Comments on: Davos prescriptions for the U.S. economy

By: smanchwhich

smanchwhich — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:01:14 +0000

There has been a growing chorus of economic journalists suggesting that the only way to meaningfully bring down the debt and deficit is to spur growth. The argument for “investment” has mostly been implied, rather than overtly stated, until now. I see no reason to disagree. The problem I see is in the political reality, that deficit hawks have been warning the country about the terrors that await us caused by ballooning national debt, making the “investment” a political minefield that no one will want to touch.

By: maximillianwyse

maximillianwyse — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 01:39:12 +0000

It does seem that Mr. Summers’ talk was hardly a news flash. Saltwater economists in particular have pointed out for some time now that the recovery from this credit-induced recession is constrained by deleveraging, and delveraging in turn is constrained by anemic growth. And I certainly don’t think Mr. Summers just discovered this notion, but the man does seemed to have learned to be more politic since his days at Harvard.

maximillianwyse.wordpress.com

By: OneOfTheSheep

OneOfTheSheep — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 03:45:16 +0000

“We welcome comments…”. For Reuters in the overall, true enough; but Ms. Freeland’s posts seem to habitually delay two to three days before any reader’s comments appear.

Not posting early and timely comments on this DEVOS conference until after it has adjourned has a considerable and adverse effect on comments timely submitted that are now largely irrelevant.

By: ptiffany

ptiffany — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 00:57:08 +0000

New?!
Summers and most bona fide economists even Nobel Laureates in Economics have been saying this going back years to the time when Summers was President of Harvard. He’s repeated it several times since in public and in his more recent articles for Reuters.
New?!

For someone who has recently published a book on the American Plutocracy, most would expect a better informed discussion.

By: WJL

WJL — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 20:29:49 +0000

So what is investment – more WMDs and weapons of war?

By: donee

donee — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 04:28:44 +0000

I suggest that a nation with newfound wealth of natural gas, high oil production and low taxation is well positioned to handle it’s debt!

By: OneOfTheSheep

OneOfTheSheep — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:35:17 +0000

“When the facts change, I change my mind; what do you do?” Fine, but before such logic means anything, first there must consensus as to the “facts”. It seems that government has lost the ability it once had to tell a “want” from a “need” in terms of what it should do. Clearly America , and one of the most prosperous and productive nations ever, can afford it’s “needs”. But no society in recorded history has been able to afford all that it’s citizens “want”. To reach beyond one’s grasp is aspiration. To spend beyond one’s income is stupidity.

Mr. Sommers believes that “…to get growth, particularly for the beleaguered middle class, you need what he gently calls ‘investment,’ a category a budget hawk might simply term “spending.” It is a dangerous oversimplification to suggest that government “spending” without meaningful priorities is good when the clear and present result is an ever-increasing deficit all individuals and parties agree is “unsustainable”.

“Investing” tax dollars in America’s infrastructure should be an ongoing obligation of government with high priority on available funds. Such “investment” in a durable asset that improves everyone’s quality of life and the efficiency of national productivity.

So while to “prime the financial pump to that in a “down economy” is so prudent as to be common sense, to build mass transit that history shows will not be used by the productive in our society is imprudent. The difference boils down to competency and common sense, two things cxommonly and conspicuously missing from projects funded by the “public purse”.

One must question the need or effacy of government subsidy to for-profit medical “providers” such as hospitals and “Big Pharma”. The same can be said of unedmployment benefits beyond 26 weeks, which ecnourages people not to work or prepare themselves for different work in a permanently different economy.

One must look at the effect of good intent and make appropriate changes when it is not as intended or desired. All too often government continues doing the same things and expecting different results because no one is individually or meaningfully accountable.