Fancy Figures

Five years ago--when the U.S. public debt was $33 billion--many an economist predicted financial chaos if the debt ever reached $50 billion. Last week the debt was $51,346,407,109.98. So economists tossed up new debt estimates like chefs in a griddle-shop window.

One tosser was liberal Seymour Edwin Harris, Harvard associate professor of economics and longtime pal of Britain's John Maynard Keynes. In a new book called The Economics of American Defense (Norton; $3.50), Professor Harris this week forecast a post-war debt of $75 to $100 billion, a steady increase thereafter "to keep spending at a high level during the post-war (depression) period." By 1980, figured Harris, the debt will be $250 to $300 billion.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.