Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site amdahl.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!amdahl!gam From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Why deficits are good Message-ID: <462@amdahl.UUCP> Date: Sat, 3-Nov-84 15:56:31 EST Article-I.D.: amdahl.462 Posted: Sat Nov 3 15:56:31 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Nov-84 05:17:20 EST References: <570@loral.UUCP> <> <1611@proper.UUCP> Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 27 > >Seriously (barely), when are you thick-headed conservatives going to wake > >up to the fact that if you spend more dollars than you got, you go into > >debt? Arithmetic doesn't start working backwards when you go over a > >billion, and dollars spent on defense don't count as income. > > Wow, that is really a turn-around. Up until this administration, the > liberal types have poo-pooed the idea that there was anything bad about > deficits. In fact, they have acted as if they thought that deficits were > a positive good. They are a positive good if used correctly. In Keynesian economics, when there is a recession the government is advised to pump money into the economy to avoid depression -- EVEN IF IT HAS TO BORROW TO DO THIS. The consequences are to have a depression of the magnitude of the early 30's, which the US and the world could not allow. The bad news is that you have to pay off the debt, but that is easier to do if you have a healthy economy, which is what the debt was guarenteeing. While people (even Reagan) are writing off Keynesian economics as ill-fated, they seem to be using its principles anyway. -- (It's only a model) Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!gam [ This is just me talking. ]