government spending helps our economy?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/ ... bt-crisis/

Debt crisis or not?

I think you have to take things into context, it is neat to see what happened in the past but you must compare all. the 100% debt to Gdp, came after the great depression I suppose. However what lifted us out was the war II, and the reason all the manufacturing.

Now thanks to various reasons, taxing/regulations/environuts our manufacturing is declining at an awesome rate. Maybe someone more intune will correct me, but I don't think you will really change your debt to GDP without manufacturing.


So that must be looked at, just casue debt was high compared to gdp years ago and we were fine, doesn't mean it will be the same today.




Eric

Coalfire wrote:I think you have to take things into context, it is neat to see what happened in the past but you must compare all. the 100% debt to Gdp, came after the great depression I suppose. However what lifted us out was the war II, and the reason all the manufacturing.

Now thanks to various reasons, taxing/regulations/environuts our manufacturing is declining at an awesome rate. Maybe someone more intune will correct me, but I don't think you will really change your debt to GDP without manufacturing.


So that must be looked at, just casue debt was high compared to gdp years ago and we were fine, doesn't mean it will be the same today.




Eric

Very true! Manufacturing in the U.S. today is in a shambles...but we as citizens demand a great product at a cheap price....we may have to pay a higher price for something that is made here and the questions remains are we willing to do so these days!

Northern Maine wrote:

Coalfire wrote:I think you have to take things into context, it is neat to see what happened in the past but you must compare all. the 100% debt to Gdp, came after the great depression I suppose. However what lifted us out was the war II, and the reason all the manufacturing.

Now thanks to various reasons, taxing/regulations/environuts our manufacturing is declining at an awesome rate. Maybe someone more intune will correct me, but I don't think you will really change your debt to GDP without manufacturing.


So that must be looked at, just casue debt was high compared to gdp years ago and we were fine, doesn't mean it will be the same today.




Eric

Very true! Manufacturing in the U.S. today is in a shambles...but we as citizens demand a great product at a cheap price....we may have to pay a higher price for something that is made here and the questions remains are we willing to do so these days!

great product and cheap price do not go together, that is the problem with what I call the walmart mentality you can buy more garbage you don't need. Hey it was cheap enough. I have no problem spending money for something that will last, however nothing seems to be built that way anymore. Well AA and EFM coal boilers still are built the same way they were years ago

Northern Maine wrote:

Coalfire wrote:I think you have to take things into context, it is neat to see what happened in the past but you must compare all. the 100% debt to Gdp, came after the great depression I suppose. However what lifted us out was the war II, and the reason all the manufacturing.

Now thanks to various reasons, taxing/regulations/environuts our manufacturing is declining at an awesome rate. Maybe someone more intune will correct me, but I don't think you will really change your debt to GDP without manufacturing.


So that must be looked at, just casue debt was high compared to gdp years ago and we were fine, doesn't mean it will be the same today.




Eric

Very true! Manufacturing in the U.S. today is in a shambles...but we as citizens demand a great product at a cheap price....we may have to pay a higher price for something that is made here and the questions remains are we willing to do so these days!

I am trying, I admit it is difficult. I needed a shelving unit for my basement to try to organize a little. The wife and I were at Sams for groceries and I saw a great shelving unit MADE IN USA. Bought 2, 1 for me and 1 for the shop. I am seeing a lot more steel parts starting to come back this way. Companies are realizing the true costs of overseas manufacturing. We have had people come in to the shop and say they can get product X made in China for a lot less for us. When you run the numbers it really doesn't work. Its easy for us to see the #s because we are a small MFG, the larger MFGs just have to look a little deeper and see how little difference it makes. Manager A says I saved $3.50 for this to be made in wherever outside the US. Upper manager say great job you get promoted and move on. His / Her replacement manager gets looking and finds she can have it made here and save $1 because of shipping costs and quality control and whatever. Turns out a net profit of $4.50.
Companies need to look at the big picture not just the #s. We as consumers can do more by demanding American Made it isn't easy but it can save us.

Some one is apparently doing the math wrong.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-2 ... t-gdp-1024

September 30, 2012 US Debt-To-GDP: 102.4%

When you have raised the limit on your credit card every year for the past several years, I'd say you have a problem.

I don't know how Fox figures the ratio at 60% but I do know the old saying "Figures lie and liars figure" and Fox is a bunch of liars.

Government spending should not even be counted in GDP because it's mostly non consumer goods.

If government spending was a net positive, the Soviet Union would still be alive today!

If government spending is so great, why do we bother to earn a living. Just let the government pay your way. In fact, go communist all the way, and let the government arrange and provide for everything. That would provide for maximum stimulus.

The reason why Republicans believe the engine of growth of the economy will falter if we go off the cliff and cuts kick in is that they all went to the same schools as Democrats, and they learned the very same Keynesian economics as the Democrats. They had no real choice. If you are schooled in and put your trust in Keynes, you become a university professor, or you get a job with the government. If you are an Austrian Economist, you are at best considered a good joke for the MSM's talking heads to poke about during ratings sweep week, like Peter Schiff for example.

Actually the theory is that spending from any source derived is good, and if the plebes are not spending, the government must do the spending for them. It matters little what the spending is for, and in fact the likes of Krugman have suggested that tossing money away at projects such as digging holes one day and filling them in the next is about all that is really required. One of Keynes very own favorites was the concept of burying fiat paper money in jars in old abandoned coal mines filled with refuse (this specific part is apparently quite important) and then letting people dig it back up to in effect "earn" it, with the net effect being just as good as and as purposeful as gold mining (as I have detailed in another thread). The genius of these men never ceases to amaze me.

Buying Chinese goods also helps our economy by the Keynesian method. Why did President Bush get on TV right after 9/11 and literally say that he wanted Americans to continue spending as if nothing had happened? Because all that matters to a Keynsian is that you spend, spend, spend. On what, or from what source, or for what are irrelevant. The only thing that seems to have no relevance here is honest productivity and labor, the two things that combine to make the real wealth for which paper and gold and the like are merely proxies.

In the Keynesian world the mere proxy has replaced the real wealth in its importance and relevance. The last time this happened was back when Spain was raping the New World of its gold and silver in the belief that these metals would maintain its world dominance. They became lazy sloths that produced and innovated in nothing, and the very productive and innovative British kicked their behind sides. They never recovered from it. Could this be a harbinger of what the very productive and innovative Chinese might someday do to us?

I think you must take this back to common sense, and that is reeling it back to what we can all understand.

If you have a teenage son who is making $10,000 per year in a part time job, and is spending $22,000 per year using his credit card, I think 100 out of 100 parents would simply take the credit card away from the kid and tell them to curb his spending.

That did not happen in America at election time, and it is not happening now, and both Republican and Democrat legislatures simple do not get this.

What we are seeing today amounts to telling the kid to go out and get another job so that he will make more money. The problem is, if you do not stop the over-spending, you simply keep spending more then you are making. We must get the spending on the table first, but no side is really doing that. They are posturing for where the extra revenue is going to come from; the 1% that are wealthy, the middle-class, higher taxes for all...it is all dross on the smelted gold...useless gibberish until the spending gets slashed.

The director of Human Services said it best when talking about cuts to her department; where 80% of the Maine budget goes. She said, "We have created a great program here in Maine, and while we would all love to keep it, the fact is Maine can simply no longer afford to offer that level of service."

The world does not operate in a vacuum; when services are cut, they are replaced by something else, but often times innovation, technology and just plain efficient management does what government just cannot do, and that is run efficiently without bureaucracy.

lsayre wrote:Actually the theory is that spending from any source derived is good, and if the plebes are not spending, the government must do the spending for them. It matters little what the spending is for, and in fact the likes of Krugman have suggested that tossing money away at projects such as digging holes one day and filling them in the next is about all that is really required. One of Keynes very own favorites was the concept of burying fiat paper money in jars in old abandoned coal mines filled with refuse (this specific part is apparently quite important) and then letting people dig it back up to in effect "earn" it, with the net effect being just as good as and as purposeful as gold mining (as I have detailed in another thread). The genius of these men never ceases to amaze me.

Buying Chinese goods also helps our economy by the Keynesian method. Why did President Bush get on TV right after 9/11 and literally say that he wanted Americans to continue spending as if nothing had happened? Because all that matters to a Keynsian is that you spend, spend, spend. On what, or from what source, or for what are irrelevant. The only thing that seems to have no relevance here is honest productivity and labor, the two things that combine to make the real wealth for which paper and gold and the like are merely proxies.

In the Keynesian world the mere proxy has replaced the real wealth in its importance and relevance. The last time this happened was back when Spain was raping the New World of its gold and silver in the belief that these metals would maintain its world dominance. They became lazy sloths that produced and innovated in nothing, and the very productive and innovative British kicked their behind sides. They never recovered from it. Could this be a harbinger of what the very productive and innovative Chinese might someday do to us?

Tell us then what works and is tried and true....Libertarianism? As I have questioned in the past...where has it worked in a developed country?

NoSmoke wrote:I think you must take this back to common sense, and that is reeling it back to what we can all understand.

If you have a teenage son who is making $10,000 per year in a part time job, and is spending $22,000 per year using his credit card, I think 100 out of 100 parents would simply take the credit card away from the kid and tell them to curb his spending.

That did not happen in America at election time, and it is not happening now, and both Republican and Democrat legislatures simple do not get this.

What we are seeing today amounts to telling the kid to go out and get another job so that he will make more money. The problem is, if you do not stop the over-spending, you simply keep spending more then you are making. We must get the spending on the table first, but no side is really doing that. They are posturing for where the extra revenue is going to come from; the 1% that are wealthy, the middle-class, higher taxes for all...it is all dross on the smelted gold...useless gibberish until the spending gets slashed.

The director of Human Services said it best when talking about cuts to her department; where 80% of the Maine budget goes. She said, "We have created a great program here in Maine, and while we would all love to keep it, the fact is Maine can simply no longer afford to offer that level of service."

The world does not operate in a vacuum; when services are cut, they are replaced by something else, but often times innovation, technology and just plain efficient management does what government just cannot do, and that is run efficiently without bureaucracy.

Simple terms and well spoken!

Excellent post because it deals in common sense except that common sense is not what makes the world go round or the US Government.

We are back to the biology of human beings and the thousand and one reasons for doing things that are not always apparent even to the individual involved or government.

Lets just raise taxes, there's plenty more where that came from. Lets also have a $100 minimum wage.

Northern Maine wrote:Tell us then what works and is tried and true....Libertarianism? As I have questioned in the past...where has it worked in a developed country?

It seems to have worked rather well for about the first 80 years of our Nation. It got us off to a fairly good start, wouldn't you say? In fact, our very Constitution could not have been generated by the welfare socialists of today. They called it Liberalism way back then, but the term was usurped and corrupted, so when it came time to revive it they chose the word Libertarianism instead.

Northern Maine wrote:Tell us then what works and is tried and true....Libertarianism? As I have questioned in the past...where has it worked in a developed country?

How do you deny the history of the world?

From the thaler to the Spanish "piece of eight" which was legal US tender until the late 1800's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar

The Spanish silver dollar had been the world's outstanding coin since the early 16th century, and was spread partially by dint of the vast silver output of the Spanish colonies in Latin America. More important, however, was that the Spanish dollar, from the 16th to the 19th century, was relatively the most stable and least debased coin in the Western world.

HOLY CRAP! A unit of money that held it's value for THREE CENTURIES!? The Federal Reserve Note has collapsed since 1971. Forty years and it's junk.

Yep, keep fighting the blatantly obvious and arguing for what clearly doesn't work.

Here's a challenge, show us a fiat currency that has lasted more than century.

"I don't know how Fox figures the ratio at 60% but I do know the old saying "Figures lie and liars figure" and Fox is a bunch of liars."

So what modern day news provider do you utilize that does not lie?