Why governments can borrow more than they think. Prof. Bezemer
“There is no simple relation between government spending and inflation”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=346rx5Mc9Ng
Tag: deficit
Does Anybody Know How to Solve an American Debt Crisis? | Plain English
For a long time, a lot of people who really just wanted a smaller government pretended to care about debt (or fooled themselves into thinking they cared about debt).
Three quarters of US government spending make the federal government an insurance company with an army. As a percentage of the total spending, waste fraud and abuse is very small. DOGE was a failure because it didn’t understand the US federal government. If you want to significantly reduce spending, you have to stop sending Americans checks (like Medicare and Social Security), or/and have to weaken the military, although the check cutting part is much bigger than the military spending part.
Republican politicians used to lie, or be misinformed, by saying that tax cuts pay for themselves; now they lie, or are misinformed, by saying Trump won the 2020 election (he did not). It’s hard to make a tough compromise under such politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXKAfcgl7eU
Why the Trump Xi Summit Was Always Going to Fail!
Trump’s visit to China achieved essentially nothing. The countries’ problems are too deep to be achieved in a presidential visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD1eGSCvUO0
Mark Cuban Says We Could Pay Off The National Debt If Insurers Were Fined $100 Every Time They Over-Billed Or Denied Care
“Mark Cuban is taking aim at the U.S. healthcare system, arguing that widespread billing abuse by insurers and providers could be a major source of federal revenue–if only they were held accountable.
“If we fined insurers and providers $100 every time they over-billed, incorrectly denied care or misrepresented any amount of patient out of pocket, we could pay off the national debt,” the billionaire entrepreneur posted on X last week.”
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mark-cuban-says-could-pay-173107627.html
Trump Said His Tariffs Would Reduce the Trade Deficit and Bring Back Manufacturing. Here’s What the Data Show.
“From January through September, the most recent month for which U.S. Census Bureau trade data are available, the U.S. imported $1 trillion more in goods than it exported. This is a $118 billion jump compared to the goods trade deficit that the U.S. ran from January to September 2024. (Likewise, the overall trade deficit, which includes services, increased by $113 billion.)
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Recently published data from China’s General Administration of Customs show the Chinese goods trade surplus has increased since Trump took office. From January to September, China exported $875 billion more goods than it imported—a $185 billion jump vs. the same time period in 2024.
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Fortunately for consumers, these macroeconomic statistics are meaningless. You run a trade deficit with your grocery store, I run a trade deficit with McDonald’s, good little boys and girls run a trade deficit with Santa Claus, and we’re all better off for it. As as the economists Daniel Klein and Donald Boudreaux have put it, a trade deficit is equivalent to running a surplus on current stuff.
Likewise, as countries get richer, their labor markets transition from agriculture to industry and then to the service sector. Declining manufacturing employment as a share of overall employment is a sign that Americans are richer, not poorer, than our ancestors.
Trump’s targeted metrics are meaningless as proxies of prosperity. But the fact that his protectionist policies are failing to achieve their stated goals shows just how flawed they—and their justifications—always were.”
https://reason.com/2025/12/17/trump-said-his-tariffs-would-reduce-the-trade-deficit-and-bring-back-manufacturing-heres-what-the-data-show/?itm_source=parsely-api
How One Banker’s Greed Triggered the French Revolution
America’s rising debt, inequality, and inability to appropriately tax its wealthy, rhymes with what was happening leading up to the French revolution. The French put off their economic problems until the only solution was revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqFSX7HQjwk
Michael Pettis: Bilateral Tariffs Will Fail To Restructure Global Trade Imbalances
When countries like China focus on heavily investing, initially it works well because they invest in productive things and this grows their economy. However, later, they run out of that many productive things to invest in, in which case they are robbing their citizens of consumption and outcompeting other countries’ manufacturing, but not gaining much actual new productive benefits. This leads to debt.
Bilateral tariffs like Trump is doing don’t work. The U.S. has a huge deficit because it consumes more than it exports. A global tariff could work by making goods more expensive and incentivizing people to consume, now relatively cheaper, domestic products. Bilateral tariffs just mean Americans will import cheap goods from country C and D instead of the heavily tariffed countries A and B.
Getting foreigners to invest in the U.S. hurts the U.S.. The U.S. has plenty of capital to invest and doesn’t need more. Additional investment means driving up the dollar, making U.S. goods less competitive internationally, and hurting U.S. exports.
China has debt to support investment. The U.S. has debt to support consumption. The system is out of whack and needs adjustment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoSNdzfydRU
Decline and Fall of the Conservative Mind | The David Frum Show
DOGE was a massive failure. It was run by arrogant people who didn’t think they needed to learn and understand the subject matter. DOGE misdiagnosed the problem. Fraud and waste isn’t the driver of the debt, legitimate payments to people for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, and military spending, are the drivers. DOGE also broke the law. The executive cannot legally stop spending that has been passed by Congress and signed by a president.
DOGE did enduring harm to research. We lost valuable people who are hard to get back. The standing of the United States and its power to influence people through the State Department, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and foreign aid have been deeply damaged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gyi8r1zExU
“The real problem isn’t deficits, It’s Neoliberalism“ Top Economist warns
The real problem isn’t deficits, It’s Neoliberalism“ Top Economist warns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ2puKiKBdE
America’s $30 Trillion Publicly Held Debt Is 42 Times Larger Than It Was in 1980
“Don’t be fooled: The debt explosion is not driven by waste, fraud, or foreign aid. Nor is it the result of a lack of revenue. It’s the direct result of reckless promises to retirees, the cost of health care, and an unwillingness to pay the bills honestly. For most of American history, debt fell when wars ended and peace returned. Since 1980, we’ve managed the opposite: peace without prudence and prosperity without restraint.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/30/americas-30-trillion-publicly-held-debt-is-42-times-larger-than-it-was-in-1980/