December 09, 2010
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman apparently believes that higher unemployment will make the United States better able to compete with highly educated workers in China and India. This is the logical implication of his argument that the United States should stop accumulating debt.
If the United States reduced its deficit in the current downturn, it would reduce demand in the economy, thereby leading firms and/or governments to lay off more workers. Friedman does not indicate why he believes that higher unemployment will make U.S. workers more competitive internationally.
He seems to think that the government’s debt poses a problem. Of course the Federal Reserve Board can simply buy and hold debt incurred in a downturn like the present. In this case the debt creates no interest burden since the interest would be paid to the Fed which then refunds it to the Treasury at the end of the year.
While this practice could lead to inflation in more normal times, this is not an issue at present, when a somewhat higher inflation rate would be desirable in any case. Japan’s central bank holds an amount of debt that is close to the size of its GDP ($15 trillion in the case of the United States) and it is still experiencing deflation. The Fed could raise reserve requirements at some future point if inflation threatens to be a problem.
There is no good economic argument for wanting to see a lower deficit at present. Apparently Friedman has some other rationale for wanting a lower deficit.
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