http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/05/11/the-false-choice-of-higher-taxes-and-less-spending/ Politics and policy from inside Washington Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:23:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/05/11/the-false-choice-of-higher-taxes-and-less-spending/comment-page-1/#comment-8249 CDNrebel Wed, 12 May 2010 19:51:21 +0000 http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/?p=3850#comment-8249 Historical average is meaningless, sorry. One can't assume the past will repeat itself in these matters. America was industrialized only up to the Mississippi as little as 100 years ago, and the growth that ensued up to the Korean War was based on building up the west and the industry to support that build up. After that followed a lull in economic growth as there was no more easy organic growth. It wasn't until Nixon relieved the USD from the gold standard and then the policies of Reaganomics that growth approached the numbers from the days of yore - and those numbers were skewed by the growth of debt! In my opinion a fully developed economy like America should really only expect 1% growth + population growth (in America's case a total of 2%.) For most of the rest of developed nations, that means 0-1%. Forcing up those numbers into 2-4% range in effect really only creates bubbles because the support isn't there for those growth valuations. And so we've seen in the last 15 years... well, really since '86-87, but I'll limit to the dot-com build up to be fair Historical average is meaningless, sorry. One can’t assume the past will repeat itself in these matters. America was industrialized only up to the Mississippi as little as 100 years ago, and the growth that ensued up to the Korean War was based on building up the west and the industry to support that build up. After that followed a lull in economic growth as there was no more easy organic growth. It wasn’t until Nixon relieved the USD from the gold standard and then the policies of Reaganomics that growth approached the numbers from the days of yore – and those numbers were skewed by the growth of debt! In my opinion a fully developed economy like America should really only expect 1% growth + population growth (in America’s case a total of 2%.) For most of the rest of developed nations, that means 0-1%. Forcing up those numbers into 2-4% range in effect really only creates bubbles because the support isn’t there for those growth valuations. And so we’ve seen in the last 15 years… well, really since ’86-87, but I’ll limit to the dot-com build up to be fair

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