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http://thelongestlistofthelongeststu.../currency4.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Alexamateo
This is 1,000,000,000,000,000 Pengo - at the time it was worth about 4 US Cents.
There is a responsibility of the Government to make sure that the money is a) worth something useful and b) acceptable to trade with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
Something that Mugabe has forgotten, and if the US gov't isn't careful, they may find out as well...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
So back to the original question. Does it even matter, as long as you have faith that the US and European governments will not fall, and you and I and Mark all go to work tomorrow and keep producing goods and services for our fellow man?
Of course it does. If the money you worked for, by the time your next pay packet rolls around is worthless, then what is the point of producing goods and services for our fellow man? Or to bring it closer to home, why work for money that does not buy bread?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexamateo
Money is supposed to be a counter for the value of goods and services. Things still have inherent value even if the currency does not.
The really weird thing is that although fiat money itself is an intrinsically useless good, it still operates according to the laws of the market.
Francisco D'Anconia in Atlas ShruggedQuote:
.......When coercion is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then society vanishes in a spread of ruin and slaughter.
Do you want to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of society's virtue. When you see that trading is done not by consent but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favors - when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - then you will know that your society is doomed.
But if figures are accurate, I fail to see where these dire predictions of deficits have come true.
Hey, I am a fiscal conservative, but I have yet to see where Keynesian deficit spending has done us great harm, even on inflation. In fact the only thing I truly see that causes great inflation are rises in transportation costs (i. e. oil)
Mentioning hyperinflation like the Hungarian pengo only reinforces my views that faith in your currency has as much to do with economics as anything.
on edit:
but understanding opportunity costs, Would we be that much better off if we had not run up debt, and is there any way of knowing?
Also before anyone mentions the Clinton surpluses, They are an anomaly caused by the truly game changing of tax rates from 70% down to 28% in the 80's coupled with the technological boom that was occuring in society as a whole. Once politicians saw all that revenue, spending was once again ramped up.
Well there are people than smarter than both of us that are saying spending needs to be reigned in. Confindence in a currency is not only from within the nation, but from other nations. The US dollar was the staple currencey for years, but now with the Euro out there, I suspect the faith in the US dollar has to be justified by the strength in the US economy, which last I looked was sputtering....Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexamateo
It all depends what what you consider the benefit from those costs in ringing up the debt actually were.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexamateo
Treasury Notes, Bills and Bonds and TIPS are issued as sales of government debt. The question is how much of those debt securities are used to fund the capital and interest of previous debt securities? The answer to that is something I can't easily find the answer to.
If the US National Debt is roughly commutative, then the debt would be mostly be comprised of the historical biggest expenses of the US Government. Surely that would include, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Barbary Wars, war with Mexico, the Civil War, scuffles in Europe and the Pacific (WWs), Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan et al. etc.
Admittedly there may have been a period some time in the period from 1833 to 1860 when the debt actually was zero, but I can't find proof of that.
Trust me, I'm with you on spending needing to be reigned in, but I just know that deficits and debt have been going on my whole life with no seeming ill effect, so that's why I am asking the question. Do deficits even matter? Maybe they don't as long as they are not too much out of line as a percentage of GDP.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
Now, you or I or an individual state can't do it, because we can't "just print money", but maybe government can.
What is "out of line"? I hear we're getting close to the 80-90% range. Seems like that's "out of line" to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexamateo