Not Had A Balanced Budget Since 1957!

By: Henry Molleker

Henry Molleker — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:21:27 +0000

While inflation is bad terrible in fact, stagnant close minded economic thought repeated by rote is worse.The same people who have engaged in a class war, bordering on genocide, on the working and middle class resulting in falling real wages for the last three decades are concerned about the working and middle class savings being diluted.This ignores the disastrous economic policies, which this Web site to its credit often details, that have led the working and middle not to have savings but higher credit limits. There is a reason the national saving rate from the 1970s crashed from the low teens to negative or close to zero since then.Instead of bailing out the incompetent rich and powerful in 2008, if we had used monetary instead of fiscal policy to enforce accountability the country would be on the road to a real recovery instead of a slow repeat of the fall of the Spanish and Ottoman empires.The financial services industry should have had to come clean that for the last 30 years, since deregulation, it has been engaged in criminal fraud and not living up to its fiduciary duty. The financial services industry should have been forced to write off the trillions of junk options and other junk paper that it has been generating for the last few decades.Let the losses speak for themselves on the replacement of capitalism with casino corporatism for the American and Western economic model that Wall Street had engineered since deregulation.Once Wall Street had to come clean on the trillions of losses it had incurred so as to maximize bonuses the Wall Streeters, the Fed would provide the equivalent in trillions in equity capital in losses that had just been generated.This would lead to no inflation as there is no increase in the money supply. The trillions that the Fed provided would just be a replacement for the trillions that had been written off as losses.The financial services industry would be full funded and strengthened as it would now be completely funded, have all the bad paper off its books, and be forced to be accountable to explain the trillions in losses the whiz kid and sharks of Wall Street had incurred upon their firms which lead Wall Street to act properly again. Win Win Win. Except for the incompetent and amoral former elites and the wealthy and powerful power brokers that were formerly richly rewarded for playing with paper and swishing money around.And the shareholders of the financial firms would be made poorer. But that is as it should be under capitalism. If you let incompetent people run unrestrained in running your companies, then you should suffer the consequences so as not to do so again.This model would also solve the European debt crisis. For some reason short sighted policy makers want to solve a monetary problem with a fiscal solution. Even if their fiscal solutions will sink every economy in Europe.Lastly about economic and monetary policy, why is raising interest rates considered to be the main policy option. Countless economic studies have shown a 1% increase in interest rates leads to an ¼ to 1/3 increase in inflation. Since capital is the most fundamental input in capitalism, making capital more expensive would make inflation worse not better.Yet in spite of all the studies that say otherwise, our economic decision makers still spout the same line and use the same failed policies.Lastly, the trauma of the civil war to be reinacted because of a 5% rate is ridiculous.Of greater concern is that real inflation rate since the 1980s is much higher that officially reported due to changes in method used to calculate economic growth, employment, and inflation.Using pre mid 1980s methods to calculate inflation whould show that the accumulated inflation rate since then to now thas been understated by 80%

By: guy hubbard

guy hubbard — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:15:34 +0000

the answers are simple – have direct plebiscites on issues such as Afghanistan and tax rates, and have mandatory surpluses whenever unemployment drops below 6%. Oh, and put an extra dollar of tax on every gallon of petrol. That will help reduce both trade and budget deficits.

By: Daily Ball: Cheapest Cell Plan, Porn Ruins Real Sex, more (links) | Be on the ball

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:07:06 +0000

[...] The last time the budget was balanced was in 1957. The President was Eisenhower. The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress [...]

By: The Return of Mercantilism « The Angry Sovereign

The Return of Mercantilism « The Angry Sovereign — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 15:52:52 +0000

[...] Keynesianism creates another problem. According to Keynes, governments should run deficits during a recession, and run a surplus during times of high inflation. However, Keynes never mentioned stagflation or a solution for it. Could it be that stagflation is the end result for economies that adhere to Keynesianism? At any rate, the United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957. [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:11:59 +0000

Well said guys (Geldpress/M. Colins) You hit it on the head. Nuff said about that one.

By: M Colins

M Colins — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 05:44:46 +0000

Wilson appears to be one of that species of Democrat who likes to believe that all problems started with George W Bush, and somehow misses the fact that the guy who supposedly was going to fix Bushes “failure” has instead increased it by orders of magnitude.

At the same time he implies that Bush was a profligate spender (he was) as though the Left was fighting him on this when the fact is that the Democrats were his willing partner in every spending initiative, disliking them only in that they felt they didn’t spend near enough.

Now we are told by the Keynesians that governmental spending is good and necessary…..but the same thing was somehow bad during Bush.

The only logically consistent position one can take is that if Bushes spending was bad then the proper course for Obama would have been to slow or reduce it. Somehow the Democrats would have us believe that the fix for bad fiscal policy is to repeat it on an even larger scale.

By: United States National Debt Limit | Geldpress

United States National Debt Limit | Geldpress — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:26:14 +0000

[...] The United States last balanced budget was in 1957 [...]

By: geldpress

geldpress — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:11:11 +0000

Wilson, you should write for CNN. You would fit right in with those clowns who have no concept of government finance or economics.

Go check the source. The national debt has increased EVERY YEAR since 1957. Last I checked, Clinton, Bush, and Obama were all part of the clown squad between 1957-2011.

By: Wilson

Wilson — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:32:44 +0000

Don’t you people know that cutting taxes balances the budget? Look at the Bush tax cuts. Look at the great economy he left us. What we need to do is cut taxes further and cut all government jobs- or even just ten million. The 3.8 million cut since Jan 2011 just aren’t enough to save the economy. We will need nearly full government unemployment to balance the budget. It’s well known tax cuts will make everything better under every circumstance. Liberals want to advance their agenda by raising taxes for ‘jobs’. Everyone knows the Government doesn’t create jobs- aside from military, police and prisons. Look at the stimulus Obama pushed on us. The jobs created by it were quickly lost in 2011 in a patriotic attempt to discredit the stimulus and balance the budget for the first time in a decade. Thank God Republicans are talking about balancing the budget now. They didn’t need to balance the budget when Bush was President because he didn’t create any debt- it was the war and Liberals that did it. Bush cut taxes and that kept the budget balanced until Obama ruined the economy.

By: Merged Credit downgrade threads - Page 41 - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:15:09 +0000

[...] Quote: Originally Posted by LibocalypseNow It's pretty clear there has to be a massive landslide decimation of the Democratic Party in 2012. They need to be completely swept from power. Maybe then we can get a Balanced Budget Amendment. Because that's just not gonna happen as long as the Democrats are in power. They have to go. Hopefully this will happen in 2012. Hmmmm, no balanced budget since 1957, debt limit increases many times over and over, and now, suddenly conservative? what a switch. The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress [...]