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From: gunzler@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: the trouble with universities
Message-ID: <4724@shemp.ucla-cs.UCLA.EDU>
Date: Fri, 27-Feb-87 23:40:17 EST
Article-I.D.: shemp.4724
Posted: Fri Feb 27 23:40:17 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Mar-87 15:15:20 EST
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Reply-To: gunzler@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU (Mitch Gunzler)
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   Since when is the trade deficit an argument against "the prosperity
of our age?"  We have a trade deficit because we consume more of other
countries produce than they want of ours; this isn't prosperity?
   (Actually, the current deficit corresponds quite closely to foreign
purchases of U.S. Treasury paper; that is, the debt we are aquiring
outside our borders is not representative of some fundamental economic
imbalance, but is an explicit loan from them to us.  How did you think
we managed to double our budget without raising taxes?  Everyone in
the world has been buying our paper - because we've offered ridiculously
high rates, approaching 20% on long term bills.)
   (Calculate the return on a 19% investment after 30 years sometime,
and compare it to, say, 15%.)
   All of which is to say, if the person who was deriding the value of
business training had had some, he might have realized that a trade
deficit, per se, does not suggest a lack of prosperity.

   Mitch Gunzler

Comments always appreciated.