I was listening last night to a radio program on which Robert Kuttner said that the deficit was nothing to worry about, because the ratio of national debt to GDP is around 1/3 of its level at the end of World War II.
What he failed to note is that during WWII, households saved like crazy, in part because materiel was needed for the fight against fascism. Because there was plenty of personal savings with which people could buy bonds, the run-up in the debt was quite manageable. The US doesn't have such savings right now. It is fortunate for us (but perhaps dangerous from a political point of view) that the rest of the world has done a better job savings.
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