I think I see a pattern…
Not a pretty picture.
Now for a really hot babe (not strictly comparable but you’ll get the picture:
It’s that negative slope thing which you should pay attention to. Even though our so-called “conservative” government is planning on reversing the slope, they can because for years we have been paying down out debt.
The US…not so much.
February 27th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Umm, this looks like apples and oranges here Jay. The first graph is merely measuring debt in dollars, it doesn’t even say whether or not it is in inflation adjusted dollars. The second measures debt as a percentage of GDP. I’m not disagreeing with your conclusion but based on the info that you have provided there is no way to understand the extent of the problem the US faces.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:39 am
This is why I get all cross-eyed when people talk about how bad at financial management left-wingers are. Look at the slowing during the Clinton years; look at the turnaround under That Wily Old Fox and then Martin.
BTW, hell has frozen over. I actually agreed with an editorial in the National Post. Somebody hold me.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:47 am
That’s right Jay don’t worry Canada will be just fine.
The Dow is going to flirting with 7K today. How’s that gold working out for you? I strongly recommend you brush up on your subsistence farming skills.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:59 am
An interesting follow up on that US debt chart would be to juxtapose a chart for the same time frame of the Fed’s expansion of the currency supply via the M3 index.
The fed has run the US economic expansion and government borrowing with “printing press liquidity”.
I’d be willing to bet that inflation (the result of devalued buying power due to currency expansion) and government borrowing go hand in hand and there is a direct correlation between deficit financing and currency supply expansion.
The over extended, under-valuated reserve fiat greenback is a cat that has finally come home to roost at the Fed at a very inopportune time (during a credit crisis where currency reserve is really needed).
The IMF had warned the Fed to run a needed controlled contraction of the currency supply to avoid a dangerous economic rationalization as long ago as 2000. Guess they didn’t take the warnings seriously.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Me too.
About the same time that Canada was getting a grip on their debt the US was doing the same. You can see the total debt line flatten and since the economy was growing well the debt as a percent of GDP curve for the US would have looked about the same as Canada’s mammalian plot—until the Bush administration showed up.
February 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Here’s a debt-to-GDP graph for the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
Bad, but not the hockey stick of your top graph. Essentially, the US steadily paid down its massive wartime debt (from 100%+ to slightly over 20%) until around 1975, then stalled during late 70s (note: no massive increase). Reagan and Bush I doubled the ratio to the mid-40s; Clinton brought it back down to the 30s; and, as of 2007, Bush II had pushed it back up to the Reagan zone.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am
“until the Bush administration showed up”
How much of that was for the Iraq War and how much was out of control non-defense spending?
February 28th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Renee: Clinton has a strong GOP house to contend with; he had no choice but to be prudent. But to his credit, he done good. Canada can thank Paul Martin for bringing debt down … not the CPC. The CPC was handed a nice set of books.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
You might check what Mr Martin was handed. His book-balancing was not initiated as a LPC initiative.
Cheers