Deficits do not in themselves produce inflation, nor does a balanced budget assure a stable price level.

There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.

There is no reason inherent in the real resources available to us why we cannot move rapidly within the next two or three years to a state of genuine full employment.

Practically, the desirable situation ought to be one in which any reasonably responsible person willing to accept available employment can find a job paying a living wage within 48 hours.

... often analysis seems to be based on the assumption that future economic output is almost entirely determined by inexorable economic forces independently of government policy so that devoting more resources to one use inevitably detracts from availability for another.

Firms would be given initial entitlements to gross markup on the basis of past performance, adjusted by changes in labor and capital inputs. This is somewhat similar to the definition of normal profits under some versions of the wartime excess -profits tax. Entitlements would be transferable and a competitive market established.

If unemployment could be brought down to say 2 percent at the cost of an assured steady rate of inflation of 10 percent per year, or even 20 percent, this would be a good bargain.