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Your response is based on a misunderstanding. It is not clear whether you are speaking of what's called "national debt" or private debt and credit. For the U.S. there is currently no real national debt. What we call "national debt" is the sum of Treasury liabilities due to outstanding Treasury...

U.S. Medical care is generally bad. In specific cases it is wonderful, but in general it is quite bad. U.S. Medical care is the poster child for "Regulatory Capture" and "Rent Seeking". It has an economically frightening attribute. It is going to consume the entirety of U.S. GDP if allowed to...

unfortunately this data is misleading because it does not take into account the number of applicants in each category.

That's quite true, and trading and investing are very different animals.

No it doesn't. Today the government just "prints" enough additional money to cover interest on its outstanding securities if it does not have enough revenue to cover the entirety of its expenditures. The Government always prints, i.e., "money finances" its deficit spending. You and me can not...

Wow. Economics in high school. You must have gone to a wonderful high school.

It's good to remember that Government finances have practically nothing in common with our individual private finances. Some politicians insist that the Government should have the same constraints on its spending as we have. This makes intuitive good sense to us; yet it is wrong. The reasons...

I am duty bound to post this here in the most unlikely of places. Yet no better place can be imagined. Robert Heilbroner wrote a book called the "The Worldly Philosophers" it has been through seven (yes 7!) additions. here is an excerpt from Robert W. Moore's review of the 7th edition, for...

Thank you, NoahA, for a thoughtful comment and your views on what ought to be the respective role of the individual and the government. In your remarks I find much to agree with, but also a few places where I might disagree. I don't have time right now to respond in detail, but I would just...

So long as by "what is better" we mean higher profits, that's a given! It's a reason we had sweat shops and child labor, which in turn is a reason for government regulation. The former is evil and the latter has a natural tendency to be overdone and/or corrupted by special business interests...

Costly, yes. Slow, no. The pace of change will be exponential. In just a few years the pace at which the switchover comes will make your head spin. And although the changeover won't have any noticeable affect on climate -- even if climate should change in a noticeable way in sync with the...

It did? Goes to show how out of it I am when I comes to crypto. I need to reboot, and then stay in my lane.

yup! but that's probably where the similarities end.

I think Pekelo's point was that you could double the supply of crypto via forks forever. I leave this to the crypto enthusiasts to ponder. Currently we read about how difficult and expensive it has become to mine more coins. Ergo, the conventional conclusion would be that increasing demand...

I am not much of gambler so Crypto has never appealed to me, and the possibility of the rules changing is one of the things that keeps we away. But realistically what are the chances that those whose interests are best served by retaining the present algorithm will not prevail? I'll stick with...

Both Crypto and Fiat currencies are worth what they can be exchanged for. They have no value in and of themselves. The relative values of fiat in the forex market reflects supply and demand. This in turn is a reflection of the perceived usefulness of each unit of the various currencies, which...

What you say about crypto is decididly untrue. What makes it a good instrument for speculation makes it a bad one for commerce. The more crypto you "mine" the more costly it becomes to mine more still! Theoretically its supply is infinite, but only theoretically. This is fundamentally why...

Crypto can not fix this -- it will always remain a high risk instrument for speculation. If Germany would drop its opposition to the Euro bond, however, that would go a long way toward weakening the dollar and strengthening the euro. But say that to a German; you'll get nowhere. Germans, it...

This just now appeared on Page 1 of the NY Times: "Justice Dept. Issues 40 Subpoenas in a Week, Expanding Its Jan. 6 Inquiry WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials have seized the phones of two top advisers to former President Donald J. Trump and blanketed his aides with about 40 subpoenas...

Leaving aside Rennison's incorrect statement: "...[the Treasury Market] is the main source of funding for the U.S. government...", most get this wrong anyway, there still seems something incongruent in Rennison's reasoning when he writes: "The sheer scale of U.S. government debt also plays an...