[ExI] Free Trade

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, 13 October, 2025 10:52 AM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Free Trade

 

 

>>> Tax cuts must be matched with federal spending cuts. 

 

>>>…Why? It certainly wasn't necessary in the 1980s…

 

>That’s where we disagree.  It certainly was necessary in the 1980s

 

But you said yourself the 1980s were very prospers.  

 

> and is necessary always. 

 

The USA has had a budget deficit nearly every year for the last 200 years, and for 200 years people have been saying an economic apocalypse (or a real apocalypse brought on by God's anger over deficit spending) is fast approaching. But it still isn't here! I figure it will come about the same time as the second coming of Jesus.

 

John K Clark

 

 

 

And yet… after using that argument, you are the one who is certain the Singularity is imminent, even though that has never happened either.

 

But… we USians can all see the cost of interest taking a bigger and bigger fraction of federal spending, and we know how to extrapolate, as the fed must borrow more and more to pay back what was borrowed and spent in the 1990s.

 

The irony is that the funds needed to pay back Social Security are (by some weird accounting trick) counted as discretionary spending rather than mandatory.  The libertarians pointed out all this back in the mid 90s: accounting tricks have consequences.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20251013/bf6f320a/attachment.htm>