Trump's Card

[Nefertiti2]

After Ocasio-Sanchez in New York another video for Kaniela Ing a democratic socialist candidate in Hawaii

https://twitter.com/kanielaing/status/1022090803982655488

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Never. It's about 3% of GDP. It's exactly where you want to be. If the you run a smaller defecit, you start sucking money out of the economy. Governments are supposed to run a defecit every year. It's their job.

Ah come on. this defies mathematics, let alone economics. A budget Deficit is simply a measure of the difference between the taxes you are prepared to levy, and the amount of money that you want to spend. The US govt doesn't spend very much, its problem is that it wants to levy less tax on the wealthy, who are the only ones with any money. That's why the Budget deficit is going to hit 5% in two years time, during a fiscal expansion, which is criminal mismanagement (evidence of deliberate destruction) of an economy.

[anton pulisov]

Well yeah, it depends what you do with your deficit. If you use it to give tax breaks to the rich, who use it to inflate the stock market, then that's a waste of time.

If you use it to fund the real economy then it will pay dividends.

But the idea that a sovereign nation with its own central bank should strive to not run a deficit is rubbish. The aim should be to have it in line with inflation.

[WOM]

You crazy. I'm with TAB on this. A deficit is only a deficit for a year: then it's debt. If you can't eradicate a deficit during boom times, you simply exacerbated your problems during downturns. It's fucking nuts.

When I started looking at the Brillig Debt Clock at the beginning of Bush II's reign, it was a staggering $7 trillion. Now it's $21 trillion.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

have you ever heard of counter cyclical fiscal policy? What you are proposing is essentially the creation of a bubble akin to Greece pre 2008. Also linking the govt deficit to inflation rather than the real rate of economic growth is a profoundly bad idea. Also there is a very strong argument for not linking capital investment to the economic cycle, because it is simply to important, and takes far too long to plan and implement.

[Satchmo Distel]

In March 2016 Trump was promising to eliminate the federal debt within 8 years. He must have thought it was a bad thing at that time.

[anton pulisov]

You crazy. I'm with TAB on this. A deficit is only a deficit for a year: then it's debt. If you can't eradicate a deficit during boom times, you simply exacerbated your problems during downturns. It's fucking nuts.

People often consider a national budget like a household budget. And to constantly run a household with a deficit would be fucking nuts. But governments aren't households. They can print their own fiat money.

If a government runs a deficit of 3% of GDP which creates inflation of 3% then that's not a deficit. More over, if your deficit leads to GDP growth down the road then that's great. The government is then a net provider to the economy.

The absolute worst thing a government can do is try to run a balanced budget or a surplus. The government is then, on net terms, taking money out of the economy.

If course, not all deficits are created equal. The US using the deficit to fund tax breaks to the rich is questionable. Greece's actions are questionable.

[WOM]

Sure...print enough fiat money and devalue your currency and trigger inflation.

And yes, running a short term deficit is fine if you eventually balance the books. Don't do it and you'll eventually start eating into your spending abilities due to interest payments, which becomes exacerbated during downturns.

And of course that's what the US is doing. They spend like drunken sailors but think taxes are a communist plot. How else could that possibly end but badly?

[anton pulisov]

Why do you eventually need to balance the books? If you run a deficit and your deficit keeps creating sustainable future GDP (the key here is sustainable), then your debt to GDP ratio remains stable. If you do it properly you can even reduce your debt to GDP ratio while constantly running deficits.

When a government runs a surplus to pay off debt, they are essentially taking money out of the real economy, which can lead to a deflationary spiral, which leads to less spending in the economy, which leads to GDP shrinking. Perhaps even at a faster rate than the debt is shrinking... Which is what Osbourne did to the UK.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Trump plans have the deficit rising by 22 percentage points by 2030. Not going to get any easier to run smaller deficits in the future. It's insane.

[ursus arctos]

They have no clue about 2030.

Their projections for this year are already way off.

[Snake Plissken]

Trump plans have the deficit rising by 22 percentage points by 2030. Not going to get any easier to run smaller deficits in the future. It's insane.

Not if they use it to get rid of the idea of government entirely.

[ursus arctos]

They need the government to fund the ever-expanding empire of private schools, hospitals, prisons and security services that they and their pals profit from.

[Snake Plissken]

I was thinking along the lines of taking it over. Run the entire country as a subsidaries of Fox, the Koch Brothers etc.

[ursus arctos]

That's already happening.

[ursus arctos]

I think that there is still a chance if they get smoked in the midterms (and therefore become afraid of losing both houses and the presidency in 20), but the Cabinet is even more complicit than it was at the outset.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They have no clue about 2030.

Their projections for this year are already way off.

Sure, but it's overeating and doing no exercise.

Isn't it hard to make big tax changes that addresses this sort of shit? You have a special phrase for it. Tax reform.

[anton pulisov]

Trump plans have the deficit rising by 22 percentage points by 2030. Not going to get any easier to run smaller deficits in the future. It's insane.

Are you talking about 22% increase in national debt? Or deficit?

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't think anyone wants to run an actual "balanced budget", but you still want to have a lower deficit during boom years, to give you more capacity to borrow cheaply when you don't have growth. At the moment the US deficit is increasing during a period of financial growth, and even if you spent that on infrastructure and education, it would probably be foolish. More to the point, at this point in the cycle you should be taxing more to reduce the deficit, rather than changing the spending levels.

On the 25th amendment issue, I very much doubt that Republicans would ever use it. They'd find other ways to leverage Trump out (including impeachment) - if he was, for example, destroying the innate Republican electoral hold on the house and the state governments - before they went for the 25th amendment.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Are you talking about 22% increase in national debt? Or deficit?

22 point increase in national debt as percentage of GDP.

[anton pulisov]

More to the point, at this point in the cycle you should be taxing more to reduce the deficit, rather than changing the spending levels.

Well the idea is that you don't increase tax to reduce the deficit. In the good times you carry on with the same tax rates and more money flows into the coffers through tax because it's the good times. The question is if the current period really constitutes "the good times". The size of the financial disaster in the previous decade was so massive that it is still being processed.

I agree that the USA should increase taxes, but not too put money towards the deficit. They should do so to redistribute wealth within the real economy by investing in schools and hospitals and that sort of stuff. But that would be communism or something.

[Nefertiti2]

.

[ursus arctos]

He must have had a really bad round at Bedminster this morning

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1023646665851449345
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...46665851449345

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1023646669685104641
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...46669685104641

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1023653191974625280
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...53191974625280

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1023662510371741696
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...62510371741696

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1023664624259014656
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...64624259014656

[Lang Spoon]

Oh I’ll maybe click on that in the morning. But fucking Chomsky. I still don’t get his point on srebrenica and the “Living Marxism”/Spiked lying cultists.

[linus]

I wouldn't qualify Chomsky's statements as truth bombs, just some basic common sense, which is completely missing in the whole "Russia hacked the elections" trope.