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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (212924)	12/8/2004 12:56:42 PM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573144

Ten, the bottom line is exactly this chart: zfacts.com Carter was fiscally responsible by not passing debt to the next country. You cannot say this about Bush or any Repub since Carter. Republican leaders have demonstrated fiscal reckless. Carter did not. Regards, Amy J

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (212924)	12/8/2004 1:46:06 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573144

"Double-digit inflation under Carter" Yes. You also forgot climbing unemployment. Volker under Carter was trying to address the years of high deficit spending that Congress had been engaging in and the stagnant economy that had resulted in. The stock market was stalled at around 1000, and had been for years and savings were in the toilet. The cure required high inflation and high unemployment, the misery index as it was termed. That set the stage for the Reagan recovery and the bull market. The times were nasty, though. I was in my first job out of college when the Reagan budget cuts on research caused my job to evaporate. Being on unemployment in a high inflation era with high unemployment isn't much fun, I can assure you. In addition, I was in the first group that had unemployment taxable, a burden that wasn't anticipated. It ate all my savings, including what retirement I had saved up because I had to eat and living out of my car wasn't all that appealing. It took over a year before I found anything but odd jobs... Now ask me why I am concerned about the high deficits under Dubya. Unless you lived through those times, you don't have the slightest clue what it will result in, emotionally speaking. The deficit was around $800 billion by the time of Carter and they didn't know how to address the issue. Now, even with inflation, it is much higher than that. The cure, when it gets administered, is going to be even worse. One thing that is different this time is that there aren't the safeguards that there were then. The large contingent of middle management and the lack of outsourcing meant that a technical or management background buffered a lot of people from being totally devastated. That isn't true any more. Savings don't help because inflation eats them up. Investments don't help because most investment vehicles are stagnant, unless you are lucky and pick an Apple. Owning property doesn't help because there aren't many buyers in a market like that. If you lose your job, the fall is long and the landing is hard. I tell you three times, deficits do matter. Anybody that tells you differently is a flinking liar. Now true, it takes a while until they can build up steam, so short term deficits or small ones don't cause problems. But at some point the government can't sell their bonds. So they have to increase the M1 supply and/or compete with businesses for loans. That causes inflation or stagnating investments, and finally both. And that is when the fun starts...