From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Not a Boomer)
Subject: Re: Supply Side Economic Policy
Article-I.D.: desire.1993Apr6.130430.8264
Organization: ACME Products
Lines: 65

In article <186042@pyramid.pyramid.com>, pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
> In article <Ufk_Gqu00WBKE7cX5V@andrew.cmu.edu>, ashish+@andrew.cmu.edu
> (Ashish Arora) writes:
> |> Excerpts from netnews.sci.econ: 5-Apr-93 Re: Supply Side Economic Po..
> |> by Not a Boomer@desire.wrig 
> |> [...]
> |> 
> |> >    The deficits declined from 84-9, reaching a low of 2.9% of GNP before  
> |> > the tax and spending hike of 1990 reversed the trend.
> |> >  
> |> > Brett
> |> Is this true ?  Some more details would be appreciated.
> |> 
> |> cheers
> 
> Actually not.  Brett himself has actually posted the data previously.
> What declined from 84 to 89, as I remember it, was _percent
> increase_in_deficit_growth, i.e. the rate of growth of the deficit 
> (2nd derivative of total deficit with respect of to time) decreased.

	Would you please define "nth derivative of debt"?  Last time I asked
you seem to have disappeared....

	And it's the deficits themselves that came down to 2.9% of GNP.  The
numbers are posted in the previous posting.

> Brett apparently has numbed himself into thinking that the deficit
> declined.  

	Cute, Paul, but with no numbers you still look foolish.

> If you keep spending more than you earn, the deficit keeps
> growing.  

	Paul, like many others, is confusing the deficit with the debt.

> If you keep _borrowing_ at a lesser rate than you borrowed
> previously, the deficit increases.  You only decrease deficits when your
> income exceeds spending and you use the difference to pay off debts.

	Not in terms of GNP, the one universally accepted measure of deficits
(at least among rigorous economists :)

...
> arguments were brilliant.  He confirmed, with data, what many of us know
> with common sense -- the boom of the 80's has nothing to do with government
> policy, particularly "supply side" policy, since taxes do not "cause" 
> economic activities.  People cause economic activity.  More can be 

	Semantics.  Lindsey proves otherwise.  Taxes make people change their
economic activities.
	Or shall we debate whether it is the gun, the bullet, or the person who
does the killing?

> explained by watching population waves roll through the years and 
> create cycles.  He has made models and predictions for years well into
> the middle of next century.  It will be neat to see how accurate he
> is.

	Or whether this gentleman can win the same praise as Lindsey. :)

Brett
________________________________________________________________________________
	"There's nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an
intellectual conviction."  Sean O'Casey in _The White Plague_ by Frank Herbert.
