Oldag2020 said:

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Ribeye-Rare said:

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Oldag2020 said:

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Basically, we can spend as much as we want with little to zero negative consequences.

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Absurd. Government spending is, almost without exception, much more wasteful and much more prone to inefficient allocation of economic resources than is spending by the private sector. While economic resources are certainly not completely finite, they definitely are subject to restraints that prevent them being supplied in unlimited quantities.

A government owned or favored 'enterprise', lacking the 'stick' of a profit motive to keep it efficient and honest, can virtually never provide the same standard of quality or price that a private sector business can. Moreover, those in government who are granted the authority to choose winners and losers rarely, if ever, have their own skin in the game. Subsidies, grants and all other manner of BS seldom work out for the benefit of the taxpayer, and take resources away from allocations that make economic 'sense'.

Politicians make very poor businessmen. Saying we should give them carte blanche to spend unlimited sums of 'other people's money' is just not sustainable. The examples of history are before your very eyes:

West Germany vs. East Germany
South Korea vs. North Korea
Taiwan vs. China (pre 'opening')

If unlimited government spending is without consequence, why were those economies so damn pitiful? Throw in Venezuela to boot, if you like.

As to the points about technological advances and increased labor supply, it would seem considering that much of the current (and planned) increase in labor supply will be in those who are definitely unskilled and uneducated, they will be the most likely to be replaced by that technology, rather than use that technology to enable the making of a zillion widgets more than we make now.

I will admit that I've been baffled by the relative lack of inflation over last the 15 years. Like the man in the nursing home awaiting his ultimate fate, I've been waiting for it, have yet to see it, but I damn sure know it's coming and it bothers me.

OTOH, part of me thinks we are being 'punked' by OP, and he is really a Chicago-school monetarist like Milton Friedman who is playing the devil's advocate just to screw with us.

If he really is serious, I don't know how 'old' an Ag he could be. Thinking like this would have earned you an F- in the economics department I attended at A&M in the '70s, where the Monetarists were king and we thumbed our noses at the Keynesians down the road on the Berkeley East 40 acres.

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The reason for no long term inflation(yes we have transitory inflation) is simply that our productive capacity is so high. We are extremely efficient and can produce much much more than we are producing. It's this simple. Productivity and production far outpace our demand. This should be worrying to us all. It is a serious deflationary risk.

It's why both parties, democrats and conservatives, are becoming so adamant about increasing spending.

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CDUB98 said:

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This young toolbag hasn't popped his precious, pointed little head back out of his hole since he got his **** pushed in on this thread.

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