All Posts Tagged With: "national debt"

The Economic Costs of the Civil War

Even after 150 years, the Civil War evokes memories of great men and great battles. Certainly that war was a milestone in U.S. history, and on the plus side it reunited the nation and freed the slaves. Few historians, however, describe the costs of the war. Not just the 620,000 individuals who died, or the [...]

23Mar2011 | | 8 comments | Continued

Inflation Doesn’t Pay Anymore

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel and I have an opinion piece today at Forbes.com titled “Inflation Doesn’t Pay The Government Like It Used To.” Key quote: [T]he bottom line is that inflation’s effect on the national debt will no more be able to resolve the escalating U.S. budgetary problems than would an excise tax on chewing gum.

2Dec2010 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments

Imagine an ice cube on an asphalt roadway in the mid-summer heat, quickly melting away to nothing. That’s a good way of thinking about what government policy has been doing to the value of our money. In The Dollar Meltdown, investment adviser and former radio talk-show host Charles Goyette explains why the dollar is melting [...]

24Nov2010 | | 9 comments | Continued

Thank You

Decades of government economic and social management have left the American people with a fiscal mess of elephantine proportions. Future generations face crushing debt and tax burdens (unless less they repudiate and rebel against them). The hole is so deep that any set of proposals to address the problems is instantly met with protest from [...]

12Nov2010 | | 3 comments | Continued

Deficit Hawks or War Hawks?

Last month I asked if the American people can afford a world-girdling foreign policy more befitting an empire than a republic. Look at it this way: War hawks make poor deficit hawks. Facing a $13 trillion national debt and trillion-dollar-plus annual budget deficits, we can’t afford to be complacent about foreign interventions costing $12 billion [...]

22Oct2010 | | 0 comments | Continued

Deficit Watch

FY 2010 ended September 30. Here’s the fiscal picture. As FY 2011 dawned on October 1, the national debt stood at $13.56 trillion. One year earlier it stood at $11.91 trillion. By a simple process of subtracting the 2009 debt from the 2010 debt, we get a difference of  $1.65 trillion. That is the FY [...]

4Oct2010 | | 4 comments | Continued

Can America Afford an Empire?

Fiscally speaking, the U.S. government has been running a disorderly house for some time. That makes the fiscal crisis in Greece an uneasy portent for Americans (as Steven Horwitz points out in our July/August issue). Just contemplate some of the numbers. The total federal debt is nearly $13 trillion, $8.6 trillion of which is held [...]

22Sep2010 | | 1 comment | Continued

Will Increasing Taxes Bring Economic Recovery?

In its August 1 edition the editors of the Gray Lady published a lengthy editorial that claimed our economy is in trouble because tax rates are too low.

4Aug2010 | | 6 comments | Continued

Deficit Hawks or War Hawks?

Individualist, limited-government, free-market advocates who had fought the New Deal tooth and nail also opposed America’s budding empire.

16Jul2010 | | 7 comments | Continued

The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future

Boston University’s Laurence Kotlikoff is a serious scholar who has devoted much of his professional life to examining Social Security. What he writes on this issue it’s wise to read. The Coming Generational Storm, co-authored with Dallas-based financial columnist Scott Burns, is a worthwhile book. Their description of the fiscal nightmare known as Social Security [...]

13Jul2010 | | 0 comments | Continued

Can America Afford an Empire?

The fiscal question is whether, in the face of the huge national debt and multiyear trillion-dollar budget deficits, we can afford a “defense” establishment more befitting an empire than a republic.

9Jul2010 | | 12 comments | Continued

Government: More Incompetent than Ever

Most intellectuals support big government, and millions of people depend on it. So why, with thousands of laws, millions of employees working to carry out those laws, and trillions of dollars spent, is it in trouble? The most popular big-government programs–like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid–are going broke. These entitlements account for more than half [...]

19Apr2010 | | 1 comment | Continued

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 | | 15 comments | Continued

Your Government at Work

Here at a glance is what the U.S. government is up to fiscally. Don’t look at this before bedtime. Hat tip: Mario Rizzo.

11Mar2010 | | 1 comment | Continued

Debt Issues Unavoidable

“‘Right now, this year, we have 1.6 trillion in debt coming due. That’s roughly twice individual income tax revenue. Our only plausible strategy for paying that back is to borrow more money,’ says Leonard Burman, an economist at Syracuse University. Under some grim scenarios, the cumulative debt of the United States could rise to several [...]

8Dec2009 | | 0 comments | Continued

One Nation Under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe

In his latest work, One Nation Under Debt, Robert E. Wright, who has written extensively about debt and finance during the decades that marked America’s climb to economic preeminence, carefully documents the evolution of U.S. dependability and integrity in the international investment community. This reputation led to the acceptability of U.S. financial markets and government [...]

19Aug2009 | | 1 comment | Continued

The Fatal Conceit

The politicians are confident that they can wisely spend trillions of your dollars. The arrogance of the political class is stunning.

17Jun2009 | | 10 comments | Continued
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