06-08-2017, 08:46 PM
(06-08-2017, 08:12 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Oh, I absolutely agree. I have railed on about this at length with people. I suppose I should expect nothing less but bastardizing any sort of economic theory when it is implemented by elected officials.
It's another thread, and I've mentioned it before but I'm not entirely sure rising debt in OECD countries isn't partially just accounting for the global deflation dividend. You're not supposed to be able to sustain these rates and debt levels without problematic inflation.....UNLESS the inflationary pressure is being offset with globalization....which would mean the govt pocketing that deflationary dividend is really a hidden tax.
However, it's not the case that growth in debt is all or even mostly intragovt (which is really a net of zero, i.e. Treasury owes the SS Trust). Intragovt debt is like 40-50% of the total, which sounds a lot better except that SS debt might have to be sold/re-issued to the public to pay entitlements. But the ratio hasn't increased that much, which means at least half the deficit is a very real liability we are accumulating.
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