Post by the Scribe on Mar 10, 2020 10:30:01 GMT
• The debt has never been this large: The proper measure of the size of the debt is relative to the size of the economy. Gross Domestic Product is typically used as the gauge of the latter. Even the most extreme measures of where it stands today puts debt/GDP at less than 100%. It reached it peak during WWII, when it was around 120% of GDP. The 1950s were , incidentally, hardly a period of economic Armageddon.
• We have largest debt in the world: According to the CIA Factbook, as of 2010 we ranked 37th. That put us behind the world average, Spain, The Netherlands, Austria, the UK, Israel, Germany, Portugal, France, Ireland, Belgium, and Japan.
• The debt must be repaid: We must, of course, meet the “monthly payments,” but the level of debt need never be zero. The government has an infinite life span, so there is no day of reckoning when all debts must be settled. And since the debt is owed in dollars, there is never any question that we have the ability to repay since we are allowed to issue brand new ones at any time. Nor is this necessarily inflationary, as explained in the next fallacy.
www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2011/07/02/learn-to-love-the-deficit/#281bd3f6723d
• We have largest debt in the world: According to the CIA Factbook, as of 2010 we ranked 37th. That put us behind the world average, Spain, The Netherlands, Austria, the UK, Israel, Germany, Portugal, France, Ireland, Belgium, and Japan.
• The debt must be repaid: We must, of course, meet the “monthly payments,” but the level of debt need never be zero. The government has an infinite life span, so there is no day of reckoning when all debts must be settled. And since the debt is owed in dollars, there is never any question that we have the ability to repay since we are allowed to issue brand new ones at any time. Nor is this necessarily inflationary, as explained in the next fallacy.
www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2011/07/02/learn-to-love-the-deficit/#281bd3f6723d