The Inflation Crisis and How to Resolve It (LvMI)

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After they voted for a suggestion for lead that is provable a corruption of historical facts. The statements of this suggestion are not verified by the cited sources and are counterfactual as I demonstrated explicitly a bunch of times. Now they achieved that the article is unblocked and they edited a new introductory section [1]. Nothing of this introductory section can be verified by the quoted sources. It is all totally fabricated and it is the exact opposite of the historical facts that can be proved by many reliable sources.

Already the first sentence, the definition of the lemma, is sourced with a glossary of a newspaper that don't verify this statement. Even more this definition of the lemma is absolutely counterfactual because Ludwig Erhard was a bitter opponent of social insurance schemes [2] [3] [4] [5] so social insurance schemes can't be the basic characteristic to determine the social market economy. Every sentence of this new introductory section can not be verified by the quoted sources and if you want I can show you this. Can someone review Wikipedia talk: I have recently rewritten liberal paradox.

I would greatly appreciate someone taking a look at it and providing any feedback you might think appropriate. Lately, I have been trapsing through WP: VA to find articles in need of navboxes. I have mostly just found subjects with at least four notable works in need of templates. Each of these templates could use some broadening of major theories, schools of thought and such to be added to them.

I will probably begin deploying these templates in the next day or two, but editing would be useful either before or after such deployment. In the article "Equation of exchange", in the "Applications - Quantity theory of money" section, and in the article "Quantity theory of money" in the "2. This is dangerously misleading, because the equation of exchange is a statement of an equilibrium condition, not a dynamic statement of instantaneous cause and effect.

That is, any time-based model that uses the equation of exchange to implement the quantity theory of money must take into account the lags in the system. I have not edited the pages myself yet because I see that they are part of a special project being developed by appropriate experts. I'm new to contributing to Wikipedia; if my understanding of the Wikipedia process is correct, would one of you experts please fix them?

Or am I supposed to do it myself and explain my reasons on the Talk page? Robert G Chamberlain talk The article Final Good is misleading and should be merged with the article Consumer Product. By definition a final good is good or service that is consumed by the end user and does not require any further processing. Therefore, the article is not wrong but a general user might not search for final goods when looking for consumer goods. I would hence suggest to add the wording final good under a new category called Synonyms within the Consumer Product article.

What do you think? There's discussion about the criticism section and a talk thread. Comments or additions to this section of the article would be welcome. Here is link to 'Economy of the United States' sample article. This exact format can be repeated for all countries: I am looking for volunteers to duplicate this model for all countries in the following Wikimedia project proposal: I hope this isn't considered improper, but an article Law of value that might be under the scope of this project needs a lot of help. I've requested help at the appropriate WikiProjects Socialism and Philosophy , but this article is exceedingly long and extremely wide in scope.

It touches on metaphysics, socialism, communism, and capitalism, making it a bit difficult to properly categorize. It's full of original research and has trouble maintaining a neutral POV, and it's entirely too long over KB, currently. The size and scope make it too overwhelming for the small group trying to fix it, and we'd really appreciate any help that this WikiProject could spare, even if it's just to point us in the direction of more appropriate WikiProjects to harass.

I think that these articles would be improved if they were modified to become more comparable and uniform. I believe that these pages would be improved with a standardized and simplified format. This would allow for greater comparability and public understanding. Public understanding is a major goal for Wikipedia.

Below are the Wikipedia Contents of the four biggest economies. As you can see, the Contents are inconsistent between them. I believe this can be fixed. Has the Wikipedia community ever tried to fix this in the past? I second this proposal. History" — where does income, wealth, poverty, and inequality fit in to that? I like the idea of simplicity, but you may be able to do much better if you spend some time to research, think it through, and ask for feedback from others before proposing a standardized outline format. For example, why "International Accounts" and not "Trade"?

Why are "States" and "Cities" separate sections in distant parts of the outline? Currently the US economy article has some detail on the sizes of various sectors such as manufacturing and finance. Do you want to include relative levels of business investment, too? Why don't you try converting one of the existing articles in to a format you think would be suitable for standardization in WP: Does anyone see any errors in it?

A page under this wikiproject, Gold standard , has been getting some POV edits. Please join the discussion here. Please review this edit. There is further discussion on this at Talk: It is not my edit, but I would like more experienced eyes to have a second look at it please. I would not have deleted the paragraph. I am looking for advice on this topic. This post is related to the previous section. I recently tried to add an article named Economic summary of the United States to Wikipedia and it was rejected. My goal get help from other Wikipedians to duplicate this article with the same exact format for every country in the world total.

This project can go even further and have an article for every state and city. The format used in this project is simple yet sophisticated.

See a Problem?

The statistics are available on government websites. There is nothing in the world that resembles this project and I believe that this project is in line with Wikipedia's goals. There is huge value added in compiling various government statistics from around the internet all into one location that is easy to access. Versions for China and Japan are also available to show how this project would look for other countries. For a more localy focused area, the case of Salt Lake City was treated as an example. About a month ago, I created this Global Economic Map Wikimedia project proposal, but I was told that my project belonged on the normal Wikipedia.

After having my article be rejected from the normal Wikipedia, I am confused about where my article belongs.

Man vs. the welfare state

I want my article to be in a place where it can be seen by the public and inspire other people to create duplicates for other countries. Should my article be included in the normal Wikipedia under the title Economic summary of the United States? Should these articles have their own Wikimedia project? Is there another solution that I'm not thinking of? There is extensive background discussion elsewhere on the talk page there. We welcome your input, additions, and comments. One editor has voiced an opinion, but this may be an area that needs more expert opinion.

Browse the Daily

What's the difference between Net foreign assets and Net international investment position?? If not, shouldn't the articles be merged?? Searching the web and readign stuff here and there I'm not an economist I've mostly found-understood perhaps erroneously that they refer to the same thing; but if as per what I see as an exception, i. Feel free to comment at Wikipedia: Jesus Huerta de Soto. The debate is here. So far, all of the votes have come from libertarians. I'm hoping to get a broader swath of people -- particularly those who have formal training in economics methodologies -- to come to the debate and give their two cents.

So far, all of the votes have come from libertarians is the non-neutral part which might cause problems. His article survived the AfD. Now two editors are contesting whether he should be categorized as an economist. Please feel free to comment at: Users and members of the project that are willing to help, may do so in the article's entry on the Articles for Improvement page. Which should go first in the lede characterization of Rothbard, "political theorist" or "economist? At this diff in the Murray Rothbard info box a user wants to make Anarcho-capitalism a school of economics with 2 refs that merely says that Rothbard influenced those ideas and one that doesn't even mention anarcho-capitalism.

Meanwhile he ignores four refs calling Rothbard an Austrian school economist in the first sentence of the article. I couldn't find such a school doing an internet search. Am I missing some important school or is this editor just totally confused?? Steeletrap and earlier User: Perhaps someone could help explain this to them at this Murray Rothbard article talk page discussion section.

Nobody has suggested that 'anarcho-capitalism' is a school of economic thought.

Four editors, however, have questioned whether Murray's infobox should show him only as an "economist. Steeletrap did remove economist from the info box and even removed that fact Murray Rothbard was an economist of the Austrian school from the lead but as of last two days we've got them back. But it does seem rather shameful to see this defacto vandalism of any well known economists article.

It may have gone unnoticed to some here, but for Paul Milgrom's 65th birthday, his students and colleagues organized to overhaul his WP page. More info on Al Roth's blog here It is now significantly improved from its former stub, and it may be a good candidate for GA status if I understand it correctly. I'm not sure quite how to kick off this process, any help would be great. At the very least, it's certainly no longer Start-class!

A helpful colleague pointed out that the CreditSuisse Global Wealth Databook has compiled median individual wealth statistics by country, on pp. Someone was looking for this somewhere on the wiki in the past few months, and it's incredibly hard to find. Given that this information is far more characteristic of a typical person's wealth than the mean values skewed by large outliers everywhere, I think it's very important and I hope we can incorporate it.

Watch Live Today

I suppose I should make some kind of a table or graph based on it. Please help review Wikipedia talk: Roger Dodger67 talk Could someone please say whether or not Goldman Sachs' aluminum commodities futures manipulation has been occurring with other commodities or futures contract instruments?

Regarding two of the subsections in Gary North economist -- which describe his views, but contain original rather than secondary sources — are they proper? Please see the discussion here. Hi, just to inform you about the creation of a wikidata task force about economics data there. You are kindly invited to join the task force and to share you ideas or comments.

Could some editors please look at Paul Krugman , specifically the criticisms section? Yet they seem to have virtually no mention in mainstream economic discourse and appear to, by virtue of their brand of Austrian School methodology, reject empiricism and statistical methodologies in their study of economics. Thus they seem to me to constitute a walled garden , which allows them to effectively source each other in an overwhelmingly positive fashion.

I hope some concerned economics-types can look into the pages I mention. It would be good with some outside opinions at Poverty in Mexico regarding how to choose the best sources for national statistics on poverty and how to interpret them. I have updated Missing topics about business and Economics - Skysmith talk Take, for example, an article from Forbes: Just put in the right IMF numbers and removed the average column.

I can do this myself. The link to the real numbers is here: Could someone please clarify that? Can some one take a look at Wikipedia talk: The math Wikiproject received a request for an expert evaluation of whether or not the article is legitimate, but I think the topic is more in line with your interests here.

Ludwig von Mises Institute RfC: I've reverted edits that replaced the whole article by new material. Could someone who does understand the topic take a look and work out whether the new material should be added, should replace the existing article content, form a new article or whatever?

Murray Rothbard , an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.

Here's an article submitted at Afc that could benefit from the expertise of someone here. I am currently working on taking the "Food security" article up to a GA rating, or as close as possible. However, the "Economic approaches" subsection contains information on three economic approaches called "Westernized view", "Food justice" and "Food sovereignty".

These subsections have little or no citations, and seriously detract from the quality of this article. I was hoping someone here would have an interest in editing these section, or advising on their deletion. I am not sure if the approaches are important or well-known, and the lack of citations has me questioning their authenticity. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hello, I'd like someone to look at the Economy of Bulgaria article. I have reverted a possible vandalism from unregistered user, but my edit was reverted. IHMO the text added by the unregistered user is copy-pasted from an economy report. That's why I think it cannot stay in the article. I'd like to avoid fight and someone more experienced to look at the matter. Regards and thanks, gogo3o How should we characterize [9] from [10] in light of the generally confirmatory [11]?

Please answer at talk: Workweek and weekend Optimum number of working hours per week?

I recall a while back that there was a question about working papers by EllenCT where LK expressed that these were unreliable and I disagreed. Most economics work these days is in working papers, and it's unrealistic to categorically remove them. The other day Krugman had the following comment:. Economics journals stopped being a way to communicate ideas at least 25 years ago, replaced by working papers; publication was more about certification for the purposes of tenure than anything else.

Partly this was because of the long lags — by the time my most successful though by no means best academic paper was actually published, in , there were around derivative papers that I knew of, and the target zone literature was running into diminishing returns. Partly, also, it was because in some fields rigid ideologies blocked new ideas. Of course, it was Rogoff's published paper on austerity which had a glaring error.

Thoughts about working papers? Please see these three graphs proposed at Talk: I would like to experiment with ways of combining them. What appropriate software for graphing produces the most legible results on wikimedia wikis? I am trying to include this one in some way and any suggestions would be appreciated. I looked over the list of economics articles under WP: Vital articles , and it could be much improved.

It looks like it was constructed by someone with little exposure to economics. I made a few proposals to swap out Macreconomics and microeconomics for "goods" and "services" and to swap "supply and demand" for "markets". Please weigh in on the discussion and make other swap suggestions. I came across [14] and its "Marxist" conclusion that we need to "decouple accumulation from profitability" sounds to me like just another call to lower inventories by using IT to transition towards just-in-time production of products and services that can't be contracted for in advance or otherwise reliably predicted.

I was wondering what other editors made of that. This article seems like a Marxist manifesto with psycho-sexual theory undertones. This is not an appropriate way to approach the topic. Plus, Schumpeterian growth is not a "policy", and this article fails to clearly state the assumptions about product monopolies in the theory. I plan to eliminate the article and redirect to Creative destruction if there is no objection. How could that be an accurate reflection of what kind of wages workers in the U. Hi, this bio of a Polish-Austrian economist could use some specialist attention.

I just redirected Flooding the market and a handful of similar terms to market saturation , but I'm having second thoughts. Are these the same thing or are they distinct? Ego White Tray talk Has recently seen huge numbers of economists and others being listed as "Georgists", added to categories for Georgists, etc.

I removed a bunch, but was instantly reverted. Almost none of those listed have George or Georgism mentioned in their biographies, nor found through Google searches, and the apparent standard was that at some point someone had said they favored land taxes of some sort: I suspect that the members here are far better equipped than I to separate the wheat from the chaff in the article and category.

Could we please have some additional eyes at Tax policy and economic inequality in the United States and in particular the history over the past few days? I believe it is being used as a deliberate source of misinformation to perpetuate an Austrio-libertarian whitewash of recent historical truths, because several editors don't like the obvious inferences that any of them suggest. Attempting to hide history is exactly what Wikipedia should not be doing in articles about economics.

That is, WikiProjects are set up to promote better economics-related articles in general, not for discussions of particular articles. Those discussions belong on article talk pages. If more community input about improvement of particular articles is needed, then this talk page can be used to notify interested editors of such discussions. Also, the RfC process is available to promote interest on particular article pages. Considering that this WikiProject has thousands of articles of interest, it is improper to carryout such discussions on here.

Please return to the article talk page. The above old abandoned Afc submission appear to be about an influential person, but it is about to be deleted as a stale draft. More references are needed and I don't know where to look. Should this article be rescued or let go? I would like to nominated History of macroeconomic thought as a featured article again. I nominated it once before, but it mainly failed over content disputes. I have tried to improve the article further, gotten it listed as a "Good Article," and it should be ready for another FA nomination. Please let me know what you think of the article.

I'd like to resolve any disputes or other issues before making a nomination. This article about a notable professor has not been edited for more than a year, and has never been submitted for review. I have tried to find independent references, but this man has written so many books and papers that I just keep finding his own work. I tried adding the word "review" to my search, but he writes these too. I am not an academic; can someone who knows where to look find some sources?

We could use some fresh input on the article about Austrian School author Robert P. Murphy and in particular on the discussion of his book in about the Great Depression, here: There's an RfC at the talk page of progressive taxation that would benefit from participation by members of this wikiproject. Thanks, LK talk I've gone ahead and created a new article on Chicago Options Associates.

AfD discussion needs knowledgeable input. Feel free to opine on either, which both are regarding the articles Walter Block and Defending the Undefendable. The above article has references, but they are not on line. Is this a notable economic model? Do the references support it? Here's another submission that needs reviewing. However, it appears this project's watchlist has beem broken for a while, and articles here are not being assessed either.

So I just wonder if this project is active? Thanks in advance, X Ottawahitech talk I've added Taxation as a sister project. Do people consider Politics a sister project? This list is potentially now out of date. Another Census could be taken? It may be useful to include an end date - so it becomes a snap shot of actives users over a period of time, say six months for example. Please see Gold Wars. The topic is way out of my realm but it seems pretty POV and unbalanced most of the article is about books on the topic, not the topic itself.

This suppression has led to a number of negative effects, including wars and a general decline in the moral fabric of society. Fiat currencies, by being prone to corrupt manipulation, create corruption in the mainstream behavior of citizens The unsound nature of the system threatens the entire global economy A number of sound money advocates have paid homage to Lips short book Taxation , one about Fat and Soda being types of tax.

Input would be welcome. Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page http: If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster talk Sorry I don't have time to work on this, but much has been written on the psychological and social effects of inequality and progressive taxation, so that section should be expanded perhaps section title should also be changed.

These papers can be mined for sources to expand the section on psychological and social effects:. And, of course, the book The Spirit Level , attributes all kinds of ills to income inequality, and suggests progressive taxation as one way to improve social outcomes. Review of the book here: Project members and editors should note that the first line on this page reads, in bold: The rhetorical difference, of course, is that a is political suicide and b is ignored or misrepresented in the mainstream media. Its demand that the central bank deliver "low interest rates" is, in effect, a demand that the bank generate high inflation; and the phrases "steady inflation" and "the gradual destruction of the purchasing power of money" are virtual synonyms.

Do not, therefore, expect that you will rise one morning to headlines proclaiming that Uncle Sam is broke. Instead, anticipate that it will be an extended and covert affair. The central bank's inflation can promote only two things: Indeed, to the extent that the U. Government's bankruptcy takes the form of an enrichment of privileged "insiders" and the gradual impoverishment of benighted "outsiders," it commenced years ago and is proceeding silently apace.

A particular government, for example, might year after year maintain its budget in surplus and never borrow a penny. It might laud itself as a model of fiscal prudence. But if its liabilities outstrip its assets, and if it cannot raise the assets required to meet its liabilities at cents on the dollar when they fall due, then this alleged model of rectitude is actually insolvent.

Yet Kotlikoff overreaches when he says "the focus on government debt has no more scientific basis than reading tea leaves or examining entrails. Government's "on-balance sheet" debt can teach us much about America's rise and fall, the causes of its present pickle and the possible source of its redemption see also William Bonner and Addison Wiggins, Empire of Debt: America's founder knew the lesson, but their descendents have ignored it.

In James Madison's words, war is the most serious threat to liberty and solvency "because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. Mencken Notes on Democracy , Knopf, , "the whole history of the [U. Pancho Villa, German spies, the Kaiser, Bolshevism. The list might be lengthened indefinitely: Monroe concludes that during wars and emergencies, an "inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

The trouble is that, since time immemorial, rulers have sought to wage war. And to do so, they must confiscate their subjects' property. Since the s, when Sir Robert Walpole revolutionised the financial basis of the British Government, a government able to command the confidence of lenders has also been able to issue debt that need never be repaid.

It needs only to create a regular and dependable source of revenue — a "tax base" — and then use a part of it to pay the annual interest and the principal of maturing bonds. For every bond it retires, it also issues a new one. In this way, a "national debt" becomes a perpetual debt. It thereby becomes an instrument of unending war. The Royal Navy extended British sovereignty and influence around much of the world during the 18th and 19th centuries, and Walpole's innovation underwrote its activities. The establishment of a national debt not only overturned the fear of Stuart tyranny: HMG, in other words, could now maintain a permanent military establishment and finance its wars without the regular and bothersome application to Parliament.

The British Empire, then, was built upon more than the blood of soldiers, sailors and civilians: This debt had the added benefit to politicians of harnessing creditors to the government. These developments did not escape the attention of the America's founders. In January , when General Washington mounted the steps of Federal Hall close to the top of Wall Street and opposite today's New York Stock Exchange , took the oath of office and became the first President, his newborn country's Treasury was virtually empty.

An Historical Perspective, , Praeger, The rebellion against Britain had cost treasure as well as blood, and the colonists were only slightly more willing to submit to local than to Imperial taxes. Under the Articles of Confederation, the admirably loose-fitting constitutional garment that had joined the rebellious colonies, the nascent federal government possessed no power to tax.

The states could levy taxes and forward them to the Continental Congress; but they too were hobbled by debt, and popular hostility towards taxes was pervasive. Hence little more than a trickle of funds flowed into the Congress's coffers see also Stabile's The Origins of American Public Finance: Alternative means were therefore sought to finance the war.

As it is doing today, Congress resorted to external creditors and the domestic printing press see in particular Murray Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States: As a result, by the time Washington vanquished Cornwallis in , American governments owed large sums to King Louis of France, to Dutch bankers — and the thousands of American soldiers, farmers and merchants who had lent their labour, goods and capital to the cause. Virtually all agreed that it had been right and proper to borrow in order to secure their political independence.

But what about the new country's financial sovereignty?

Over the next two decades, how — indeed, whether — the debt would be repaid and the budget balanced became the subject of a ferocious debate between two leading lights: Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Washington sat uncomfortably between them at the cabinet table and lamented the "internal dissensions" that were "tearing our vitals. Many likened it to the seizure of property without the owner's consent. Amassing debt to finance grandiose national projects, and then extending this debt into perpetuity, was widely regarded as monarchical, English and corrupting.

The Public Debt of the American Revolution University of Virginia Press, , "for whoever controlled it would in all likelihood possess not only the chief taxing power but the prime allegiance of a large segment of the American population" see also " Perpetual Debt: From the British Empire to the American Hegemon " by Scott Trask, which inspired the structure of the next couple of pages. Jefferson, whom Washingon appointed as America's first Secretary of State, agreed — and hastened to add that the very existence of a national debt, to say nothing of its growth, would centralise political and economic influence into a small number of privileged hands.

It would thereby foment some of the very injustices that had prompted people to migrate to America — and had prompted Americans to rebel against George III. Legally and ethically, said Jefferson, "we should consider ourselves unauthorised to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves. Hamilton, America's first Secretary of the Treasury, on the other hand, believed that if a budget deficit and national debt were used wisely they could promote social harmony and economic growth.

The states seldom saw eye-to-eye, he observed, and so bundling their financial burdens into a single national debt would help to unify them. If all citizens felt equally beholden to the country's debt, then they might begin to regard themselves more as Americans and less as Virginians or New Yorkers. Maintaining a perpetual national debt and reliably paying interest, he maintained forebodingly, would "establish a public credit that could be drawn and expanded during economic crises or wars.

Further, he also believed that this principle has "very extensive application and consequence, in every country. Jefferson reasoned that the younger generation had no means to consent to the decisions of their parents; nor did they necessarily benefit from their forebears' debt-financed expenditures. Quite the opposite — he believed they typically suffered the consequences of their elders' follies.

If, as the rebels at the Boston Tea Party had cried, there could be "no taxation without representation," then Jefferson added that logically there could be no representation without gestation. Accordingly, the old should not encumber the young, and the young bore no obligation to honour their parents' debts. Later in , Jefferson specified this principle. He suggested that the French, who were mired in the throes of revolutionary violence, would be wise "to declare, in the constitution they are forming, that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself, can validly contract more debt than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years" — and that whatever portion of the debt that should remain unpaid after that time should be cancelled.

In effect, Jefferson thought such a provision would, by raising government bonds' risk premium and thereby lifting the cost of borrowing, restrain the profligacy of governments and reduce the frequency of their wars and severity of their bloodthirstiness. It "would put the lenders and the borrowers also, on their guard. By reducing too the faculty of borrowing within its natural limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too free a course has been procured by the inattention of money-lenders to this law of nature, that succeeding generations are not responsible for the preceding.

The present generation, he believed, does indeed benefit from the "productive labour, discoveries, capital improvements, and defensive wars" of its parents. He believed that it was just that they should help to pay for "improvements or endeavours" whose expenses were too great to discharge within one generation. But his accommodating position, Jefferson, provided plenty of room through which reckless politicians could drive profligacy, corruption, imperialism and war.

What government, he noted, can accurately foresee the effects of its "improvements"? And what government has ever described its extravagances and follies as anything other than just and necessary? After the "Revolution of " and Jefferson's inauguration as president in , he immediately and resolutely began to reduce the national debt. In seven of its eight years, taxes were reduced, the government spent less than it taxed and the resulting budgetary surplus was used to retire debt.

In mid, a year after the recommencement of hostilities against England, Jefferson wrote a remarkable letter to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The ex-president recommended that if "America were determined to make war" then a special and very visible tax should be imposed in order to finance it. This tax should be sufficient to pay the annual interest on the new war debt and also to repay a portion of the principal, and should remain in force until the entire debt was retired.

Reaffirming his long-held view, Jefferson also urged that the tax be high enough to repay the principal within one generation which he defined as 19 years. He thought that stiff taxes should be imposed in order to make as clear as possible to Americans the real financial cost of the War of By reminding them that war means debt, debt means taxes and taxes mean subjection, Jefferson that hoped that his countrymen would think twice before they plunged again into war. Further, and equally importantly, a "redeeming tax" would act as "a salutary warning" of the consequences that flow from the accumulation of debt.

It would establish "a salutary curb on the spirit of war and indebtment [sic], which, since the modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burthens [sic] ever accumulating. Notice then, that as a result of the second war with England, a conflict that brought not a single benefit to the people of the United States unless one considers military and naval prestige, "national honour," etc.

No man is perfect, and Jackson was certainly far from it. Even by the standards of his day, he was extremely cruel to Native Americans. Polk took office in On the positive side of the ledger, Polk was a hard-money and a low-tariff man; alas, and like Jefferson and Jackson, he was also a continental expansionist. He coveted California and Mexico's other northern provinces; and to obtain them he resorted to war. The next presidents, Taylor and Tyler, were Whigs; the Whigs were the inheritors of Hamilton's mantle and the predecessors of the mercantilist Republican Party; and as such, they were indifferent to debt.

Fortunately, his successor was a Jeffersonian Democrat — and therefore a resolute practitioner of free trade, hard money and frugal government. Neither in absolute amount nor as a percentage of GDP would the national debt ever again fall so low. Abraham Lincoln's vast edifice of distortions and misrepresentations also caused an explosion of borrowing that would have driven Thomas Jefferson to despair — and perhaps secession and rebellion. Such was the human and financial cost of transforming what had hitherto been a voluntary confederation joined by natural sentiment and natural law into a centralised union cemented by bald lies and brute force see in particular John Denson, A Century of War: The federal government, once bound by the Constitution, thus broke its chains — but not completely or yet permanently.

In , the Supreme Court ruled that the Legal Tender Acts of and — the financial underpinnings of Evil Abe's military aggression — were unconstitutional. In , the income tax expired and was not renewed and for good measure, in the Supreme Court ruled that it had been unconstitutional all along. In , Grover Cleveland restored America to the gold standard from which Lincoln had suspended it. As a consequence of these salutary developments, for a generation after Lincoln's fortuitous assassination the amount of America's national debt fell significantly and then stabilised, and — thanks to capitalism and entrepreneurship — the debt-to-GDP ratio fell without interruption.

But all was not yet lost: Alas, American and British governments and central banks transformed the slump that commenced in into the Great Depression. Worse, Herbert Hoover was a typical Republican and thus no friend of frugality: Worst of all, Franklin Roosevelt America's third-worst president was no Jeffersonian.

Never mind that his platform of emphasised laissez-faire, the gold standard and retrenchment of expenditure and debt: The New Dealers' War caused the national debt to increase 3. And all for naught: Read Higgs, and also chaps. The problem, alas, was that virtually everybody thought that welfare and warfare had rescued the country from the Depression. Hence regimentation, war and profligacy replaced liberty, peace and frugality as the hallmarks of life see Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan ; and Figures 1 and 2 below.

Abolished was the venerable tradition of post-war retrenchment.

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics/Archive 8

The new practice was a relentless increase of expenditure and piling of debt upon debt. Apart from slight declines in and , America's national debt, like a NASA space probe, commenced an upward trajectory into outer space. But not for long. And then came the deluge: According to the U. Recall that the national debt refers to "on balance sheet" liabilities, as opposed to the ca. Any time an American politician, particularly a Republican, utters words like "prudence," "responsibility" and "conservatism," the appropriate response is uproarious laughter and withering derision see also " Republican Debt " by George Giles.

Indeed, anytime anybody in Washington except Ron Paul see also his articles says anything, the appropriate response is a deaf ear and a hard kick. The mixed economy that has prevailed in the United States since World War II, a uniquely American form of participatory fascism, has lent itself to a substantial expansion of the governmental authority over economic decision-making. Given capitalist colour by the form of private property rights, the system has denied the substance of any such rights whenever governmental authorities have found it expedient to do so.

No individual economic right whatever, not even the right to life, has been immune from official derogation or disallowance; besides interfering in countless economic transactions, the government has sent tens of thousands of men to their deaths bound in involuntary servitude as conscripts in the military adventures embarked upon by ruling elites. The potential for government to set aside private rights has now been plenary for over [sixty] years, even if governments have yet to exercise the potential fully. Real reaction never materialised … and regardless of the political swings the fixed point has remained a fundamental abrogation of private economic rights … Whatever the so-called Reagan Revolution may have done, it certainly did not bring about an ideological revolution.

On 18 January Mr Bernanke commented that "a vicious cycle may develop in which large deficits lead to rapid growth in debt and interest payments, which in turn add to subsequent deficits. In order to feed their egos, interventionist politicians wage war. To do so, they must incur debt and receive the support or at least the acquiescence of their subjects; and to obtain money and loyalty, time and again they resort to deceptions and outright lies. Truly, war is an entitlement program for neoconservatives; and in order to get a free hand to wage war abroad, they happily concede New Dealers' demands to wage war at home.

• A Restless Spring
• Rasputin: Dämon, Heiler oder Magier? (German Edition)
• The Hidden War
• STRIGOI: A NOVEL
• Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation