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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (70226)	11/8/1999 10:48:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Les, re: From The Economist The recent fall in private saving has been only partly offset by the government's budget surplus. Isn't the budget surplus primarily from excess Federal SS receipts? I know we keep borrowing from this fund, but doesn't that just increase our debt? It's all very confusing to me. What are your thoughts?

To: Les H who wrote (70226)	11/8/1999 11:31:00 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Respond to of 132070

Les, I don't disagree with the debt statistics that the Economist presents. But I think you could have made the case that these imbalances and others have been brewing for quite some time. AG.com and various other institutions have already demonstrated that they are willing to attempt to inflate out of our financial problems (sometimes in a coordinated fashion). There is also a willingness to use taxpayer funded institutions to bail out banks, brokers, etc... whose losses "threaten" to destabilize the system. I'm not sure how to use this information any more. We are dealing with institutions that either believe they can inflate forever, are subject to political forces, or will inflate anyway. I think we have to retreat to the values alone and not assume that others will behave in ways we perceive to be prudent. Others might not agree with the Economist and they might just be irresponsible. The end game is not predictable even if the Economist is right. Wayne