[lbo-talk] on Doug's latest show, Galbraith

Marv Gandall marvgand at gmail.com
Sun Nov 25 14:03:09 PST 2012


On 2012-11-25, at 4:16 PM, "Jordan Hayes" <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:


> Marv Gandall, perhaps on a "smart"phone, writes:
>
>> in other words, the proposition that deficits of this
>> magnitude are unsustainAble for so long as the economy
>> is operating below full capacity, debt service charges
>> are at historic lows, and denominatedin a currency which
>> enjoys safe haven status even at this deficit to gdp ratio
>> in seems to me unproven and more of an ideological construct
>> designed to justify spending cuts to social programs.
>
> Maybe I'm just parsing this wrong, but the folks who are ideologically hoping to justify spending cuts to social programs are not the same people who are saying that higher-than-normal deficits are fine until we have a real recovery; further, the wanna-cutters waive a threat of high interest rates and/or hyper-inflation if the deficits continue, which has no basis in economic theory or history.

Indeed. Had I had time to edit the statement properly, it would have read:

In other words, the proposition that deficits of this magnitude are unsustainable seems to me unproven and more of an ideological construct to justify spending cuts to social programs - particularly for so long as the economy is operating below full capacity, debt service charges are at record lows, and denominated in a currency which still enjoys safe haven status.

Sorry for the confusion.



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