Would this cause deflation or just less inflation?
DB2
Yes, in likely most if not all cases. See the government surplus after WW1 that lead to deflation and an eventual depresssion.
Plus, it is very hard to have inflation when the government is pulling more funds from the economy than it is spending.
I’ve spoken with professional economists. This topic is professional suicide.
Do you know enough about economics to have this conversation? It’s not difficult but are you trained? Particularly in public finance?
The federal government actually ran a surplus for four years, 1998 to 2001.
The annual inflation rates were:
1997 2.3% 1998 1.6 1999 2.2 2000 3.4 2001 2.8 2002 1.6
DB2
That is a misguided point of view. I heard it best as, “The press maintains their audience”. There is no nobel principle.
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You are incorrectly conflating an annual deficit surplus with a government surplus (i.e. no debt).
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OK, as much as I hate pulling out credentials, yes, I was an Economics Major in University for two years before I decided it really was the Dismal Science. And I have had courses at Wharton, although those were business oriented, not macro-economics as we think of today.
So thanks for asking. I’m comfortable participating in the discussion.
(I had a good friendship with a University Professor of Economics from the Midwest; we had many lively discussions. He thought enough of my contributions to continue the friendship, even as we disagreed on things, sometimes vehemently.)
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So as much as I hate pulling out credentials, here I go again. I ran newsrooms for 30 of my 40 years in media. Three of the largest were in Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Broadcast mostly, but I also owned several small publications of interest to the advertising community, airline community, and others. I have been a newspaper columnist for a short time. I formed a radio network for a national cable company (programming, not news).
Reporters aren’t (or at least in my day weren’t) looking for “clicks”, they were looking for interesting stories they thought the audience should know about. For those who were lucky enough to have “a beat”, they wanted to know as much about their topic as they could, for those who were “general reporters” they wanted to convey facts as accurately as possible.
I had two reporters, one arch conservative, one very liberal, and I defied anyone to look at their presentation(s) and tell me which one was which, because they took great effort to keep their personal opinions OUT, and facts IN. (That is very different in today’s world, where Fox News does exactly the opposite, and people become internet stars grinding one point of view.)
There was a “noble” principle (the Nobel principle is a different thing.) Reporters, smart, dumb, brilliant or stupid took pride in conveying information to their audience. Very few of them were in it for glory, most loved having a job where they didn’t have to work in a factory turnout out metal widgets 8 hours a day. And they were grateful for it.)
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Well, it was/is confusing. Yesterday you wrote that the government having a positive cash flow position would be deflationary.
DB2
Ok, you have wet feet. Curious though, did you take a good public finance class?
Are the corporate tax rate and the top income bracket rate the heart of the entire debate? If we are to reinvest in the US is it the heart of the entire debate? If not what is the center of the debate?
Ignore that almost no one is combining tax policy and reinvesting in the press so very few people are discussing this. Are these tax rates the center of it all, especially for those who want to avoid taxation?
I am asking what is the central issue for the US to succeed? Not what horror film you saw last. Let’s get past those debates. The unspoken, the unwanted reality is those two tax policies are set wrong.
What year did you retire from all of this?
Newspapers are all but gone. Fox News would not wait for you for half a second. Neither would MSNBC. Or CNBC etc…
You’d be working for the Patch today.
What news rooms are you applying this “principle” to these days? Even NPR has put this on ignore.