[ExI] Economy: "The Big Takeover".

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Tue Mar 31 16:23:41 UTC 2009


On 3/31/09, John K Clark wrote:
>  Not so, at the end of the Clinton years the government was actually running
>  a SURPLUS; but then Bush took over.
>


Oh dear.  Now we've got to get technical.

Stathis probably meant the US national debt has been more or less
steadily increasing.

Even the Clinton budget surplus only levelled off the debt increase.

But, when you look at the National Debt as a percentage of GDP, the
situation looks better than just considering absolute numbers.
<http://911review.org/Media/National_Debt.html>

This indicates that after WWII the US national debt position was
improving until the 1980s when Bush1 and Reagan took over from Carter.
Clinton did manage to reduce the debt a bit, then Bush2 started
increasing it again.

The problem Obama faces is that the national debt is increasing while
GDP is falling. And people are collapsing under the weight of personal
debt.
Unknown territory lies ahead.

BillK



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