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To: lbryce
Whether the federal government spends money wisely or foolishly, the truth is that the vast majority of it still ends up in the pockets of the American people who then use it to buy the things they need for their daily lives.

Yes and no. I don't mean to quibble, but strange things happen to dollars that pass through the feral government's hands.

A dollar's worth of taxes is removed from the open market. When it's spent by the feral government, it sort of does and sort of doesn't return. If it's spent on a $4,000 toilet seat for the Department of Defense, it ends up on the books of a DOD contractor, all right, but it and the other $3,999 have been removed from circulation for all practical purposes. If it's spent on a feral "worker's" salary, it'll be returned to the market, but it didn't buy the same value of work from the feral "employee" as it would have bought from someone in private industry. That dollar hasn't literally been devalued, but by being spent on reduced value, it returns less than full value to the market.

Here's another factor: a dollar borrowed by the feral government necessitates paying interest with additional dollars harvested from the citizenry, so the borrowed dollar actually costs more than $1.00; further, feral government borrowing and squandering results in inflation, which additionally reduces the value of everyone's dollars and serves as a hidden tax on both the citizenry and markets.

Someone who's better versed than I in economics could explain it better, I'm sure.

2 posted on 05/25/2012 3:28:31 PM PDT by Standing Wolf
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To: Standing Wolf
Someone who's better versed than I in economics could explain it better, I'm sure.

Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations would say that wealth generates more wealth. The example he gives is if you tile a field it will now be productive. Lawyers and bureaucracy are a consumptive activity.
4 posted on 05/25/2012 3:45:49 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple ( (Lord, save me from some conservatives, they don't understand history any better than liberals.))
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