还记得,包括美联储主席在内的很多经济学人都指出,美国的天文数字般的赤字和债务虽然是个很大的问题,但在经济全面复苏之前并不适合大幅度削减开支。而一些共和党人则说,政府开支实质上是伤害经济,扼杀就业。政府一旦瘦身了,私有经济自然会补缺,扩大投资,增加就业机会。现在政府节支了,私人企业又在哪里呢?俗话说,old dogs can learn new tricks(老狗可以学点新伎俩)。共和党,大佬党(Grand Old Party),他们还能学点新把式吗?
I disagree with your argument: "但中国印票子,主要是为了write down巨大的外汇盈余。" If Chinese goverrnment does not need to control all the forign currency by forcing exporters to exchange their US dollars to RMBs, it is NOT necessary to isue extra RMBs to absorb trade surplus. China has a foreign currecy reserve of about $3 trillion, which is equivalent to 20 trillion RMB, which is a small number, compared to its 75 trillion of money supply.
In fact, between 2008 and 2011, M2 value increased by 100%. This has very little to do with trade surplus. Chinese government's stimulus plan contributed to this expansion of M2 growth and ~10% of inflation.
"Compare that with the far larger cuts made during the first Bush administration: In 1989, the military stood at 2,130,229 and the Army had 769,741 soldiers. By 1993, those numbers had declined by 19.9 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively."
"This is equivalent of taxing everyone." is not a "typo", A "typo" is a keyboard typing mistake. This, is what is know as a schoolboy grammatical error.
Your further correction "This is equivalent to taxing everyone." is still wrong.
The correct way to say this is: "This is [the] equivalent of taxing everyone."
I don't know why you insist on communicating in English on a Chinese forum, even when it's evident that your command of this particular language is very limited to say the least.
I don't feel bad, only that the mind boggles at the R&D efforts that you could possibly "direct" at your "major US company".
Of course we can talk about China. My point is that Us has an option of using the Chinese approach that is printing money on the order of GDP to repay its debt. This is equivalent of taxing everyone. And the drawback of this approach is inflation.
Nothing is impossible. If we do not cut defence spending, then we are not serious about budegt cut. US defence budget was cut during Clinton administration by 20%. Right now, defence budget is $700 billion. Cutting 20% does not hurt US defense at all. In tead, it will make the government more efficient.When democrats control the executive branch and republicans control the legislative branch, there is teh best chance to make budget cut happen.
As far social security, I have 2 points: First, the current system makes an annual adjustment or a raise to benefit receivers based on inflation. A lot people argue that the raise is higher than actual inflation. If we make the rate of raise more in line with inflation, some money can be saved. Second, I agree baby boomers' retirement can be a problem,causing an imbalance between tax contributors and benefit receivers. This problem can be solved by increasing the number of immigrants. US can support more immigrants, especially highly skilled immigrants. US depends on immigrants.
I still think there is room to tax rich people more, as Warren Buffett suggested. Avergage US household does not have a lot of cash. However, Americans have assets in investment. This is a very rich country.
In addition, I also suggest a paycut of 10% across the board to ALL federal employees.
Overall, the US goverment is high inefficient. It is very well funded while underperforming government. If it operates like a private company, there is a good room for cost reduction.
"China has not only been the country that prints money at the fastest rate but also been the country with the largest money supply in the world in the past decade, according to the Chinese-language Southern Weekly.
Furthermore, China continued to be the largest money-supplying country in 2010 as its M2, a broad measure of money supply, was up 19.46% at the end of November from a year earlier, said the weekly.
This compares with 3.3% and 2.5% of annual M2 growth in the US and Japan respectively over the same period.
In the past ten years, China's M2 has expanded at the average rate of 18.8% a year, despite the fact that the country, which has an average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 10.9% and an average inflation rate of 3.2%, needs only 14.1% of growth in money supply to sustain its economic development.
This has driven China's M2-to-GDP ratio in the past decade to the highest in the world. "
If USA follows Chinese practice, it can repay its debt in 2 years. This approach is equivalent from increasing tax to every one. What is wrong with this approach: uncontrollable inflation. This is happening in China. That is why I concluded that Chinese real economy has stalled in the past 5 years. Actual GDP growth is just 5% if inflation is "correctly" deducted, instead of using twisted CPI numbers.
What can US do to solve its debt problem? My suggestions:
1. Reduce public spending across the board. Social security, medicare as well as defence spending should be reduced. Give every public worker a 10%. Most of public programs are well funded. However, government are very inefficienct. I think cut will happen soon. This is teh key.
2.US still need to increase tax rate slightly OR print extra money, like China did. However, US should not print money as crazy as China did (50% of GDP). $600 billion was printed in QE2, which accounts for 4% of GDP. This is not bad.
3. US economy will grow. No one can change that. "他除了坚信美国就是牛B". Yes, I do believe US is a country with a lot of potential due to its virtually unlimited natural and human resources (like you and me).
As a director of a major US company, I have experienced 3 economic downturns. After each downturn, US has been remerged stronger.