The Pros And Cons Of Current Account Deficit

The federal budget deficit is a much discussed and little understood subject in American politics. The current recession has dramatically decreased tax revenues, driving the United States federal government to increase spending in an attempt to stabilize the economy. As a result the current federal deficit is at over $1.3 trillion dollars. This is approximately $47,754 per U.S. citizen or $137,552 per U. S. taxpayer (U.S. Debt Clock: Real Time, 2012).

From the moment they become old enough to be aware that money is limited, young people today are taught to avoid getting into debt. Horror stories of payment defaults, exorbitant interest rates, and ruined credit are passed from generation to generation, and along with it, sentiments of disgust and panic toward the large and seemingly never-decreasing number that is the national debt of the United States of America. Yet, it cannot be said that all debt is bad; student loans taken as an investment in the future, or a mortgage on a house -- there are plenty of examples of how deficit spending can be a valuable practice, and the first Secretary of the Treasury was a strong proponent of that view when it came to government spending.

In our textbook, “Principles of Macroeconomics,” the relationship between debt and deficit is described. A deficit is a shortfall in revenue for a particular year’s budget. Whereas, a debt is the total of all accumulated and unpaid deficits. An outlay is an amount of money spent on something. The federal government outlays are divided into government outlays and mandatory outlays. Government outlays are the part of the government budget that includes both spending and transfer payments. Mandatory outlays constitute government spending that is determined by ongoing long term obligations. Of the two, mandatory outlays is the largest portion of the federal budget. Lastly, Discretionary outlays compromise government spending that can be altered when the government is setting its annual budget. A budget surplus occurs when revenue exceeds outlays. A budget deficit occurs when government outlays exceed revenue.

Did you know that the National debt is 19.8 trillion dollars? The national budget is excessive, which means the government is using more money than it needs to pay its costs. Do to intensive research in the national debt today you will be reading about what caused it, ways to get rid of it, and reasons why we have to care about the National debt.

If the federal government ceased to exist tomorrow then at first it would be chaos. Nobody would know if the American debt would be honored and if so then by whom (who would want to take on 17 trillion dollars in debt?). Also federally funded social services (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.) would stop because without any federal taxes there would be no way for people to pay for them. Also the three million people employed by the federal government would be put out of work, along with the roughly two million people in the armed services, unemployment on that scale would severely affect the American economy. In the mid-game scenario banks and other corporations would step in to take power because they are already in position to

The Australian economy marks external stability as an important objective because it can influence other important aims such as economic growth, unemployment and inflation. External stability is the concept of sustaining a nation’s external accounts so that in the future, it is able to service its foreign liabilities and can avoid currency volatility. When looking at external stability, we must examine Australia’s balance of payments, which records all economic transactions between Australia and the rest of the world. Australia’s balance of payments has two components, which is the current account and the capital and financial account. The current account measures the receipts and payments for trade in goods and services, transfer payments and income flows, while the capital and financial account shows international borrowing, lending, purchasing and sales of assets.

The Federal budget deficit is the amount of spending by the Federal government that is in excess of how much money the government brings in annually. While the Federal budget deficit has steadily decreased overall during the past fifteen years, our Federal debt continues to grow at a drastic rate. A review of how the Federal deficit has evolved over the past fifteen years, the rate of growth of the Federal debt during that same period, and how the two are connected will better explain this phenomenon.

Hello, Caitlyn. I personally believe a balanced budget amendment would be in order considering politicians refuse to stop the spending. The reason I would call for a balanced budget amendment is because of Greece. After seeing the mess Greece is in, along with a myriad of many other European countries, I believe national debt is not manageable because the government will continue to spend more than they take in taxes. The Grecian government refused to reform their entitlement programs, so they went into default. The U.S. needs to reform our spending before we head down the same path of self-destruction.

When a government’s spending exceeds its revenues causing or deepening a deficit it is called deficit spending. Deficit spending is only one of numerous tools used to help manage the economy. Deficit spending is presumed to stimulate consumer demand by helping the consumer to obtain more money to spend, in turn, the demand of product will rise. There are advantages and disadvantages to deficit spending that we will discuss further below.

However, in the economy of an oil-exporting country, AD will likely be high due to high profits when exporting oil to foreign consumers. This would mean that there will be an increase in the balance of trade due to an increase in (X-M) causing the AD curve to shift rightwards causing demand pull inflation. In order to produce more output to meet the increased demand, firms are forced to bid for increasingly scarce resources, raising their costs. They therefore require a higher price to be willing to supply more. With exports rising, the price elasticity of demand is low and there is a relatively small decrease in quantity demanded for oil. Therefore export revenue will probably rise, resulting in an improvement on the current account.

For as long as Americans can remember there has always been a federal deficit. In fact, the only time in American history when there was no federal debt was under president Andrew Jackson, and it only lasted a single year(Wall Street Journal). The federal government never managed to pay off the debt again, although some administrations, like Coolidge’s and Clinton’s, have managed to run brief surpluses(Wall Street Journal). Yet today there seems to be no limit on the debt and deficit spending, and a key question has been pressed into the forefront of politics and fiscal policy, “is

It is often suggested that the large current account deficit poses a serious financing problem for the United States. Each year, the lament goes, the United States must attract net inflows of capital sufficient to "cover" the huge current shortfall. But this proposition gets the logic backward: the U.S. deficit is "financed" by net capital inflows only in an ex post accounting sense. In economic terms it is more nearly correct to say that net capital inflows cause the current account deficit. (p. 218)

Deficit spending is when purchases exceed income. It is usually attributed to government spending within an economy. Although it can happen to both individual and business, when government spends more and not able to balance the budget, we say it is deficit spending. Deficit spending is created each fiscal year by congress and government because the spending by government causes the growth of the economy. For example, in the United State deficit spending is mainly caused by social, security, and medical cost. Government spends most of its revenue in each fiscal year into this payment. According to Kimberly Amadeo(2017) he said “ most people don’t realize that wars create more deficit spending than the create recession. The war in Afghanistan cost $28.7 billion in 2001.The war in Iraq for deployed military costs $72.5 billion by 2003. In 2008, the total cost grew to $186.6 billion.

The current account is one of the components of the Balance of Payment together with the capital and financial account and the reserve assets account. This represents the difference between a country’s savings and its investment and it is defined as the sum of the payments of goods and services bought from foreigners, net income from abroad and net current transfers. When the current account is in deficit, it means that the country’s net sales abroad value is negative, while it is in surplus when this value is positive. The current account must balance, so surplus of one nation means deficits of another.

Current Account Deficit. A rise in the ratio of the current account deficit to GDP is generally associated with large external capital inflows that are intermediated by the domestic financial system and could facilitate asset price and credit booms. A large external current account deficit could signal vulnerability to a currency crisis with negative implications for the liquidity of the financial system, especially if the deficit is financed by short-term portfolio capital inflows. Financial crises that have