Monday, January 5, 2009

New blog I have been following and some interesting data

I was recently turned on to Karl Denninger's blog, and his remarkably accurate predictions. He's been at least as accurate as the great Peter Schiff, and with more detail. This post and it's follow-up should be required reading for anyone who cares about this country.

But this is the one that really caught my eye: from October.

In short, it wouldn't have done anything because the economy only grows at a rate of about 20 cents for every dollar of debt taken on. That is, it takes five dollars of debt to generate one new dollar of GDP.
If you have been wondering how the bailouts needed to be in Trillions, this is why. The fundamental theory behind Keynesian economics is that a dollar spent by government multiplies itself in economic growth. It is a true theory, except that the multiplier is below 1 (throughout history, it's around 0.7). For the US, now it is 0.2. That's right, for $1 of Keynesian growth, we have to saddle our children with $5 in debt. It is immoral, and Paulson, Bernanke, and any legislator who voted for the bailouts should be imprisoned for it.

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