[ExI] Trump's Coronavirus Response

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 8:31 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Why? In the last 2 centuries we have dramatically improved our wealth
> generating machinery, aka our productivity, so as long as the borrowing is
> not larger than the rate of wealth generation improvement it would make
> perfect economic sense to borrow a hard to make dollar today if I can pay
> it back with a easy to make dollar tomorrow.  And that's why, except for
> the Clinton years, the USA has been running a budget deficit every single
> year since 1835. And in the entire history of the nation you will not find
> a time less appropriate to worry about the budget deficit than right now!
>

### As much as it surprises me to agree with John on a non-STEM matter,
deficit spending does have some good justifications in terms of its impact
on the quality of governance. Once again let me plug for Garrett Jones'
"10% Less democracy". The measly four hundred billion dollars paid to
bond-holders every year is a cheap price for keeping politicians from being
even worse than they are.

Aficionados of GoT may seek parallels to the impact of the Iron Bank on
Westerosi politics.

Rafal
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