Quote Originally Posted by noddin0ff View Post
Actually, your assumption is dead wrong with respect to the Federal government. The Gov't is not a business. It's wrong-headed rhetoric that the Gov't should run like a business; and this hyperventilation and wrong thinking about federal deficits, I argue, is slowing our recovery. The Fed is a currency creator. It's impossible for the US to be unable to pay dollar denominated debt. There is zero risk that we will not be able to pay our Social Security obligations, for instance. States, Municipalities, Businesses and individuals can't print money and do need to be budget conscious. The Fed is not constrained this way. Thus, we shouldn't hyperventilate about deficits and balanced budget. We should worry about priorities. In this case, at this time, the priority should be jobs. Politically both parties are failing us, but I'll blame the right for hyperventilating.

Slate article puts it well: Out of money? No way
"this assertion that America is "out of money" has become an all-purpose crutch through which Reason can push an ideological agenda of skepticism about programs without actually making the case in its particulars. But it's simply not true that we're out of money. Many states and municipalities are up against hard budget constraints, but the US government has the ability to create US currency in unlimited quantities. It hasn't run out of money and won't ever run out of money. It would be nice for people to understand this point separately from controversies over whether public sector programs are wise or just. In principle, the US government could print up or borrow a ton of money, hand it to state governments, and then have all the money used to cut taxes rather than to finance programs. This would not be possible in a world where the US government faced a hard budget constraint but, fortunately, we don't face any such constraint. The possible downside to a policy of greater reliance on money-finance or debt-finance is that it might make holding dollar-denominated financial assets less attractive to foreigners. That, in turn, would make imported goods more expensive domestically and American-made goods cheaper on foreign markets. If the United States were already at full employment that would be a very bad tradeoff, amount to a decline in average American living standards. But at a time of mass unemployment, it looks like a pretty good tradeoff that should raise per capita output and average incomes."



For reasons stated above, the real 'smoke and mirrors' are the erroneous beliefs that the US has a deficit problem that supersedes the jobs problem. Printing money to solve economic problems is entirely valid and is precisely what we intentionally enabled by leaving the gold standard. I'm not saying we should print money and hand it to people to spend on TVs. We should print, or borrow at low interest (which amounts to printing money over time, cause the Gov't can't pay back dollar denominated interest without making more dollars), money and use it to buy stuff we need like infrastructure, fire and police protection, teachers, healthcare… that amount to a sound investment in the future that will ultimately promote healthy private sector growth, and in the short term save jobs.

Can you really argue that funding jobs doesn't improve the job creation figures? Jobs are jobs. When unemployment is high, it's idiotic to rabidly enact spending cuts that result in job loss and loss of infrastructure for our future. What's so hard to grasp about that?
+1 x 10,000. No wait, x 40,000.