Originally Posted by
forgot to bid
is a higher gdp due to government spending a good thing Bar?
and if your savings are lost due to inflation thanks to QE, how is that good?
I'll put it this way, i had three major expenditures that i was planning on doing late this year and next, I'm shelving them all for now.
Generally, if spent well, government spending to improve GDP is a good thing. The interstate highway system serves as a good example of a very expensive project which improved America's GDP, not just then, but going forward. Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo resulted in technological innovations and leadership that still pays some dividends.
I entirely agree with your concerns regarding inflation. However, thus far we have not seen a great deal of inflation thus far. Deflation, followed by inflation, scares me. While inflation is a slow thief, deflation comes with the speed of a fire.
You have to consider the various sources of the money supply and where it goes. While the Fed creates money, so does leverage at your local bank. If you deposit a dollar and they lend dollar, that's two dollars. If a home decreases in value by 50% and that equity is no longer used, or if I save a dollar and it isn't lent, that's money out of circulation.
Until the political parties go after entitlements and fundamentally restructure our tax code BOTH parties are going to tax and spend in a very similar fashion. The vast majority of spending goes to entitlements which would be spent the exact same way with either party.
I did not think Romney could beat Obama within the current management of the GOP. Overall the Republican party needs reform to win. Obama's campaign manager said he was worried by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry because either of those candidates' policies would have appealed to the Latino vote (who voted for Obama 72%). Instead Romney's logic got pushed aside to the point he sounded more like Carl Rove and less and less like himself.
IMHO, Romney's own staff and the Republican party at large cost him an election he easily could have won. He was persuaded by "experts" who gave him bad advice. That's another post I guess on another forum ... but the Republicans have to consider the reasons for their loss and perhaps someone needs to take Mitch McConnell behind the proverbial woodshed. ... as a result of his obstructions the Senate took a
real swerve to the left ... .