NEVER been balanced that I've seen, certainly not in my lifetime.
Likely not true, since it was in my lifetime. Under Clinton we actually had a budget surplus and paid down debt. The debt didn't go away but it did get paid down.
Overall, there are just lots of different ways to look at the national debt, the reality is, it will never go to 0, mutually with our trade partners and allies it is beneficial to hold credit and debt to ensure mutual financial interests.
This is perhaps the best graph to try to compare the debt accounting for inflationary affects. Though, in large part the debt itself is a driving cause and even govt desire for inflation. As an economic engine I'll let the experts debate and validate inflation as a necessary thing, but overall I think it's been a "accepted evil" for too long.
I will agree though that with inflation in place, the U.S. will in the end pay less for loans than they would have otherwise. (Same principal as taking a loan at 2.3% when you know inflation is at 4% it's basically free money).
I think what the current administration is not saying/mentioning/being clear on. Is that it's an obvious side effect of the COVID spending/relief. So much money was spent to keep people employed, keep the govt solvent, to ensure that people who got sick were not bankrupted. Of course in the aftermath things will not look good. Whatever finding a pot of gold, striking oil, or other "windfall" metaphor COVID was the opposite of that.
Missing in context is how much better it seems the US is doing than the rest of the globe in this sort of economic recovery. Are we done? No. Are other governments and economic functions being more 'honest' about their situation? Perhaps.
But if you are to say 13 Trillion dollars was the total spend and affects of the federal govt (not gonna fight about the number but there are resources to look up if you want), which doesn't even include the loss of GDP during that period, where are you going to find that money? The loans were taken out as a bet against the future. It's unpopular to raise taxes but in the end, something has to be done and gutting the govt isn't going to solve the problem. I'll agree we of course want efficiency, but we want continuity of govt and services. People will not spend and businesses don't grow when there isnt stability and what's going on now, is not what stability looks like.
The effect this has on us in here is of course especially noticeable because we're Lotus customers and Lotus (mostly Hethel for this forum) is a foreign business, but in reality it's so small that I would expect exemptions will be made for small manufacturers like this. It just takes time to work through all the details and conversations that are going on right now. We're very small potatoes compared to other auto companies.
Sure, but it's about a larger cooling affect. Yes, there is likely some long due pressure needed to bolster American made products.
In Germany, a BMW M3 and a Mustang GT when launched in 2015 or what-have you, were similarly priced cars, with a SMALL favorability in price to the Ford.
In the US once you account for costs of shipping and whatever other fees for the BMW they are completely different classes of vehicle.
The net result will be, US cars will be 'cheaper' than imported alternatives but will be worse cars as the competition just won't exist that force feature and performance parity.