My wife is from England, not far from Cambridge University where Maynard Keynes attended, so I thought I'd compare national debts. The UK is sitting at 1 Trillion pounds.
Deficit spending isn't without it's successes, the Great Depression being the chief representative in my mind. We wouldn't have the many interstates and other public works if not for the government of pre-WWII spending money that it didn't have.
Now any economist would be quick to point out the many comparisons that I'm not making. For instance, the annual GDP of the U.S.A. is still higher than the national debt at nearly $15 Trillion whereas the U.K. creates substantially less GDP because it's a smaller country. There's lots of other considerations to be made in such a complex economy. However, just looking at the raw numbers can be somewhat disconcerting. Should we be concerned? When does Keynesian Economics fail to improve the macro-economy? I do suppose that since we've lived by Keynes we may very well die by Keynes.
Well that's the big debate right now isn't it? Hannidy swears that the American people have voiced that they want Obama to stop spending and "his agenda"... but I think the public (as a whole) just cares about the budget alone.
ReplyDeleteThe house alone has the power to create a tax bill... realistically, when democrats took the house (during Bush) with Pelosi as speaker our debt has risen $5,000,000,000,000! 2-tril with bush and 3-tril with obama... The new house is theoretically not Keynesian... If they can work with the pres and the senate, will we see improvement?