Monday, September 26, 2005
What follows will be a picture perfect economic crash landing
Reuters via Doug Henwood via Brad DeLong:
Reuters - September 24, 2005: Paul Carrel: WASHINGTON -- U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told France's Finance Minister Thierry Breton the United States has "lost control" of its budget deficit, the French minister said on Saturday. "
Budget deficits are funny things. The US ran an enormous budget deficit through World War II and things worked out well. Yes, some scary inflation and shortages of beef in the late 1940s, but winning the war put the nation on the track for prosperity. On the other hand, Germany lost World War I, tried to print money, and ended up with wild hyperinflation.
Winning and losing wars makes a difference. If the US could eliminate (or vastly reduce) weapons of mass destruction by its "war on terror," things would work out.
It may yet accomplish that, since it has most of the WMDs on earth. The Russians are second, and they can't afford theirs either. Both of our budget deficits could be eliminated by eliminating WMDs and pretensions to being grander than other nations.
But until these changes happen, economic disaster is very likely.
But -- but Charles!
ReplyDeleteIf you eliminated the WMDs, how would "defense" contractors make billions and billions? They would be down to making only billions, poor things!
When was the last time the Defense Department actually defended the United States? They should go back to calling it the War Department and end that bit of hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteThe Center for Defense Information, run by former military officers, says we can get by with half the "defense" budget if we stop using the Department of Defense for offense.