vtsnowedin wrote:evilgenius wrote:. Well, normal households can't create money through an act of law.
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A country, even the USA can not print money indefinitely or they will end up like Zimbabwe with billion dollar bills good only for latrine paper.
For citizens there are sound reasons to borrow money such as a house to live in while building equity in it or a car to commute to a job that pays the bills. There are also unsound reasons for borrowing as well. Vacations, entertainment, excessive spending etc. All gain nothing for the purchaser and retain no value even to the point when the bills come due.
Governments also have good and bad reasons to borrow. An interstate highway system good, studies why monkeys clench their jaws bad. National defense , good,Pork barrel defense contracts the military does not need or want, Bad.
The present rescue package is and was necessary but we will soon come to the point where further spending will not save the economy or lives and will be beyond our ability to pay back and that debt if taken on will cause more harm then the Covid-19 will.
My heart tells me it's a bad idea to debate you about this because we are not that far apart. But spending on basic research is essential for any forward thinking economy. Investment done in such a manner by the government is derisively looked upon by most conservatives. They want direct links to their outcomes, not bounty that offers itself to more than a small group that initiated it. Studying grasshopper spit or monkey clenching is like that. The real trick lies in ensuring that the results are open to all, so that science can be advanced. For some, doing that also ticks too many xenophobic boxes.
Competition, if we can see it that way, can then be more about how we promote the educational landscape at home, or not. It's too easy to complain about immigration while doing nothing to promote the competency and capability of our own. We don't see the class struggle in how the process rolls out. It threatens the ease with which the in-group's progeny can succeed. It's the kind of thing that some have come to call racist. I don't think it is racism, but class struggle. There is plenty of evidence that people of all types, race being only one way of interpreting prevailing power, behave this way once they get into power.