5.10.2006

The long run

The Daily Reckoning on deficit spending:

In 1932, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide on promises to take swift and decisive action [for economic recovery]. The foundation of this recovery involved devaluing the U.S. dollar against its gold backing, and basically amounted to currency debasement and deficit-financed make-work programs. The cost of the New Deal - the brainchild of British economist John Maynard Keynes - was foisted upon future generations.

When confronted with these long-term costs and the necessity of running budget surpluses to pay off debt incurred by his "demand management program," Keynes casually dismissed this critique with the statement that "in the long run, we are all dead."

Well, it's safe to say that we have reached what would be considered "the long run" and, no, we are not all dead yet.

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