Is the United States bankrupt? — This paper, written by a Boston economist and published by the Federal Reserve has apparent been ignored by the media. Who can blame them? It’s a hair raising paper.
Is the United States bankrupt? Many would scoff at this notion. Others would argue that financial implosion is just around the corner. This paper explores these views from both partial and general equilibrium perspectives. It concludes that countries can go broke, that the United States is going broke, that remaining open to foreign investment can help stave off bankruptcy, but that radical reform of U.S. fiscal institutions is essential to secure the nation’s economic future. The paper offers three policies to eliminate the nation’s enormous fiscal gap and avert bankruptcy: a retail sales tax, personalized Social Security, and a globally budgeted universal healthcare system.–
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, July/August 2006, 88(4), pp. 235-49.
found by Rob Sanchez
The Clinton **boom** started under the first Bush….thanks to HIS policy’s, not Clintons.
#32, The Clinton **boom** started under the first Bush….thanks to HIS policy’s, not Clintons.
Comment by joshua — 12/3/2006 @ 8:31 pm
Would that “boom” just coincidently have happened after Bush I raised taxes?
Uhhh! If you read history closely, you will see that the “bankruptcy” occurred in 1939—it was called the “New Deal”. As for the “Fed”—-they ARE the cause. It was the passage of the the Federal Reserve Act on Dec. 24, 1913 which ushered in the era of fiat currency, and remove precious metals as the basis of money—this against the clear mandates of the constitution which CONGRESS (not the “Fed”, a private consortium of bankers) the power to regulate money, and mandated GOLD and SILVER as legal money.
American, and her citizens have effectively been “broke” since then. Read the history and the laws CAREFULLY!
The only reason this government had a “surplus” eight years ago was because it does not have to follow the same accounting rules that it forces every other large organization to use. The whole system is built upon a shaky system of lies by power-hungry politicians to appease a selfish voting populace. And very few of the bright idea policies of politicians are thought out beyond the immediate effects they are meant to achieve, even if they will lead to disaster down the road. In the end, democracy is its own undoing.
30,
“Sneakers” is one of my favorite movies.
I still get a chuckle from the gold standard monomaniacs. Oh well.
Meanwhile, more cogent, more to the point, is the conference taking place in China as I write this. The EU and China are working at unifying all standards of measurement and manufacturing for capital goods and consumer goods. They realize this is a requirement for global commerce.
Uncle Sugar and rest of the “good-enough-for-my-grandfather” brigade will parrot econo-babble about the sucking dollar being beneficial for our export market — all 16% of the GDP. That only lasts if and when we produce goods that literally fit into the rest of that same global market.
Maybe we should bring back the tax brackets of the 1950s. It would tax the rich more, who are paying less and less taxes, as a proportion of their TOTAL income, not just payroll.
They ended welfare, well how about CORPORATE welfare?
Maybe it’s time to look at our economy, and see that we may need to put tariffs back out there, so that there is more fairly dispersed profits.
I would personally like to see a MAXIMUM wage, as well as a livable minimum wage. After all, what’s a billionaire need with all that money?
We have to admit that Ronnie Raygun’s policy of trickle down DOES NOT WORK. The rich merely hire the help they need for the least amount of money they have to spend, and keep the rest for themselves.
#32 & 33, the Clinton boom did not start under Bush, and it certainly wasn’t based on Bush’s tax hikes. That was just a recovery from the recession. Clinton’s entire first term stayed weak, with economists fearing a ‘double-dip’ recession. It was only the 2nd term after Republicans took over Congress, held the line on regulations, and cut the capital gains tax that things took off.
As for a maximum wage and all your other items. There’s nothing that would empower corporations more than to take away all their noncorporate competitors. Only the estate tax hands over as much wealth to corporations.
#37, the problem is that in its current form, the Constitution does require money to be either gold or silver. This is a completely different argument from whether or not it is practicable to have the paper currency and coinage of an economy as large as our backed by those metals.
I don’t think any president is ‘responsible’ for any particular recession, depression, recovery or whatever. I think it more a combination of what the previous president did, what Congress now and previously did, what foreign markets did and are doing, cycles in construction, technology, wars and a whole host of other things that happened from decades to days previously. It’s all connected in a web that can be affected by tweaking or cutting a thread (exacerbating or reducing what’s coming), but the road was laid (to really mix metaphors) by many sources in the past. The only case where this is thrown out of whack is when a vast change is implemented like the New Deal or Great Society which caused a rapid change in direction.
Damn! Where’s Hari Seldon when we need him?
#38 I would personally like to see a MAXIMUM wage, as well as a livable minimum wage. After all, what’s a billionaire need with all that money?
We have to admit that Ronnie Raygun’s policy of trickle down DOES NOT WORK. The rich merely hire the help they need for the least amount of money they have to spend, and keep the rest for themselves.
Comment by Roc Rizzo — 12/4/2006 @ 9:53 am
I have to echo the sentiment that a “maximum” wage is a bad idea. In fact, it may be one of the worst ideas in the long and sordid history of bad ideas… But that said, it is unfathomable that with a stagnant middle class, and so many hard working Americans below middle class living dangerously close to the abyss that some corporations see fit to award a eight or nine figure salaries… Maybe there is something about being uber-rich that I don’t get, but I tend to think (as I’m sure most honest regular people do) that once you hit a certain point, more is just superflous… Still, removing the incentive to succeed would only succeed in dragging all of us down.
Your second point, however, is simply undeniable. The rich (with some notable exceptions) work far harder at protecting their own wealth than at creating new wealth. Were they to focus a bit on the latter, it si conceivable that money actually would trickle down more.