US deficit for 04 really 2 Trillion or 20% of 03 GDP and rising

[junker]

here is a snippet of an article over at dailyreckoning....link
http://www.dailyreckoning.com./home.cfm

now the article is irreverent but is relevant. The author is a conservative floridian who by his own admission is insane, but that don't make his math wrong. One thing he fails to note in these horrifying figures is that the Treasury expects to double the rate of issue by JUNE which means that by Dec the deficit might be running at 30% of 03 GDP....anyway...a fun read...

2 para's and a title
The Mogambo Guru

St Petersburg, Florida - Well, it was a busy week in the world of make-believe money, as the Fed, the Treasury and the willing co-conspirators all suddenly waded much deeper into the swamp of monetary irresponsibility. The latest reports indicate that they are still there, wading around in fetid and feculent water up to their noses, but seem to be enjoying themselves immensely.For example, let's saunter over to the government debt area, and maybe pick up a burger on the way, and ponder the news that John Snow's Treasury borrowed another $38 billion in one lousy freaking week! One week! One! That's thirty billion, plus another eight billion, for a total of thirty-eight billion dollars, in five business days! If I was a Southern Belle instead of the Manly Mogambo, I would surely catch the vapors at the news, and would raise the back of my hand to my forehead as I gently swooned, crying "Oooooh! Surely we are undone!" with a voice that dripped honey, with an accent thick as molasses and twice as sweet. But, of course, being the Mogambo, I stomp around the house fully armed in a state of terror mixed with anger, and just a touch of vengeful hatred for piquancy, dressed in full-body armor, psyching myself up for the assault by the government goon squad, which I figure is probably pulling up in the driveway right about, oh, now.

Like a little kid with a new toy, I think that I am getting the hang of using a calculator and would like to, you know, show off a little bit, so I had an interesting session with a calculator. But for some strange reason, whenever I multiplied $38 billion a week times 52 weeks in a year, I got a wrong answer. Guess what I got? I know you are going to laugh when you see it, and remember that the calculator was obviously broken, as I kept getting the answer $1.976 trillion! Seeing a number that huge is like getting hit with a sledgehammer to the skull, as you realize that no sane person would voluntarily plunge his own country farther into debt at that rate - and I am talking about amassing debt to the tune of 20% of GDP here! - so that is when I realized that the calculator was obviously broken.


more in same vein at site, well worth the read..facts and figures buried like choco chips in his tirade cookies...

[papau]

1. The "strain" on the capital market is projected at Treasury - and that is

sorta what he has calculated.

But the "net" strain, defined if I may as the new money strain which equals new issues less retired issues, is much less and indeed is the "deficit".

He forgets that each week old bonds and notes mature and must be paid off - not likely with Bush - or refinanced by new issues of bonds and notes. His numbers include this zero sum increase in debt game of refinancing the old debt,

[54anickel]

2. Well, It sounds better than this 10 trillion balloon clause.

:evilgrin:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=114&topic_id=5725