Sharing Thoughts and Ideas - 2019 and newer

The U.S. national debt is a looming crisis that will have enormous consequences in the future. “[R]ising debt will slow income growth, increase interest payments, place upward pressure on interest rates, weaken the ability to respond to the next recession or emergency, place an undue burden on future generations, and heighten the risk of a fiscal crisis.” CBO's 2019 Long-Term Budget Outlook , Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, June 25, 2019. The reported national debt is currently almost $23 trillion dollars. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there, as there are “off balance sheet” liabilities as well: Retrieved from Truth in Accounting , November 5, 2019, 8:23 A.M. CDT Worse yet, the projections for the future look grim: Image Credit: Congressional Budget Office, retrieved from Marching to a Federal Debt Crisis, Cato Institute, July 15, 2019 The federal debt is the accumulation of the annual federal government budget defici...

First year economics students are introduced to the concept of " National Savings Identity" . That is the equation that real gross domestic product (the sum of all the goods and services produced in the U.S. in a year) is equal to private consumption expenditure + capital investment into new plants and equipment + net government expenditures on good and services + net exports. E.g., in equation form: Y = C + I +G + Net exports   or restated algebraically,  Net exports = Y – C – I – G = Real gross domestic product – private consumption expenditure – capital investment into new plants and equipment – net government expenditures on good and services What follows logically is that if Real gross domestic product, private consumption expenditure and capital investment into new plants and equipment are relatively constant, negative “net government expenditures on goods and services” (i.e., budget deficits) increase, net exports will decrease.  In othe...

Trey Bailey, a strong President Trump supporter who has known me for a long time wrote that I have these ten things in common with President Trump: “ Both President Trump and I are tireless workers who have tremendous energy, need little sleep and, like the president I can and will devote 16+ hours a day to campaigning and after I win to Making America Great Again. Like President Trump I am a winner .   I started out life with what my widowed mom was able to give me; a stable home, a strong work ethic and classic American values. I have been successful in both public and private sectors and in personal endeavors; I have run in two elections and I won both, you can’t beat 100%, folks.  Through hard work and the tremendous opportunities provided by our free market system I have come from poverty to become financially secure with success in many fields.  I have made my fortune, biked across America and while I have never been to the top floor of Trump Tower, I did c...

Raise taxes on the middle class before it's too late Reprint from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, similar opinions published at  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/raise-taxes-middle-class-too-110026024.html  and  https://feedimo.com/story/72393025/Raise-Taxes-on-the-Middle-Class-Before-Its-Too-Late/ This is going to be necessary even without the big ideas of the campaign.  By Michael R. Strain  Bloomberg Opinion OCTOBER 28, 2019 — 5:56PM JIM WATSON • AFP Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaking about Medicare for All legislation in 2017. TEXT SIZE 344 EMAIL PRINT MORE Elizabeth Warren “has a plan for that.” Except, that is, for financing Medicare for All. The Democratic presidential candidate has been taking heat for refusing to say whether she would raise taxes on the middle class to pay for her health-care ambitions. But we don’t have to wait to know the bott...