Till Debt Does It Part - from nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman

I'll do better. I'll give you some definitions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product


GDP = gross domestic product = the economy to you

GDP is defined by economists as a function of C + I + G

GDP = C + I + G + (X − M). (X and M stand for exports and imports - it's calculating the trade deficit. Since they are functions of the first two variables, you can ignore them for our purposes)

GDP = C + I + G

C is consumption

I is investment in the economy

G is government spending on goods and services

Now I know you took algebra like 60 years ago, so let me know if I'm moving too fast.

When the economy crashes, you see decreases in consumption (people buying goods and services) and investment (people investing in other people to produce goods and services)

So with both of those variables decreasing, the only remaining variable (and consequently the only variable over which the government has any direct control) is government spending.

The only way to keep the GDP (the total amount of what people produce and consume in the economy) at normal levels and not fall to depression era levels in a recession where people stop consuming and investing is to INCREASE GOVERNMENT SPENDING (variable G).

How does one do that? Well, as Krugman explains, tax revenues fall when there's a downturn in the GDP (caused by falling consumption and investment), so the government has less money to work with. This is where deficit spending comes in. The government has to borrow money to spend it on goods and services to keep the GDP from failing entirely.

That's deficits in a nutshell. In the long term they add to DEBT, which is different. The amount of sustainable debt we can hold down is a function of the total debt vs annual GDP. That's something else entirely.

That's BASIC ECONOMICS. That's what you will read on wikipedia or any economics text book. Look for yourself. It's a simple equation. Government spending/deficits are necessary in a recession to keep the GDP from collapsing.

The "G" is the only thing that kept the Bush economy afloat as long as it did.
 
Krugman like most "economists" did not see this coming until it was upon us. I do not know why we even listen to those "experts" now.
 
Krugman is basically an egomaniac at this point. The Nobel was probably the worst thing that could have happened to him.

I used to respect his opinion & find his point of view interesting, but he just seems like he's coming unhinged now.
 
Deficits actually helping the economy !!!

It is freekin' astounding how the logic of decades gets turned upside down because the Democrats are in power and own the White House....and that the only reason some dingbat comes out with this shit...

Deficits now helping the economy....

What a load of shit.....only the Koolade crowd could believe this...
 
Deficits actually helping the economy !!!

It is freekin' astounding how the logic of decades gets turned upside down because the Democrats are in power and own the White House....and that the only reason some dingbat comes out with this shit...

Deficits now helping the economy....

What a load of shit.....only the Koolade crowd could believe this...

Obviously it is a concept that is too difficult for you to understand, without deficit spending the world's economy would have just disappeared into a black hole. Then again it is never going to be possible to prove a negative to somebody as dyed in the wool as you appear to be, luckily the world isn't run by the likes of you.
 
Oh, I understand perfectly sonny....

If Republicans are in the White House...Deficits are destroying the economy..I just heard it for 8 solid years ad nauseam..

Suddenly, the Dims are living in the White House, and Deficits now helping the economy

and you're nothing but a hypocrite if you deny the undeniable....
 
well well, lookie what I found..

Off the Wagon
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: Friday, January 17, 2003

a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon. First he says he can handle a few drinks. Then, when his inebriation can't be denied, he insists it's only a temporary lapse. But eventually he turns mean. "What's so great about being sober?" he growls, reaching for another bottle.

As a drunk is to alcohol, the Bush administration is to budget deficits.

During the 2000 campaign George W. Bush often pledged to maintain fiscal responsibility. Right up to the passage of the 2001 tax cut his people said they could cut taxes, pay for new programs like prescription drug coverage, and still pay off most of the federal government's debt.

As soon as the bill passed, those rosy budget projections fell apart. Then came Sept. 11. "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta," declared Mr. Bush, claiming ? falsely ? to have said during the campaign that his budget promises didn't apply in the event of recession, war or national emergency. But until this week officials insisted the deficit was temporary.

Now the budget director, Mitch Daniels, has admitted the obvious: The federal government faces the prospect of large deficits as far as the eye can see. And sure enough, the drunk has turned mean. As the administration reaches for another bottle ? another long-term tax cut for the affluent ? its officials sullenly denounce the "fixation" on budget deficits, dismissing it as nonsensical "Rubinomics." (So much, by the way, for the war on terror as an excuse for deficits. "What did you do in the war, daddy?" asks Ronald Brownstein in The Los Angeles Times. "I got a big tax cut, and passed the bill on to you.")

Economics aside, the administration's ever-changing rationale for tax cuts says a lot about its character. If the Bush team never cared about deficits, Mr. Bush's promises of fiscal responsibility were dishonest. On the other hand, if administration officials didn't decide that deficits are O.K. until that belief became convenient, that suggests that they're tough talkers who make excuses when confronted with real problems. That's a scary thought; is this the kind of administration that would, say, call North Korea names and talk about pre-emptive war, but back down and offer aid when the country actually threatens to restart its nuclear program? Nah, couldn't happen.

The administration's top economist certainly changed his mind about deficits very late in the game. Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, recently denied that deficits raise interest rates and depress private investments. Yet Mr. Hubbard is also the author of an economics textbook; as Berkeley's J. Bradford DeLong points out on his influential Web site, the 2002 edition of that textbook explains how, yes, deficits raise interest rates and depress private investment.

There's a reason Mr. Hubbard said what he did in his textbook. When the government sells bonds it competes with private borrowers. By the usual rules of economics, this competition should, other things equal, drive interest rates higher and investment lower. There are exceptions to economic rules, but someone who suddenly discovers such an exception at the precise moment his political masters need a cover story isn't credible.

Will this alcoholic eventually go back on the wagon? Not for a while; he has too many enablers. The Congressional Budget Office will soon start using "dynamic scoring" to assess proposed tax cuts ? that is, it will build in the supply-side assumption that tax cuts raise the economy's growth rate, and therefore generate indirect revenue gains that offset the direct revenue losses. In the past, budget officials have opposed this practice, because it's so easy to slide from objective analysis into wishful thinking. With Republicans controlling both the White House and Congress, does anyone doubt that future C.B.O. analyses will take a very favorable view of big tax cuts for rich people?

It's O.K. to run a deficit during a recession, as long as the deficit is clearly temporary. But both the numbers and the administration's search for excuses tell us that there's nothing temporary about the red ink. On the contrary, we'll probably be on a deficit bender until the baby boomers retire ? and then it will get much worse.

Trust me: we're going to miss Rubinomics. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/opinion/17KRUG.html
 
Different conditions, a fact I'm sure you're going to pretend doesn't exist for the rest of the thread.

he is just like you....against something when its the gop and for it when its the dems....or in your case....against krugman until you know its krugman....should have followed the link instead of wrongly assuming that "an economist" could not possibly be krugman
 
he is just like you....against something when its the gop and for it when its the dems....or in your case....against krugman until you know its krugman....should have followed the link instead of wrongly assuming that "an economist" could not possibly be krugman

Watermark wins the points for predicting that Yurt would ignore the totally different set of economic conditions.

Deficit spending is not only good but absolutely necessary in a recession. How much of Bush's presidency was under a recession?
 
Oh, I understand perfectly sonny....

If Republicans are in the White House...Deficits are destroying the economy..I just heard it for 8 solid years ad nauseam..

Suddenly, the Dims are living in the White House, and Deficits now helping the economy

and you're nothing but a hypocrite if you deny the undeniable....

Oh well, you are not only condescending but terminally ignorant for which there is no cure.
 
You're problem is your brain isn't capable of comprehending complex issues like deficits. Yes, deficits help in the short term. What's what we need right now. Balancing the budget in a time of economic recession would have been exactly what was tried in 1929 and guess what... it failed. And the reasons are pretty well understood by people with brains.

Deficits aren't complex.

"people with brains" are just paid shills for the military industrial complex which gains it's power through insane monetary policy. This make you a fascist.
 
Watermark wins the points for predicting that Yurt would ignore the totally different set of economic conditions.

Deficit spending is not only good but absolutely necessary in a recession. How much of Bush's presidency was under a recession?

no......at the time many people thought the recession was going to be significant....only "after" the fact did it prove to be minor.....

krugman wasn't writing "after" the fact.....nice try
 
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