krose wrote:I'm sure it would be perfectly logical for a wife (who is in charge of all finances) to tell her husband to get a pool installed, go to their employers and ask to be paid less, and then when the bills for the pool are coming due, refuse to sign on to the loan that she knows is now necessary to pay for it.
That makes complete sense.
I don't think the problem is spending on infrastructure (i.e. "pools"). The problem would be if the wife hired four maids, two gardeners, a pool service company, and told her adult children that they would give them a stipend of $5K/month for the rest of their lives.
If they had the income to cover this, then great. But at the point that they have to borrow more (even at very low rates), it does become sensible to take a look at their commitments and ask what is really necessary.
But luckily the United States has infinite borrowing capacity
Furthermore, while saying the federal deficit does indeed need to be curtailed, Mr. Bloomberg argued the United States could owe “an infinite amount of money” and there is no specific amount that would cause the country to default.
“We are spending money we don’t have,” Mr. Bloomberg explained. “It’s not like your household. In your household, people are saying, ‘Oh, you can’t spend money you don’t have.’ That is true for your household because nobody is going to lend you an infinite amount of money. When it comes to the United States federal government, people do seem willing to lend us an infinite amount of money. … Our debt is so big and so many people own it that it’s preposterous to think that they would stop selling us more.
The funniest comment on that article:
Mayor Bloomberg, if the government can borrow an infinite amount of money, why are we still paying taxes?
The US is bigger, but we're not different. And creating/printing dollars might delay the problem, or change it's nature, but it doesn't solve it.