"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:05:36 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

And that's why, as I pointed out in my last message, the Treasury Dept.
and
nearly everyone else doesn't count those bonds.

Their website seems to show they do count those bonds, Ed.

Their website shows you several columns of numbers, and then it explains
what they are. What they SAY about it is this:

"Debt held by the public is the most meaningful of these concepts and
measures the cumulative amount outstanding that the government has borrowed
to finance deficits."


Now, you may still insist on counting them. That's fine, then you'd have
to
say that the national debt accumulated *more slowly* during the late
'90s
than at any time since 1972. That fact is true either way.

Yes, that we can agree on, and it shows that there was no surplus during
Clinton's years, contrary to his habitual lying about it.

As the Treasury department said above, the way he (and almost everyone else)
counts the debt, he was exactly right.


Also, you brushed off the idea of counting debt as a portion of GDP, as
nearly everyone does.

You're either taking in more than you're spending, or you're not. What
the rest of the economy is doing doesn't change a red number into a
black number.

Again, it's a question of whether you understand the numbers and want to say
something sensible about them, or you want to ignore the facts that the
population is increasing, the economy is growing, and inflation is
diminishing the value of your indebtedness -- which are the ways economists
say we "grow out of the debt."

It's like getting a 10% property-tax increase after 20 years, when your
income has increased by 20% and inflation has increased by 15%, and wringing
your hands over how you're getting killed by tax increases.

Or it's like having the population grow by 2% and the economy grow by 3%,
and having Bush say that a 1% increase in the number of jobs is "job
growth."

None of those things -- national debt, tax amounts, or number of jobs --
mean anything as "growth," except as they relate to inflation, population
increases, or growth of the economy: GDP.


They do it for a good reason: because debt has no
economic meaning whatsoever EXCEPT AS a portion of GDP.

The polarity of the number is what's in question here, Ed, not the
proportion.

No, Dave, debt as a percentage of GDP is the only meaningful way to measure
it.


So, I'm done. g You may accept these things or not; it doesn't matter,
because everyone who makes the key economic decisions that affect the
national debt, and SS, and so on know them perfectly well, and these are
the
basis on which those decisions are being made. And that, I suppose, is
as
close as we're going to get here to the bottom line.


All I can tell you, Ed, is that Clinton claimed to have a surplus,
and in each of those years the amount of debt went up. If my checkbook
balance gets more negative on any given month, I don't call that a
surplus.

Your checkbook isn't about debt. It's about current accounts. If you want to
look at current accounts, look at current surpluses or deficits, not at
accumulated debt. Debt shows up in your statement of net assets, not in your
checkbook.

--
Ed Huntress