Economic pain we feel is real

Without immediate drastic pruning of the national budget the national debt this year will exceed the gross domestic product, and the United States can join the euro countries of Greece and Ireland, which are technically insolvent and in the bankruptcy courts of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Globalization economic policies lead to free trade groups, North American Free Trade Agreement and other regional pacts, causing the massive transfer of American jobs abroad and the creation of tax havens. The results are increasing national unemployment, a lowering of wages for the vast majority and a burdening national debt.

The national debt represents immense latent costs of indeterminable amount and consequently the periodic fiscal deficit should be an integral part of the configuration of the gross domestic product. Such inclusion thereby presents a full and accurate picture of the state of the American economy.

The ongoing fiscal deficit is a major contributing factor for the existing components of GDP of personal consumption, private domestic investment, net exports (for many years a subtraction item) and government consumption. The fiscal deficit as a periodic subtraction item (conversely an addition item when a surplus) will provide rational results, e.g., in the current time period, a decrease of some 10 percent in GDP under present circumstances.

What American workers and the mass of the body politic see and feel today is not a mirage. The economy continues to slog in a deepening morass brought upon us by deficit-financing measures and policies favoring those entrenched in power and influence.

George Black

Iowa City