Budget Deficit Drops to $250 Billion
By ANDREW TAYLOR , 10.06.2006, 01:53 PM
The federal budget deficit estimate for the fiscal year just completed has dropped to $250 billion, congressional estimators said Friday, as the economy continued to fuel impressive tax revenues.
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The improving deficit picture - Bush predicted a $423 billion deficit in his February budget - has been driven by better-than-expected tax receipts, especially from corporate profits, CBO said.
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At 1.9 percent of gross domestic product, the 2006 deficit registers far below those seen in the 1980s and early 1990s. The modern record of 6 percent of GDP came in 1983 and deficits greater than 4 percent in 1991 and 1992 drove Congress to embark on a 1993 deficit-cutting drive.
I was amazed to see some historical perspective like this. The standard technique is to cite the absolute size of the deficit to make it sound much bigger than it really is. But what you need to know is the size of the deficit relative to the GDP, and that number is down to 1.9%.
For even more perspective, here are the deficit figures going back to 1976 (negative numbers represent a deficit, positive numbers represent a surplus):
We are now well below the the average budget deficit over the last 30 years, which is 2.6%. And look at that trend over the last 3 years. It's better than anyone predicted as recently as 6 months ago. You can see that we had a surplus during the Clinton years, but everyone agrees that it was an illusion due in large part to the stock market bubble that finally burst shortly after Bush took office. The end of that speculative market, the attacks of 9/11, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq all took their toll on the federal budget. Viewed in that light, it is simply amazing that the deficit is as small as it is now.Oh, and here is another trend you've probably heard about:
This graph shows the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1997 up to today. The market peaked in the year 2000, but then the bubble popped. As you can see, though, the market has been on its way back for a while now, so much so that it is in record-setting territory once again.
Let's see, GDP growth is strong, productivity is way up, unemployment is low, family incomes are rising, inflation is down, the stock market is up, and the federal deficit is down. Yet polls show that we are about to put more Democrats into both the House and the Senate. That should fix all of these economic problems, real quick.
49 comments:
Well, if Dems win, this should be at least some proof thar voters are as dumb as Dems think. Economically, at least. Or as easily led by the MSM as Repubs fear.
Well, sure, if the economy were the only issue worth talking about - or judging the Republicans on - this year should be a slam dunk for the Party of Lincoln.
Is that the case? Do you think it's the case, Jorg?
Excellent work. Whenever you mention low unemployment, low interest rates and a boom stock market to some Democrats they always counter with the budget deficit. It is good to have these facts in hand to understand the true situation.
Its morning in America again.
The economy is great, and this is good news for everyone, Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative. Who is hurt when our economy does well? I credit the Bush tax cuts, but had Gore been elected and there were no tax cuts, I think the economy would have bounced back anyway, just not as well.
Although the pace of the deficit is very important its accumulation is as well. You, like the media, are only focusing on one aspect of the budget deficit. A family with 100,000 dollars in debt and another with 10,000 dollars in debt will and should have different attitudes toward spending if income levels are the same. The economy is very complex and its simplification by both sides tells me that stupidity is rampant on both sides.
Given the Republicans poor track record on containing spending, this is indeed surprising (and good) news.
Three (mostly minor) comments:
1) As I recall, another factor in the surplus of the 1990s was the "peace dividend" as we cut defense spending as we wound down the Cold War. The bubble probably contributed more to the surplus however, as Engram notes.
2) The DJIA is not inflation-adjusted, as the Wall Street Journal points out. On an inflation-adjusted basis, we're not quite there. Still, the MSM can't help but notice the "all-time high" and good economic news usually helps incumbents.
3) As "anonymous" above notes, long-term we are still in deep doo-doo fiscally because so much of the debt and liabilities are kept off-budget. SS and Medicare will sink us eventually, just to mention the two biggest items.
CFC
Anon -
The comparison you construct doesn't fly. The "percent of GDP" approach allows a fair historical comparison.
Yes - economics is complex, just as understanding the weather. But I don't have to quibble on obscure meterological metrics if someone asserts "Nice weather were havin'." The assertion can be supported by easily observable things - like blue sky and sunshine.
Right, this reminds me of the lefty lament of '94 that Republicans were making "painful cuts in social spending" when they weren't cuts, just reductions in spending increases.
I won't dance in the streets until we actually make a payment on the debt. That means the deficit has to go down all the way to zero then keep going.
You can see that we had a surplus during the Clinton years, but everyone agrees that it was an illusion due in large part to the stock market bubble that finally burst shortly after Bush took office.
No, no one with any sense agrees that the Clinton surplus was an illusion. It may have been partly temporary because the stock market had developed a bubble, but it was a real surplus.
There is also no real excuse for having any deficit at all now, even if you count the war on terrorism. The deficit is bigger than the entire war on terrorism.
The deficit may look historically small, but only with a certain amount of spin to make it look small. For one, you cut off the chart right when the low deficits of the 1960s and early 1970s ended. Moreover, a big fraction of the deficit spending shown in the chart is due to the "don't tax when you can borrow" policies of Ronald Reagan. Those policies have a lot in common with what we have today. Most of your argument comes to saying that today's cheeseburger isn't unhealthy, because the one you had yesterday was even greasier.
Both the total national debt and the deficit are low by historical standards.
And if you want to go back further on the data, go back to at least the 1930s, and you'll see how small and manageable they are today by comparison, especially to the World War II years and their aftermath.
"No, no one with any sense agrees that the Clinton surplus was an illusion. It may have been partly temporary because the stock market had developed a bubble, but it was a real surplus."
Okay, then, in that case it should be no problem for you to demonstrate how the national debt decreased during the Clinton years, thanks to those surpluses.
It didn't? The size of the national debt rose during every single year of the Clinton "surpluses?"
What a surprise.
Mr Harris,
I don't understand your perjorative use of "don't tax when you can borrow."
I think this means don't increase taxes on the productive class, when borrowing is cheaper/more efficient. If the goal is not to tax, then effective borrowing can be smart. What's the current interest rate on that debt, 4.5%?
Times like now demonstrate very clearly that lowering the tax on the productive class is a good thing for everyone involved.
Okay, then, in that case it should be no problem for you to demonstrate how the national debt decreased during the Clinton years, thanks to those surpluses.
You're right, it's no problem. Every year the Congressional Budget Office publishes a chart of historical budget data, available here. If you look at the right column of Table 1, "Debt Held by the Public", you will see that it indeed decreased during the last four of Clinton's fiscal years (1998 to 2001). It decreased from $3.772 trillion to $3.319 trillion.
I know that in order to support claims like yours, some people cite a different figure, namely the total amount that the federal government borrows from itself. But those numbers are not the right ones for this discussion, because no one is counting federal self-borrowing when they say that Bush's deficit this year is only $250 billion. You could argue that they should count borrowing from Social Security (which is not all federal self-borrowing), because Bush has repeatedly claimed that SS will soon run out of money. In any case, they don't count it. Bush is measuring himself by external borrowing; by that same measure, Clinton indeed signed four surplus budgets.
First of all, the Dow is still 20% below its record high in real dollars. The fact that everyone ignores inflation when reporting this is ridiculous. That is not the way to invest, unless you like losing purchasing power. Furthermore, the 20% factor is considering official rates of inflation, and not the 6-7% annually that we had using the pre-1995 CPI.
Similarly, those wage gains are .2% adjusted for inflation. Hey, but it is still better than the fact that median real (adjusted for inflation) wages have dropped since 2000.
It is precisely because of things like the official CPI with all of its distortions like imputed rent and substitutions (steak is too expensive, let's replace it with hamburger) that have made it so out of touch of what is happening on the street. The average American sees prices going up and purchasing power going down. However, the administration economists come out with their artificial numbers and say "See, everything is okay. Really, don't panic. I am serious."
And this analysis completely ignores what is going on the housing market right now. Together, the housing market and consumer spending have fueled 92% of our recovery. And with wages going down, a lot of this consumer spending has been fueled by HELOCs, and thus depends on the housing market. Go read any Businessweek and you will see how well it is doing.
This economic analysis in this post is ridiculously naive. For a better analysis, check out
calculatedrisk.blogspot.com
or
angrybear.blogspot.com
"I know that in order to support claims like yours, some people cite a different figure, namely the total amount that the federal government borrows from itself."
I see. So the money the government borrows from social security isn't really debt? It won't have to be paid back, then?
Al Gore's lockbox will be so happy to hear about that.
Further, you labor under a major misapprehension, to wit: the federal government has money "of its own." It doesn't. Every penny of the fed's "own money" comes out of the pockets of taxpayers in one way or another.
You're playing games with statistics, and we know all about that. Total debt is total debt, and that is the proper way to judge the number, not the latest set of cooked numbers from the CBO.
Times like now demonstrate very clearly that lowering the tax on the productive class is a good thing for everyone involved.
Lowering taxes is certainly sometimes a good thing. Lowering taxes every time you can just because you have credit is not a good thing. However low interest rates are, they would be lower still without this dramatic government interventionism. Eventually the cheap credit will end just like cheap oil will end. (And may already have ended.)
The other thing wrong with your statement is the idea that taxes have been lowered on the productive class. Most of the tax cuts have been for the opposite, for unearned income. Indeed, part of the philosophy in Washington now is that labor, which is to say productivity, is the only transaction that they want to tax.
Thanks for showing it as a percentage of GDP. Too many MSM phonies only talk in terms of nominal dollars.
Even more, the US unemployment rate is lower than it has been for 35 of the last 38 years. Fat chance of the MSM being honest about portraying that.
So let me get this straight, Bush comes in and stock market goes way down much of his term. Now it has recovered to be about as high as when he took over and this shows what a good job he is doing?
John, can I be your investment manager please? Give me say $10,000 of your money, then I will put it in stocks that go down. But eventually they will, of course, rise up to be worth $10,000 again and I can call you and say, "Great news, your investments are at record breaking levels." Then you can can give me a big bonus :)
So let me get this straight, Bush comes in and stock market goes way down much of his term. Now it has recovered to be about as high as when he took over and this shows what a good job he is doing?
Yeah, it's not like a major terrorist attack affected the economy or anything. Having all flights grounded for a day? Meh. Having tourism and travel sharply decline? Bah! Those wouldn't have any part in an economic recession.
Jordan, of course these play a big part. It might surprise you, but I don't blame Bush for the recession of 2001-2002. To make a boring but rather obvious point - The economy has gone good and bad under Presidents who are Republican and Democrats, Tax raisers and tax cutters. The economy is currently making a natural and normal recovery from that recession. Things are good now, but not any better than they were the last couple years of the Clinton Administration. Surely you are not going to tell me if Gore was President that the recession of the early 2000's would have lasted forever or that we will never have another one if Bush is made President for life.
Can we agree that returning to where we were 6 years ago is not such such a surprising piece of good fortune that the only explanation is we must have set of geniuses working in the White House?
Does this end the argument about supply side economics not working?
Save me Paul Krugman.
Paul O'Neill must be feeling vindicated.
Can't believe they let the guy go, other than the fact that he was wrong about the effects of tax cuts.
Interesting that the cut in the projected deficit for this year alone, is more than 1/3 the present cost of the Iraq War.
So much for raising taxes to fight a war, it can clearly be offset by reduction in taxes.
Anonomous,
Yep. It was genius. Simply remarkable in bringing us back in 5 years. Back on 9/11, I'd couldn't in my wildest dreams foresee where we'd be today. And, neither could you!
You talk like it could have been done better; even with two wars underway, and more likely to come.
And, you talk as if we've already weathered the storm(s), when military spending is at an all time low.
Anonomous,
Come on, stop conflating. It's by reducing TAX RATES, not tax dollars that we're funding the battle(s), while growing the economy.
Jeeesh.
The national debt did increase under Clinton, as under Bush. But the gross domestic product--the national income--increased too.
Our national debt is not particularly large by historical standards.
I would think that the Dems would consider any growth of the US economy to be a disaster.
Aren't we consuming the earth's resources at a rate that, per Al Gore, 'will result in the end of civiliztion within 10 years' and 'the death of our children and grandchildren'?
Don't the Dems want to see the US economy shrivel by 90-95% to help save the planet?
There are so many factors that come into play when comparing the nation's economic health under Clinton and GWB. To name a few:
Energy costs- there is a hidden terrorism premium built into fuel costs that didn't exist prior to 9-11. Moreover, increased Asian energy demands have stetched world oil supplies.
Stock market- that terrorism factor suppresses stock market gains, too. For more than five years, everyone has been waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the mid-to-late 90's, the Clinton economy benefited from the recession/depression that swept through the "Asian Tiger" economies. Investment money from those markets poured into our markets just as the dot com bubble began to grow.
Peace dividend- Clinton slashed our military, closing bases and cutting funds for weapons development. I kinda wish we would have put more effort into completing Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. That missile shield would come in handy about now.
IT revolution- Clinton was fortunate enough to hold office when Gore's internet concept really took off.
Timing- Clinton assumed office with the nation recovering from recession, and dumped a pending recession on GWB. It started March 2001, a month and a half after the new administration took over.
Immigration- Like it or not, our economy had to absorb a whole lot of new labor. With current unemployment at 4.7% and more than a million illegals entering the workforce each year, that's some serious job growth.
In fairness to Clinton, he didn't screw things up, although he tried with that national health care fiasco Hillary was spearheading.
These are different times. Bush deserves the same credit for the shape of our economy now as the fawning media gave Clinton in the 90's. I wonder how much relentless negative economic reporting suppresses consumer confidence and economic growth? MSM- you're costing me money!
So the money the government borrows from social security isn't really debt? It won't have to be paid back, then?
You're trying to play it both ways, Bill. Or rather, not you so much as the Republican Party. If you want to only look at the on-budget deficit, not granting borrowing from Social Security, then you can do that. Clinton even ran an on-budget surplus twice. You would have to count all federal self-borrowing -- including meaningless things like trading T-bill for other currencies -- in order to say that Clinton never ran a surplus.
But as I said, it's playing it both ways to cite that number, because when Bush says that the deficit is $250 billion, that's exactly the same measure by which Clinton ran a surplus four times. It is the CBO's total deficit, which is already minus the Social Security surplus. The SS surplus is $175 billion, so Bush's on-budget deficit this year is therefore $425 billion. That's pretty large. It's clear that Bush will not come close to doing what Clinton did twice, namely sign a budget with an on-budget surplus.
geoffgo, I am sorry, but at first I thought your post was humorous, but now the thought strikes me you were actually serious in not being able to forsee in your wildest dreams that we would recover from a recession in only 4-5 years. You do realize that we have recovered from almost every recession we have had in no less than 4-5 years, don't you? And yes, we have had wars in some of those times (also wars tend to end recessions, not start them, but we will ignore that for now).
So in your wildest dreams you could not foresee the economy behaving like it has pretty much every other time? Were you also shocked when the Baseball season started as usual? After all, 9/11 changed everything!
Here is a proposition for you. Clinton raises taxes a bit and the economy does well. Bush lowers taxes a bit and the economy does well. Hmmm ... maybe the important thing isn't who is President and how he fiddles with tax rates. Maybe the important things are the tremendous fundamental power of the American economy which can bull through even incompetent presidents (I even let you choose which ones are incompetent) and competent policy guidance by the Federal Reserve Board, which has so much more power to muck things up than the President that it is not even funny.
Just a thought about Mr. Harris' 10:03 comment:
Most of your argument comes to saying that today's cheeseburger isn't unhealthy, because the one you had yesterday was even greasier.
I actually thought his comment was more like I had a greasy cheeseburger when I was 5 and I have had a greasy cheeseburger now that I'm 25 and even though they were the same kind of greasy cheeseburger, I had a more negative results to eating it when I was 5 then I did today.
I actually thought his comment was more like I had a greasy cheeseburger when I was 5 and I have had a greasy cheeseburger now that I'm 25 and even though they were the same kind of greasy cheeseburger, I had a more negative results to eating it when I was 5 then I did today.
How about this: When I was 5, I had a 400-calorie cheeseburger every day, which may or may not have been good for me. Now that I am 25, I eat a 600-calorie cheeseburger every day. My supply-side friend, who sold me all the burgers, points out that the cheeseburgers that I eat now are a smaller fraction of my daily diet than the ones that I had when I was 5. Therefore the cheeseburgers that I eat now are not very greasy by historical standards.
How is the dollar doing against foreign currencies?
How is the dollar doing against foreign currencies?
That is a good question! I'll do a then vs now comparison, comparing early October 2001 (3 weeks after Sept. 11) to this week.
In October 2001, the Canadian dollar was 64 cents, the euro was 92 cents, the British pound was $1.48, and the yen was 120 to the dollar. The Dow Jones was at 9500.
This week, the Canadian dollar is 89 cents, the euro is $1.27, the British pound is $1.88, and the yen is 118 to the dollar. The DJIA is at 11800 (week average).
It goes to show you where the so-called age of cheap credit is heading. However well you might have done by holding the Dow Jones for the past 5 years, you would have done even better if you had put euros, pounds, or Canadian dollars under your mattress.
Of the above currencies, only the yen stayed close to the dollar, but that's partly because Japan is one of the main reasons that the United States can enjoy cheap credit -- they buy dollars with their own currency. (So does China, on a great scale.)
Despite all of the back-and-forth on the details of the numbers (and how they are calculated), for me the primary point is this:
-- Even though the economy is moving in the positive direction, the MSM feed us a constant littany of negative pessimism.
That really gets me.
I really enjoyed reading the back-and-forth. There are some good points and very few insults - and that's really impressive.
But can we agree that the economic situation of the US and the FedGov is not getting an accurate portrayal that the US populace deserves?
I wonder if you could post explaining the difference in unemployment figures in the EU and US?
I keep reading from various sources that the figures are measured differently, and that the US really has a 10% unemployment figure if the EU standards were applied.
p.s. could not find an email address, so hopefully this comment will reach you.
Here is a proposition for you. Clinton raises taxes a bit and the economy does well
This is a lie perpetrated by those who believe in higher taxation.
The economy of the 1990's didn't really take off until the Republicans started limiting federal outlays and cutting cap gains taxes.
You can pretend otherwise, but that is a fact.
I look forward to you explaining how a 1993 tax increase, mind you off set by subsequent tax cuts, balanced the budget in FY '98.
Please share.
Anonymous - You want me to explain how the budget became balanced in the Clinton Administration? Sure. The economy makes a natural and normal recovery from the 91-92 economy which causes revenue to rise, and a lid is kept on spending so that eventually revenue catches up with spending and the budget is balanced.
I think you mistakenly think I argued that Clinton's tax increases caused the economy to be good. No, if you go back and reread my post, you will see I argued the natural strength of the economy and good policy of the Federal Reserve Board did. I am simply pointing out that since that is what mattered in the 90's, perhaps that is what matters the most now.
Of course a growing economy wouldn't balance the budget without limiting spending and I fully agree with you that keeping a lid on federal spending is very important. Further, I agree that the Republicans of that time made an important contribution. What I would like you to explain is any possible connection between the fiscally responsible Republicans of that Congress and the spend money like drunken sailor Republicans of this White House and Congress? I am curious how many bridges to nowhere you think we need to build as long as they are in red states?
For full disclosure, I hope it doesn't shock you to find out I am a Republican, proudly cast my first vote for Ronald Reagan and loved the serious efforts the Republicans of the 90's to severly constrain spending. To lump the current group of Republicans together with those of the 80's and 90's is a libel on men and women who really believed government was about making hard choices on what to spend as opposed to spending on everything you can think to spend it on. I suppose this all goes to show one thing. The old belief that over time a governing party becomes corrupted by power is still as true as it always was.
To lump the current group of Republicans together with those of the 80's and 90's is a libel on men and women who really believed government was about making hard choices on what to spend as opposed to spending on everything you can think to spend it on.
First, whoever you are, I have to applaud you for having your eyes open to the real shortcomings of your own party at the present time. That makes you better than most voters on either side.
That said, I don't know what you are talking about when you say that Reagan et al believed in hard choices. Maybe you mean that they came in believing in hard choices, but I don't see that they did anything useful with that article of faith.
If we look again at the CBO tables, Table 2 has the most important overall budget picture, listing revenue and spending as a fraction of GDP. Reagan signed 8 budgets, from FY1982 to FY1989. Average revenue for those 8 budgets was 18% of GDP. Average spending was 22.2% of GDP. Whereas if you look at the Bush administration, average revenue for his first four fiscal years (FY2002 to FY2005) was 17% of GDP, while average spending was 19.9% of GDP.
These numbers say that the Reagan Administration was even further from making hard choices than the Bush Administration. The only excuse for Reagan is that Bush inherited a much more favorable budget. But other than that, I don't see the insult in likening them; they seem like birds of a feather to me.
Jim - From the tables you refer me to.
Outlays as a pct. of GDP in 1981: 22.2%
Outlays in 1985: 22.8%.
A 0.6 percentage point increase over the four years or a 2.7% increase from 22.2% to 22.8%
Outlays in 2001: 18.5%
Outlays in 2005: 20.1%
A 1.6 percentage point increase over the 4 years or an 8.7% increase over the 4 years.
The rate of spending growth in the Bush years is over 2-1/2 times as fast as the rate of increase in the Reagan years. And Reagan was dealing with Tip O'Neal rather than a Republican congress. Also Reagan had a much bigger recession (1981-82) to deal with than Bush and still held the spending line much better. If you think this is all because of the war, notice how the increase in defense spending was very similiar for both men (0.9 percentage point increase for Reagan, 1.0 for Bush).
Given this, I think it is clear that Bush has done a much worse job holding down spending compared to where he started than Reagan did compared to the budget he was given. The main reason for the positive numbers you quote is that, as you note, he is eating up the good budget situation that was handed to him by the hard work of others (including the 90's Republicans).
I don't think that Bush's extral spending is entirely due to the war, but there is a logical disconnect in your argument. You cite an increase in general defense spending which has been almost entirely separate from the war on terrorism. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are funded with emergency approprations, while most of the rest of the WOT is in Homeland Security. That is an extra 1% or so beyond the 1% that you quoted.
Most of your other comments about Reagan vs Bush are fair. Except that in my view, cutting taxes without cutting spending is another kind of indulgence. It sends the message that Americans don't have to pay for the government that they have. On this score, Reagan went about as far as Bush did.
Tip O'Neill undoubtedly deserves blame as well, but note that the Senate was Republican for 6 of Reagan's 8 years.
(Incredibly, even some of the commenters on this page argue that government credit is the taxpayers' due. Actually that's true, but not in the sense that they have in mind!)
Jim - I believe we have posted enough on this to let people make up their own minds on the truth (which is probably somewhere in between our two arguments), but you are overlooking the main and unanswerable reason that Reagan must be good and Bush bad. I was a young idealist man back when I was a Reagan voter and view him through that prism, but look at Bush with older and sadly much more cynical eyes. Let's see you find some fancy numbers to try and prove that wrong ;)
I can't argue with that one! I was young and foolish then too.
Now I am old and foolish.
Engram said:
"the market has been on its way back for a while now, so much so that it is in record-setting territory once again."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 200 in 1950 and it's now near 12,000. Over that period of time there have been hundreds of days where it was in "record-setting territory".
This is not an earth-shattering event. In fact, we should expect that, on average, the Dow should set new records in every year where the economy has net positive growth that is at least several years removed from a recessionary period. The price accorded to a stock is a function of the expected future value of the current flow of earnings. If an economy grows 3% in a year, we should expect the average Dow stock to increase 3% since there is 3% more economic activity which increases a company's earnings and positively affects a it's future value.
The S&P 500 is still 20% below it's 2000 high. The Nasdaq is still 50% below.
So yes, the Dow is in in "record territory". Is that significant? Not in the least.
The national debt was under 6 trillion when Bush entered office. When he leaves it will be over 10 trillion. He will have added more than twice as much to the debt as any other President.
The Republicans stand for many things but one thing they are not is fiscally conservative. The Democrats have a better record on that. Just compare the numbers.
Why do we accept that "low by historical standards" is acceptable? Why do we have a deficit at all? If times are as good as you say they are (and you are right about that, even if TD Larkin is right that the stock market is a bad way to measure it), then shouldn't the government be running a surplus? It is extremely dangerous to be running a deficit to fund basic operations in good economic times.
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In some respects, we all agree that a "balanced budget" is a good thing. Unfortunately, the definition of a "balanced budget" seems to be providing the government with every penny they decide to spend.
I think a look at past budgets (the amount of money the government wants to spend) will reveal that there hasn't been a budget proposed that would reduce expenditures for ... well, forever, I guess. Actual government expenditures have NEVER gone down while, as we know, revenues are not constant and indeed increase and decrease.
As for Clinton's surpluses, we don't want fool ourselves that they were the result of a plan. Until they actually materialized, they were predicting deficits "as far as the eye could see."
The economy is a long term thing and few politicians have a long term perspective. I like to say that politicians act at the whim of the economy, not the other way around. Politicians, for political reasons, portray the economy as a speed boat that they can accelerate or slow down and turn on a dime.
It's really more like an oil tanker.
Excellent analysis Nostradamus..if you still have a job as an analyst and prognosticator, I would be amazed. Try to find work selling bridges over the East River.
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