Why “Deficits” Don’t Always Matter:

12 November 2013

As “Fiscal Conservatives,” we take issue with how the “Conservative” side of American politics looks at deficit spending and debt. Here’s why:

Every year, our family takes in a certain amount of money as “income.” A portion of that income, we use to make “capital improvements” and “investments.”

A portion of funds employed for capital investments constitutes down-payments for new real estate properties, for which we take out mortgages.

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If One Were to Look at selective parts of our family balance sheet, one might see:

Deficit Spending: We have added 80% of “spending” in relation to the 20% down-payment

Increasing Debt: We have added that 80% of “debt” to the balance sheet. This debt addition may be offset by total reduction of principal on all mortgages.

Over more than three decades of such “deficit spending,” our debt-to-equity ratio is less than 50%.

Any political “Conservative” might say that we are “spending” ourselves to ruin, and that we risk leaving a mountain of debt to our children and grandchildren.

Our children don’t mind.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

[NOTE: The above post on “deficit spending” was prompted by our reading of Why The Most Important Budget Event Of The Year Has Had No Impact, which was posted earlier today by Stan Collender, at “StanCollender’s Capital Gains and Games.”

@GozoTweets

BP Does Not Deserve to Die....

.....Merely for Playing by the Rules of Misguided America’s “Free-Market Capitalism”

Not “Greed,” but America’s Deluded Misunderstanding of “free-market Capitalism” is the culprit in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: in the rest of the developed world, oil companies are required to drill the auxiliary well with the primary one, before pumping begins. Thus, this disaster, if it occurred in the North Sea, could be shut down immediately.

But Our Ideological View of Capitalism says that the oil companies are the best stewards of their interests, and thus can be trusted to avoid these disasters.

The Flaw in That Argument is the “Hockey Helmet Conundrum”: If Shell and ConocoPhillips do not bear the cost of auxiliary wells—and the regulators do not require it—then BP can not bear the cost and remain competitive with the others.

Capitalism Is the Friend of our system of government and economics. But the misguided, misapplication of some of its tenets is the folly destroying our economy:

The Purpose of Regulation is not to inhibit or to punish individual competitors. It serves to level the competitive playing field, while protecting the assets of all.

And That (In the Nutshell) is the short answer on how the anti-capitalist illiteracy of the Left, and the ignorant-capitalist ideology of the Right, are bit by bit shipping the abundance of American capital overseas.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

When Your Shack Is on Fire....

....You Don’t Hold Back the Water Because Your 
Neighbor’s Mansion Might Catch Fire Later....

Fears about the Mushrooming National Debt should concern every American. But a corollary factor looms equally large on the balance sheet of the U.S.A. financial statement:

This Factor, not surprisingly, is:

Healthcare Reform

The Broken Insurance System only affects those of us in the bottom 95% or so of the wealth class.

People Are Dying out Here, needlessly, and can’t really worry about the budget deficit right now.

Our Focused Efforts to Fix the System aim to unite concerns of the wealthy—about the debt—with concerns by the rest of us–over the bankrupting features of healthcare.

So Long as the Debt-related Fears of the Wealthy act at the expense of the bottom 95%, all the Republican shouting about the national debt will continue falling on deaf ears.

When Those Worried Only about National Debt join those of us who also must worry about personal, healthcare debt, then the United States of America will unite in restoring fiscal sanity to the country.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!