All Posts Tagged With: "budget deficit"

The Evil of Government Debt

In this day of trillion-dollar-plus federal deficits, Destutt de Tracy’s critique of government debt is especially relevant.

19Mar2010 | Sheldon Richman | 4 comments | Continued

Going Broke

Barack Obama says “no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on Earth.” He also says “no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”
Question: Does “no one” include the government or society as a whole? I only ask because of the  trillion-dollar deficits that stretch [...]

6Feb2010 | Sheldon Richman | 5 comments | Continued

The Balance-of-Payments Deficit: Not to Worry

Quick. What’s the trade deficit between California and the rest of the world? Don’t try Googling it because you won’t find an answer. No government agency—or private entity—computes the dollar value of goods that people in the rest of the world sell to or buy from Californians. Why not? Because it doesn’t matter.
Yet governments do [...]

5Jan2010 | David R. Henderson | 1 comment | Continued

Now That's Leverage!

The government is borrowing nearly 50 cents for every dollar it spends. (But it will protect us from overleveraged financial companies.)

12May2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Budget Deficits and Stimuli

It’s an article of faith that running  budget deficits during the New Deal helped end the Great Depression. This myth has been demolished countless times, but it hasn’t penetrated to the pundits and pop economists who host cable news-talk shows. In fact, FDR did not run extraordinarily large budget deficits, and J.M. Keynes actually criticized [...]

28Nov2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Our Presidents and the National Debt

Burton Folsom, Jr. is the Charles Kline Professor in History and Management at Hillsdale College. His book The Myth of the Robber Barons is in its fourth edition.
During the last 75 years the United States has failed to balance its annual budget over 90 percent of the time. What’s worse, the government has spent money so [...]

1Aug2006 | Burton W. Folsom Jr. | 4 comments | Continued
  • The Latest

    The Evil of Government Debt

    As we’ve seen in the last two TGIFs, Destutt de Tracy, writing (pdf) in early nineteenth-century France,... Read More

    Where There’s a Will There’s a Way?

    Many aphorisms and common expressions take on a different meaning when seen through the lens of economics. One... Read More

    Will Medical “Reform” Cut Real Costs?

    It seems that the so-called health care “reform” bill will become law soon enough. (President Barack... Read More

    The Welfare State Kills Children

    On February 22 a court in suburban Washington, D.C., passed judgment in one of the most horrendous cases... Read More

    Government as Consumer

    Destutt de Tracy, as I discussed last week, was a French economist whom Thomas Jefferson did his utmost... Read More

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