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Originally Posted by Hardknock
And you think that a one trillion war that skyrocketed the national debt has no impact on the economy whatsoever?
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It is misleading to talk about national debt in total dollars, it is much more meaningfull look at it as a percentage of GNP. When you look at it that way our national debt is in-line with our historical averages.
Also it is misleading to talk about debt without talking about networth. Our national wealth is higher than it has ever been.
If a young man has a $45,000 debt in student loans earning $15,000/yr, with $0 assets, that debt may be in reality a bigger burden than - a man with $500,000 debt, with a $250,000/yr income, and $1,000,000 in assets.
Regarding your other poin in most cases government spending is not going to be harmful to the economy, theoretically - assuming government spending is effecient, because $1 spent is $1 dollar spent.
I can spend my dollar or the government takes my dollar through taxation and spends it. Either way, in theory, that dollar gets spent.
The government can spend a "one trillion" on a war, or we the American people, can spend "one trillion" on pizza and beer. It would be more fun to spend a trillion on pizza and beer, but in either case we would end up with either a trillion dollar war economy or a trillion dollar pizza and beer economy. Goes back to the Econ 101 lesson - trade off between guns and butter.