The level of U.S. debt has reached a point at which economic growth traditionally begins to slow, a bipartisan fiscal commission making recommendations to the White House and Congress was told Wednesday.
The gross U.S. debt is approaching a level equivalent to 90 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the level at which growth has historically declined, said Carmen Reinhart, a University of Maryland economist.
When gross debt hits 90 percent of GDP, Reinhart told the commission during a hearing in the Capitol, growth “deteriorates markedly.” Median growth rates fall by 1 percent, and average growth rates fall “considerably more,” she said.
Reinhart said the commission shouldn’t wait to put in place a plan to rein in deficits.
This means that people are on average poorer over time.
I’d sure like to know how such a policy can be called charitable by any liberal minded individual. But it sure has been.
Don
[b][i]1. DonGander[/i][/b],
It can be called [i]charitable[/i] in the same way that being in favor of a woman’s right to terminate the life of an inconvenient unborn baby can be called being [i]pro-choice[/i].
Whoever is permitted to define the terms ([i]i.e.[/i], the words to be used to frame the issue) has the opportunity to control the debate before it has begun.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
2. Martial Artist:
Yes, but to me the culprit is more the failed education system. It has always been battle between truth & fiction but never was there a society less capable of detecting the difference between them than the one we are now in.
In a side note, I’d also suggest that too many people took political science in the 1960s.
May I quote from the comments on the target article’s site?
“Apportioning blame is nifty and all, but doesn’t address the problem.”
Typical reasoning. It is what government has been doing for 2 years now; trying to fix the problem without blaming anyone; without even identifying the underlying causes. So the problem is exacerbated and our crisis intensifies.
No one is responsible/no one is to blame. What a nice existential world we live in.
I unreservedly concur with both of your observations. My only suggestion would be that your and my observations are probably part of a related whole. In my experience, people who are poorly educated aren’t as immediately conscious of the consequences of the use of words which embody category errors, any more than they are adept at moral (or most other varieties of) reasoning. The two go hand in hand, allowing our fellow citizens to “dance their way merrily to Hell,” as one Catholic priest whom I have heard characterizes it.
Keith Töpfer
It is all about being reelected, therefore it is all about being seen to be taking action to remedy the problem, whether the alleged remedy ultimately cures, or kills, the patient. I am put in mind of the history of J. Douglas Brown, a Princeton academician who was one of the designers of our Social Security System. In an interview in the Sunday Washington Post in the mid-1980s, he acknowledged that all of the members of the commission knew and agreed that the system was doomed to go bankrupt. He asserted that “the only error (they) made” was in underestimating the rate of change of life expectancy—they had assumed that life expectancy would continue to increase at an approximately steady rate. They had, therefore calculated that the system would be bankrupt in the early 21st century (as best I recall), by which time they would all be dead and buried, so “no one could do anything to them” when it happened. If that newspaper had a searchable online archive I would love to obtain a link to that article. Of course, now most of us know that Social Security is, essentially, a Ponzi scheme, despite the fact that I work with “college educated” adults who swear that it has all been “fixed” and won’t go belly up.
Professor Brown died of old age within two weeks of the inteview article being published. If I ever get back to D.C., I will see if I can get access to the morgue, having first looked up his date of death. One wonders if, at the day of judgment, God will agree with Professor Brown that their misestimation will have been his “only mistake.” I rather suspect not.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
That would be a reference to the “morgue” of the Washington Post’s old issues.
This article should be read in conjunction with this one:
“US money supply plunges at 1930s pace as Obama eyes fresh stimulus”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7769126/US-money-supply-plunges-at-1930s-pace-as-Obama-eyes-fresh-stimulus.html
Martial Artist – this might be the link – Social Security Architect, 87, Still Fighting. The first paragraph (which is all I can get) reads:
It’s from the Post’s August 11, 1985, archives but one has to buy the complete document or buy the print page, and I’ll leave that to you 🙂
Jim,
As usual, you beat me to the punch. Well done. (You know, I just plain like you.)
[b][i]9. Branford[/i][/b],
Thank you very much. I wonder when they put that online? I had searched in vain as recently as about 12-15 months ago without success. I will likely purchase the page view and take screen grabs, or some alternative, in order to have the actual quotes of the arrogant illegitimate son of a female canine.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer