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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (2600)	10/16/2000 8:33:33 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Personally, I think that very large surpluses syphon money from the economy. I only concur with this if the government's current tax revenues are equal with outlays. But when the govt has privately held public debt, paying off that debt releases private capital to find its way to the private debt/equity markets, and reduces public debt competition in the debt markets (as that article correctly stated). But as I think I've clearly established (finally.. :0), when a government budget goes into surplus, and the previous debt is paid off, it has to issue IOUs in the form of T-Bills, and then take that surplus cash and spend it on bigger government. That's why I have to disagree with Alan Greenspan about the efficacy of placing a portion of the SS revenues in triple AAA corporate bonds, or stock indices. I mean.. hell... we put everone else's pension funds in corporate bonds and the S&P 500 index... But one major question we haven't dealt with is whether a lower amount of national debt will induce less interest in holding US dollars for those parties seeking a safe haven? I don't really think it will, but it has been an argument against completing eliminated the public debt... It keeps the dollar predominant in liquidity of bonds. Regards, Ron

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (2600)	10/16/2000 10:01:38 AM
From: Bruce A. Thompson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Hi Zeev, "I am not sure where the gentle British economist (the story in a prior post) got his number of $30 B of treasuries being bought back, my calculations show that we have gone down by $100 B in the last 10 months (since 12/31/99) in the "public debt", thus the buy back must have been a solid $100 B, and that is a serious chunk of money to take out of the economy." Actually, Zeev, I believe the $100B in this case has been dumped back into the economy. It was taken out of circulation and tied up in 30 yr bonds which only returned 5-6%. Now it has been released to find other returns. BT