Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site trwrba.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!pertec!scgvaxd!trwrb!trwrba!suhre From: suhre@trwrba.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: State of the Union Satire Message-ID: <1281@trwrba.UUCP> Date: Tue, 12-Feb-85 12:08:12 EST Article-I.D.: trwrba.1281 Posted: Tue Feb 12 12:08:12 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 21:11:52 EST Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA Lines: 22 The financial community is not completely without wit or satire. I subscribe to Barron's, partially because I get a kick out of Alan Abelson's column, "Up and Down Wall Street". He takes jibes at anyone in sight, and the politicians usually are! Excerpted from the Feb. 11 issue: In his review of the present condition of the Republic, Mr. Reagan took justifiable pride in the strength of the economy. And he again called for passage of the constitutional amendment which would mandate a balance budget. The President probably fears that his successors might not be as frugal as he and might be tempted to run up some big deficits. In one of his few essays into specifics, Mr. Reagan calculated that every one percent gain in real gross national product chops something like $40 billion off the deficit. Sounds good to us, although we confess we are a bit troubled by the fact that in 1984, GNP was up by more than three percentage points, but the deficit only dropped by $20 billion, not $60 billion. And in 1983, GNP was up 3.7%, and the deficit *rose* a tad, $85 billion, as we recall. Must be one of those things that works swell in economics but not in the real world.