[ExI] libertarianism

[William Flynn Wallace]

John Clark wrote:
a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow and that's why people
borrow money and that's why interest exists.
------------
Is this why some people I've heard say that a balanced budget is a bad
idea?   That debt is a good thing?  bill w

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 3:11 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 1:22 PM David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com>
> wrote:
>
> * > Is this percentage of GDP *at the time* or of current GDP?*
>
>
> They say there are no dumb questions so I will ask one of my own; How
> could Harry Truman be expected to know what our current GDP is?
>
> *>Since **debts are paid with current money, why does the GDP then
>> matter?*
>>
>
> If you really insist on using our current GDP in these statistics then
> Truman did a even BETTER  job of reducing the debt as a percentage of GDP
> because it's far larger now than it was in Truman's day. A modern
> politician could play the same trick and say our current debt is a trivial
> percentage of the GDP we'll have after the Nanotechnology Singularity so
> don't worry about it. And there would actually be some truth in that
> because even without a Singularity a dollar today is worth more than a
> dollar tomorrow and that's why people borrow money and that's why interest
> exists. But are you sure you want to play that game with economic
> statistics? It's certainly not what a fiscal conservative would do.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
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