As Peter Gillon points out, the industry now enjoys a significant fiscal surplus.
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Mr Manuel sees his fiscal surplus as the government's contribution to a national saving effort.
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The Liberals, whom he ousted a year ago, bequeathed a robust economy and a large fiscal surplus.
Russia is currently running a fiscal surplus of slightly under 1% of GDP thanks to high oil prices.
Finland, with a 2.1% fiscal surplus and tidy debt, was yielding just five basis points less than Germany on Tuesday.
Luis Arce, the finance minister, says that the government last year posted a fiscal surplus for the fifth year running, but others doubt that.
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Brazil's is committed to a primary fiscal surplus (ie, before debt payments) of 3.8% of GDP in order to continue to lighten its debt burden.
The aim is to achieve a primary fiscal surplus (ie, before interest payments on government debt) of 2.6% next year, rising to 3% in 2001.
But Brazil's government, with a much bigger public debt, needs to preserve its primary fiscal surplus (ie, before interest payments) to retain the confidence of bondholders.
Given a copper price last year well over twice the estimated long term price, Chile had a fiscal surplus of the order of 9% of GNP.
Before interest payments, Italy is even running a fiscal surplus.
Inflation (annual average) jumped to 5.8% in 2008, due mostly to substantial global foods and oil prices increases, and the fiscal surplus (third year in a row) was 2.1% of GDP.
Servicing this debt already requires the government to run a primary fiscal surplus (that is, before debt-service costs) of around 4% of GDP, and some economists think it will need to be even more.
On October 30th Paulo Bernardo, the planning minister, confirmed that the government has reduced its target for the primary fiscal surplus (the difference between revenue and spending before debt payments) for 2009 from 4.3% to 3.8% of GDP.
Yet mitigating the risk of default is the fact that Ecuador's ability to service its debt has improved in recent months, as high energy prices, increased taxation of the oil sector and the state's take-over of Block 15 previously run by a US company, Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), are boosting the fiscal surplus and foreign reserves.
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This government took a country with excellent fiscal finances, a surplus in fiscal accounts, and a banking system that was in excellent health.
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Having run a budget deficit of 4.4% of GDP in the last fiscal year, it expects a surplus in the fiscal year ending on June 30th 2013, including the proceeds from a mining tax.
Adviser Carlton Delfeld of Chartwell Global ETF Report likes Switzerland for its strong currency backed by ample gold reserves, fiscal discipline, trade surplus and very little foreign debt.
Guillermo Perry, the World Bank's chief economist for Latin America, says Chile is better placed than any other country in the region to absorb external shocks, thanks to its well organised budgetary institutions, prudent fiscal management (a surplus every year since 1989) and tight banking supervision.
However, if a country is running a fiscal deficit but a primary surplus, the calculation changes.
Unlike many of its developed peers, Australia's government plans to return to a budget surplus in the next fiscal year and forecasts its net debt to peak just below 10% of GDP, a fraction of the borrowings seen elsewhere.
There are other countries that actually were running a surplus and had fairly responsible fiscal policies but had weaknesses similar to what happened here with respect to their housing market or the real estate markets, and that has weakened their financial system.
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Rather than forcing Germans, whose savings rates and current account surplus results from years of fiscal prudence, to lend even more money and suffer higher inflation so that the southern tier can receive more monetary stimulus, Dombret argues the citizens of deficit economies must spend less while working, producing and saving more.
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In early October the Treasury released a pre-election economic and fiscal update indicating that after 14 years in surplus the budget balance was set to slip into deficit.
And key, of course, to achieving this, among other things, is for China and other surplus emerging market economies to take fiscal and other measures to support domestic consumption as well as allowing exchange rates to reflect market forces.
But the country was running a budget surplus before that, and a continuing tight fiscal policy has not only not caused a Keynesian disaster, but has accompanied a strong rebound.
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Budgets are in surplus or close to balance, providing more scope for fiscal stimulus to support growth.
Blanchard begs those with room on the fiscal side to engage in stimulus, seemingly pointing out Germany and other surplus nations.
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With stimulative fiscal and monetary policy bolstering domestic demand, China's current-account surplus has shrunk by two-thirds, from 10% of GDP in 2007.
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