[quote=“MikeN”][quote=“sulavaca”]
During the second world war, the U.S. debt, inflation adjusted climbed from around half a trillion U.S.D. to around 2.5 trillion U.S.D. and then diminished to around a pretty stable 1.7 trillion U.S.D. during the period after the war and when the U.S. remained back on the gold standard, up until 1971. Since 1971 when the U.S. resumed it’s fiat currency however there was a sharp rise in the level of debt, and the U.S. is standing at an official 16 trillion dollars of public held debt today. That of course doesn’t even count the debt associated with any present programs and future payment obligations, which if accounted for actually put present U.S. debt levels at 500% of present GDP. Present government debt obligations, which are presently unaccounted for in any present budget and are not considered part of the national debt exceed 60 trillion dollars to be paid out in the next twenty years. That’s more than five times what Americans have borrowed for car loans, home loans, and anything else.[/quote]
Debt went down under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. It went up again under Reagan and HW Bush, started to turn down again under Clinton, and then went up again under George W. Bush and Obama.
The reason it went up under Obama was that he took office in the middle of the greatest recession since the Great Depression, whereas Reagan’s and the Bushs’ debt increases were structural (as opposed to cyclical)- Republicans want to cut taxes, but they don’t want to take the political hit from cutting spending.
Gold has nothing to do with it.
[quote]Put simply, it is government debt which has been keeping prices of goods artificially low, or in other words, true prices which haven’t been realised.
It’s the government which keeps inflating the economy and out of trouble. As long as the U.S. government can continue to get away with inflating the U.S. down the road, then the road will theoretically never end.
[/quote]
Since the definition of inflation is “a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.” how can “keeping the price of goods artificially low” jibe with “the government keeps inflating the economy”?
Except of course for the “invisible inflation” that we keep hearing about but never see, but are assured is coming, nonetheless.[/quote]
Truman: Gold standard in place. 1948 national debt: 252,292,246,512.99 to Jan 20th 1953: around 263,000,000,000.00
Eisenhower: No gold standard and three recessions within his time as president. He created an expanding economy fuelled by debt. Private debt more than doubled from $104.8 billion to $263.3 billion during the Fifties. So no drop in debt there at all. Also the fifties was the first time the U.S. was introduced to the personal credit card.
Johnson: Vietnam war time. National debt rose 16.9% during his time as president. 1963: 309,346,845,059.17 to 1969: 368,225,581,254.41
Nixon: One of the worst presidents in history economically speaking. I suggest anyone does a simple google search to see to what extend Nixon screwed the entire country over. There are too many examples to list.
Kennedy (on a silver standard, but winding it down): 1961 debt: 288,970,938,610.05 to 1963 debt; 305,859,632,996.41. Responsible for executive order 11110 which put a wind down on redemption of silver notes. Silver redemption ended 1964.
I’m sorry MikeN, but the list goes on and I really don’t have the time. I mean I don’t really know how you came up with your examples, and perhaps you’d like to share more information, but really I think you may have just cobbled some names together from another blogger somewhere who has a particular favouritism towards certain presidents, but for a reason I am unsure of. I would suggest doing some fact checking and perhaps posting some figures to support your statements.
I mean even since Bush, and under Obama, Obama is responsible for way, way more debt than Bush could have even dreamed of. Bush certainly didn’t do a job as president to offer anything positive for the country or the economy as a whole, but Obama’s methods are just a continuation of Bush’s bailout policy times infinity.
I think one of the cruxes in this whole debate here is that perhaps some of you think that top down economics is the way to go. It was always the intent of the constitution for example to put economic power into the hands of the masses, and to inhibit the government from this sort of meddling.
America lost the free market whenever it came off the precious metals standard, and it has always suffered greatly as a result.
I don’t know what to say. I mean all the charts, all the stats, all lessons from history tell us the same thing. One, that nations can’t expand beyond their currencies, and two, that fiat currency based economies have the shortest lifespans of all. If that doesn’t sound or seem right to some of you, then I’m sorry for you for either not doing any sort of fact checking at all, or being suckered by those who wish more power to print and more power to tax.
I don’t see anyone trying to offer any sort of evidence that fiat currency, over all the failed examples of it is in someway more successful.
If by success however you mean that more material goods can be purchased in the short term as a direct result of increased debt, and that somehow debt can be maintained and expanded indefinitely, then I’m sorry that you are in for a rude awakening. And you can quote me on that.
If you believe so much in such currencies and methods, then I strongly suggest that you invest in the U.S.D. and British pound.
I will continue, whenever possible to purchase precious metals as I have been for the past few years.
