Deficit Defined

A beautiful bridge in the Zen Garden at the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo. It was built as a photo opportunity for couples lucky and wealthy enough to have their weddings at the New Otani.

The total deficit is massively understated because the government doesn’t use regular accounting and so doesn’t record future liabilities for Social Security or Medicare. We need more people as taxpayers, a growing economy and we will still need a big dose of inflation and some fiscal constraint. It is not promising.