Comments (4)

• Steve Hogan

  Informative interview. Knowing where this link is will help, although the data is very depressing.

  One nit: I have a great deal of skepticism about the federal deficit data reported during the Clinton years (and possibly other administrations), particularly the "surplus" years. I strongly suspect that the Social Security revenue not sent to recipients during the late 90's was on the order of $125B. This was, of course, stolen from the laughably named "trust fund" (where is Al Gore's lock box when you need it?) to cook the books.

  I'd really like to see some convincing evidence that we actually enjoyed a legitimate surplus at any time over the last half century. And, in the case of the Clinton years, the spike in revenue has to be contrasted with the unsustainable spike in tax collections from the stock market boom.

  It takes an insane central bank loose money policy goosing the economy to outpace the government's ability to spend it all!

  Published: December 15, 2008 10:47 PM

• Steve Hogan

  By the way, the source for that chart is the White House Office of Management and Budget. They are paid absurdly high salaries (at our expense) to lie through their teeth. Take this data with a very large grain of salt.

  Published: December 15, 2008 10:51 PM

• Michael

  Great interview, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Thornton is a great Mises contributor.

  What's especially disturbing when you take a look at pre-1971 and post-1971 data. You don't need to do an extensive regression analysis to notice that the volatility in the data has been markedly increased since the dollar left the gold standard. Talk about a case for gold!

  Published: December 16, 2008 7:19 AM

• Christopher Hightower

  Thanks for the interview. I didn't realize this was on the site.

  Published: December 16, 2008 12:14 PM