Not the whole story, but at least it is a start in breaking through the myth about the virtue of budget surpluses that is hamstringing progressives.
CEPR
Deficit Delusions: Putting to Rest the Clinton Legacy
Dean Baker
(h/t Stephanie Kelton via Twitter)
Right Tom close but not quite....
ReplyDeletethis is the key thing from Scott in the other thread:
"Further, how do you get stable investment growth in investment spending over the long run? One thing (not the only one, mind you) you do is promote a full employment economy via appropriate levels of NFA (again, usually via increases in NFA of about 2-5% of GDP,..."
This does not look like it is being done right now.... short term $NFA injection is collapsing... $3B net since Dec 1.
Intermediate term, since September, cumulatively we have run a deficit of 244B over these 5 months or average 48B per month which is not much more that what the trade deficit has been, assume the trade deficit has been a bit above 40B per month so that has left the domestic economy with only at most $8B per month of $NFA injection...
This trend would seem unsustainable...
rsp,