I want more freedom for people. I want people to have more control over the government. I want the government, which represents the people, to have more control over the economy than corporate entities, that are not accountable to people, do. I will not speak for what you want.
They have one of the freest democracies on the face of the planet, yet they don't go out and exercise that freedom and do it. They put more effort and thought into 'American Idol' than they do on who's running the country.
Compulsory voting is the way forward.
I want more freedom for people. I want people to have more control over the government. I want the government, which represents the people, to have more control over the economy than corporate entities, that are not accountable to people, do. I will not speak for what you want.They have one of the freest democracies on the face of the planet, yet they don't go out and exercise that freedom and do it. They put more effort and thought into 'American Idol' than they do on who's running the country.
Compulsory voting is the way forward.
That's one way to create jobs - most voting stations are staffed by volunteers as I understand it. Compulsory anything = people that need to get paid to oversee the operation.
Back in the day running for office was something you did after retirement. Professional politicians are at the crux of more than a few problems (but not on-topic for this thread).
How "free" the U.S. citizenry really are is also a topic for discussion elsewhere. A good topic, just not in this thread. Well, at least that's how I see it. ^_^
The Chinese must have cursed us a while back, for we are truly living in interesting times.
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Keynesian economics was demonstrated false during the 70s, and we are repeating the process now. Endless Keynesian spending, and all we get in return is more recession, more debt and few jobs.
The 70s did no such thing. What the 70s did was demonstrate that oil is a nonstandard commodity that functions differently than other commodities. The stagflation of the 70s was caused by OPEC, not flaws in Keynesian economic models.
Reagan didn't follow Austrian economics, he was a supply-sider, you have no clue what you are talking about.
Yeah, only fascist dictatorships like Pinochet's Chile can take advantage of Austrian economics, since Austrian economics require the removal of meaningful democratic choice from the laboring class.
What got the USA out of the Great Depression was destroying almost everyone else's industrial capacity during World War...
Except that we were out of the Depression before Germany invaded Poland, so try again. The post-war destruction did lead to a long economic boom, but the pre-Depression economy had been restored by the time the war began.
That's one way to create jobs - most voting stations are staffed by volunteers as I understand it. Compulsory anything = people that need to get paid to oversee the operation.
Thats still not a very expensive process, and the elections are still being held.
What changes?
People are still volunteering, and people are still getting paid as is.
What DOES happen is people start getting involved, which means they start doing things like reading. If the poor, and the average Joe don't get involved then they wont get representation. Voting becomes the habit of the rich and ruling elite voting themselves back into power.
Local elections are also important, you NEED to have real local representation in orer to drive change.
Similarly, direct elections are a bit iffy, I am more a fan of voting for a party and then allocationg power via proportional representation, with the leader picked from the winning party BY the party (party puts you in, party takes you out). Popularity contests are for the birds.
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If you want to borrow more money, you are not being sensible, because you are increasing the likelihood of default.
You can't have it both ways. Either stop borrowing money and start paying down your debt, or keep borrowing money and get wiped out in default. You are living in a fantasy world if you believe it can work any other way.
We are a long ways away from any serious risk of default. The only way we can default in the near term is if we make the choice to default.
Right now it is public sector spending -- stimulus spending! -- that is keeping the country economically viable. If we stop borrowing money, we must cut services. If we cut services, the economy will collapse.
Therefore our only viable course of action is to borrow more and invest wisely - infrastructure, education, scientific research. Once the economy is in a boom cycle again, then we can focus on reducing the size of government, balancing the budget and reducing the debt.
Banks don't create most jobs, small businesses create most jobs. Emphasis on small, not Wall Street.
Yes, and small businesses -- such as the one my family owns and I work for -- require customers to keep their doors open. Something you seem to fundamentally not understand.
Whether money comes from taxes or borrowing makes no difference in terms of stimulus. The USA borrowed lots of money and spent it on stimulus and it accomplished nothing.
Except the stimulus did accomplish something. It is factually incorrect to claim that the stimulus accomplished nothing.
But reducing government spending isn't going to increase private sector spending. That's just not how it works. Reducing government spending will simply reduce the amount of money entering into the consumer market, thus reducing demand, thus causing further contraction of the markets and accelerating America's collapse into anarchy.Wrong.
This is a Keynesian myth. If the government does not spend the money, it goes somewhere else. It doesn't magically disappear.
Actually it does, because government spending creates wealth. It just doesn't create profit. Take away the government spending and the forms of wealth created by government spending disappear, because the private sector cannot achieve the same ends that the public sector can.
But if it gets saved or invested, it goes into a bank or other investment vehicle. The more money saved and invested, the more money available for borrowing. The more money available for borrowing the cheaper it is to borrow.
Interest rates go down, and a small business can borrow money. Again, you may rejoice. More jobs!
Yeah, you really don't get it at all. I work for a small business. We deal in specialty autoparts. We have a great line of credit, and if we wanted to borrow money from our bank to expand our product line and hire more employees, we would have no problem doing that. There is plenty of money to be borrowed already. Increase loan capacity is a supply side solution, this is why I said you're arguing supply side solutions to demand problems.
What there is a lack of is customers. It makes no sense for us to invest in expansion when our existing base of customers is contracting. We could easily borrow the money to double our staff and double our production, but who would buy our stuff? Nobody! Unless interest rates go negative, we have no reason to borrow money for expansion -- we've already reduced our production to half of what it was four years ago.
The only way we're going to grow, or at least get back to the size we were four years ago, is if more people go back to work. Because the more people are working, the more they are spending, and thus the more we sell, and thus the more we produce.
Balancing the budget and addressing the debt will not put more people back to work, it will just increase unemployment, which will decrease sales, which will further contract the economy.
I've been watching this happen in real time over the course of this recession. Thank god for soldiers, because sales to men in the military have been keeping us alive.
A small business creates economically productive jobs. The government hiring more paper pushers doesn't help anyone but Washington DC real estate agents.
It helps the small business I work for if those paper pushers collect classic cards. It helps paizo if those paper pushers play Pathfinder. It helps the dog groomer if they own dogs. Etc. etc.
An economy can't function without demand, and a robust economy of small businesses can't function without a high level of employment (with sufficient wages to afford a wide range of luxuries, since most small business do not sell necessities). If the government puts people back to work, demand will pick up. As demand picks up, the private sector will begin creating jobs again, creating shortages in the labor supply - which will create inflation, unless the government cuts spending and frees up labor for the private sector. Which is why you cut and balance in a boom, and borrow and invest in a bust.
But you can't solve a demand problem by increasing the supply side's access to capital for investment. That doesn't do anything but create speculation bubbles as all the freed-up capitol looks for places to be invested.
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This also assumes that these government worker don't actually help anyone. That they are in fact just paper pushers with no use other than to collect and spend their paychecks. But they are, for the most part not. They may regulate industries, trying to keep them honest and ensure a level playing field. They may audit files looking for tax cheats (One proposed 'savings' was to IRS enforcement who bring in more revenue than they cost.) They may process SS or Medicare claims. They may build or repair your roads and other infrastructure. And through grants to keep the states afloat, they may be your teachers, police or fire fighters.
Exactly!
Or consider poverty relief. Poverty relief helps turn the poor into productive workers and consumers (generally more the latter than the former). You can't monetize helping the poor deal with poverty in constructive ways. All you can do is turn it into charity, and charity is far less effective than direct government spending -- and charities become even less effective the more of them there are and the more they are asked to do, as more and more money that should help the needy is lost in attempts to secure patrons and more and more money is directed inefficiently based on popular fads (one year everybody is all "Save the dolphins" and the rainforest gets nothing, the next year it's all "Save the rainforests" and the dolphins get nothing - then Hollywood does a movie about rescue dogs and suddenly the pounds are swimming in more money than they can spend).
If you fire all the social workers, you won't see an increase in private sector spending as the private sector monetizes social work and turns it into an industry. Nor will you see the private sector grow -- What ends up happening is you get more crime, which means any money you saved on the social worker is lost tenfold (there are studies backing that number up) in increased security costs and profits lost to theft and corruption.
If there are some 'paper pushers', who's ever seen one of those so efficient corporations without it's share of paper to be pushed?
Exactly. The problem with guys like NPC Dave is that they latch onto these weird theoretical models (I think he's an Austrian), and they have no idea how things work in the real world.
I've worked for corporations, and I find it absurd that anyone could suggest that they aren't labyrinthine bureaucracies full of useless paper pushers themselves.
This also assumes that these government worker don't actually help anyone. That they are in fact just paper pushers with no use other than to collect and spend their paychecks. But they are, for the most part not. They may regulate industries, trying to keep them honest and ensure a level playing field. They may audit files looking for tax cheats (One proposed 'savings' was to IRS enforcement who bring in more revenue than they cost.) They may process SS or Medicare claims. They may build or repair your roads and other infrastructure. And through grants to keep the states afloat, they may be your teachers, police or fire fighters.Exactly!
Or consider poverty relief. Poverty relief helps turn the poor into productive workers and consumers (generally more the latter than the former). You can't monetize helping the poor deal with poverty in constructive ways. All you can do is turn it into charity, and charity is far less effective than direct government spending -- and charities become even less effective the more of them there are and the more they are asked to do, as more and more money that should help the needy is lost in attempts to secure patrons and more and more money is directed inefficiently based on popular fads (one year everybody is all "Save the dolphins" and the rainforest gets nothing, the next year it's all "Save the rainforests" and the dolphins get nothing - then Hollywood does a movie about rescue dogs and suddenly the pounds are swimming in more money than they can spend).
If you fire all the social workers, you won't see an increase in private sector spending as the private sector monetizes social work and turns it into an industry. Nor will you see the private sector grow -- What ends up happening is you get more crime, which means any money you saved on the social worker is lost tenfold (there are studies backing that number up) in increased security costs and profits lost to theft and corruption.
If there are some 'paper...
Many government programs cause enormous damage also, and many government employees cause enormous harm.
As bad as many major corporations are many of the governments practices are far worse, and they are done in our name with our grand children's money.
I'd be curious to see your proof about how effective your poverty relief programs in the US are. The one I've seen are extremely harmful.
EDIT: I would also add that corporations that have a lot of dead weight tend to go out of business if the government doesn't reward their failure like the bank bailouts. Government, by contrast, seems to thrive on failure while punishing frugality. Government organizations I've been involved in (like the Army) rush to burn up all of their money on hand at the end of their budget period. In many businesses folks get bonuses for being under budget.
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Don't you know, jeff? If we would just let poor people starve, they would discover their magical bootstraps and pull themselves out of poverty.
What? They don't have magical bootstraps? Then they must be bad people.
Everybody knows if we gut social programs and throw the poor to the wolves, Prosperity Je$u$ will reward us with a shiny new Mercedes Benz.
Don't you know, jeff? If we would just let poor people starve, they would discover their magical bootstraps and pull themselves out of poverty.
What? They don't have magical bootstraps? Then they must be bad people.
Everybody knows if we gut social programs and throw the poor to the wolves, Prosperity Je$u$ will reward us with a shiny new Mercedes Benz.
The Prosperity Gospel (a real thing) is one of the most damaging false doctrines to visit Christianity or this country.
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We literally cannot austerity ourselves into a net positive. We have an income problem.
As for debt, here's the thing. It doesn't have to ever be "fully paid off."
Most of the debt we piled up in WWII is still on the books. It's never been paid off, just continually rolled over to new bonds as the old ones mature. The magnitude of that debt, however, is now completely insignificant as the GDP kept growing faster than the debt.
So in reality, no, the debt doesn't actually ever have to paid off, as long as it's low enough that the interest payments aren't too onerous.
The problem is when we lack income to make those payments.
As for the debt ceiling, again, it serves no purpose. Literally, it exists as a vestigal limb from when we were on the gold standard. We could abolish it completely and be better off for it.
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The Prosperity Gospel (a real thing) is one of the most damaging false doctrines to visit Christianity or this country.Don't you know, jeff? If we would just let poor people starve, they would discover their magical bootstraps and pull themselves out of poverty.
What? They don't have magical bootstraps? Then they must be bad people.
Everybody knows if we gut social programs and throw the poor to the wolves, Prosperity Je$u$ will reward us with a shiny new Mercedes Benz.
The prosperity gospel is like someone intentionally set out to become the Anti-Christ by spreading a gospel that was literally the exact opposite of everything Jesus stood for.
Heal the sick? Jesus Yes, Je$u$ No.
Give to the poor? Jesus Yes, Je$u$ No.
Renounce materialism? Jesus Yes, Je$u$ No.
Turn the other cheek? Jesus Yes, Je$u$ No.
Forgive others their sins? Jesus Yes, Je$u$ No.
Render unto Caeser what is Caeser's (i.e. pay your taxes)? Jesus Yes, Je$u$ No.
It just goes on and on. I'm not even Christian and I find myself offended on behalf of Jesus. This is the end result of a theology that says the only important thing about being Christian is that you believe Jesus died and came back to life, and what he said is irrelevant.
Avoiding the strawman for the moment ...
An important aside to this issue is "This is how things got this bad in the first place."
It just goes on and on. I'm not even Christian and I find myself offended on behalf of Jesus. This is the end result of a theology that says the only important thing about being Christian is that you believe Jesus died and came back to life, and what he said is irrelevant.
For me the worse part of it is the fact it makes being poor or having misfortune happen to you a sin -- because obviously you weren't a good enough Christian and that's why you aren't prosperous and lucky.
However I'm done now and ready to see the rest of the charade of this thread play through.
I'm not even Christian and I find myself offended on behalf of Jesus. This is the end result of a theology that says the only important thing about being Christian is that you believe Jesus died and came back to life, and what he said is irrelevant.
This is how I feel about it.
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CINOs = Christians in Name Only. They've got the ostentatious fish on their SUVs; they're loud and proud "values voters;" they've got the "be fruitful and multiply" thing down pat; they've got the holier-than-thou stuff at the tips of their tongues. But they somehow haven't gotten around to reading, say, the Sermon on the Mount, or any of that stuff.
Avoiding the strawman for the moment ...
An important aside to this issue is "This is how things got this bad in the first place."
Welcome to a mandated two party system. Both parties have done all they could to ensure they're the only two teams that can field players. This is the logical conclusion. It's not a GOOD or POSITIVE conclusion, but it is the natural one.
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Edit: Almost posted it in Latin :B
The part that always bothers me -- the party that makes the claim that we are a Christian nation, and is the party of 'Christian family values' and spouts their religion at the top of their lungs at every possible chance doesn't want the government that is supposed to be based on 'Christian values' actually doing Christian like things, and gets upset if it starts doing so (such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, clothing the naked, teaching the unlearned).
I've never understood such a juxtaposition of positions.
The part that always bothers me -- the party that makes the claim that we are a Christian nation, and is the party of 'Christian family values' and spouts their religion at the top of their lungs at every possible chance doesn't want the government that is supposed to be based on 'Christian values' actually doing Christian like things, and gets upset if it starts doing so (such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, clothing the naked, teaching the unlearned).
I've never understood such a juxtaposition of positions.
"FYGM"
Edit: Living an austere life and constantly trying to act as a model human being to the best moral standards is really hard, whereas saying "I belong to Team Jesus" is really easy.
That's the fun thing about teams. They so easily divide the world into people on your team, and people who are not on your team. Even better, you get to personally decide who is and is not a part of the team as according to you, regardless of what the team rules actually say. And of course, you're in the team, so you don't really need to follow all the rules.
Correct me if Im wrong. It seems that we are far more aggressive than the Chinese are.The Dalai Lama called, he asked if he could have Tibet back yet.
Never. Do you know how much tax revenue Tibet provides?
I actually do not. But I can't see giving up a free nickle.
The part that always bothers me -- the party that makes the claim that we are a Christian nation, and is the party of 'Christian family values' and spouts their religion at the top of their lungs at every possible chance doesn't want the government that is supposed to be based on 'Christian values' actually doing Christian like things, and gets upset if it starts doing so (such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, clothing the naked, teaching the unlearned).
I've never understood such a juxtaposition of positions.
Here you go. :)The part that always bothers me -- the party that makes the claim that we are a Christian nation, and is the party of 'Christian family values' and spouts their religion at the top of their lungs at every possible chance doesn't want the government that is supposed to be based on 'Christian values' actually doing Christian like things, and gets upset if it starts doing so (such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the sick, clothing the naked, teaching the unlearned).
I've never understood such a juxtaposition of positions.
At the same time you would think some would see the con for what it is -- it's all simply the same greed that any scam artist feeds on... the thought that somehow you can have one thing while spending it to get another and still have both at the end...
Simply staggering that people will purposefully do this to themselves.
Keynesian economics was demonstrated false during the 70s, and we are repeating the process now. Endless Keynesian spending, and all we get in return is more recession, more debt and few jobs.The 70s did no such thing. What the 70s did was demonstrate that oil is a nonstandard commodity that functions differently than other commodities. The stagflation of the 70s was caused by OPEC, not flaws in Keynesian economic models.
Wrong, Keynesian doctrine claimed that the increases in inflation and unemployment could not happen like they did in the 1970s, and when they did Keynesianism was discredited.
It is being discredited again now, unemployment is still high despite trillions in extra government spending. The grave is dug and the Keynesians are grasping at straws. The funeral is coming.
Oil is a nonstandard commodity that functions differently than other commodities? Baloney.
Reagan didn't follow Austrian economics, he was a supply-sider, you have no clue what you are talking about.Yeah, only fascist dictatorships like Pinochet's Chile can take advantage of Austrian economics, since Austrian economics require the removal of meaningful democratic choice from the laboring class.
LOL, Austrian economics is firmly opposed to fascism and specifically points out the meaningful choice lies with customers. FYI laborers are customers too, you don't know the first thing about Austrian economics.
What got the USA out of the Great Depression was destroying almost everyone else's industrial capacity during World War...Except that we were out of the Depression before Germany invaded Poland, so try again.
Nice try, but the economic numbers don't support your position. My statement still stands.
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The post-war destruction did lead to a long economic boom, but the pre-Depression economy had been restored by the time
Unemployment is too high becuase the democrats caved in and compromised and did not do enoguh to get people working and gave too much out as tax breaks that did nothing. Also it needed more food stamps and less tax cuts.
Also have you ever heard of ceteris parebus assumptions?
Isn't oil special in that it is a commodity that clumps together and is needed for transportation for nearly anythign and to get people to work run boats for shipping etc.
How exactly can a politician do "anything" to get people working?
Start a war, set up a public works project (and actually have it be a public works project instead of a "contract it to private industry which is going to do a horrible job, late and over budget without delivering the promised goods"), nationalize an existing industry, pass a law determining the amount and number of people to work in a given area and field (basically re-regulate) -- several of which wouldn't work in the USA (the starting a war and nationalize an existing industry wouldn't go over particularly well since the republicans just got finished selling off everything they could that made money without being a tax).
I'll give you a hint though -- most small businesses fail... and failed business don't create jobs (little known fact that). What's more small business typically don't break a profit for the first three years of business (those that succeed) which means there is scant little for them to hire with money wise. All of which is evidence which flies directly in the face of the thought that small businesses create jobs.
AND if small businesses do create jobs -- why do we continue to give the tax breaks and bail outs to large businesses? Why not hit the large businesses (which must not be making jobs) and use that to support the small businesses? Because all the tax breaks the republicans are so determined to keep offer no capital gain to small businesses: Instead they focus on protecting corporate profits and investment profits from taxes. Now investment profits might sound like a great thing to protect (after all it should encourage investment right?) except it protects the wrong sorts of investments -- (namely investments in the 'hot' markets right now -- foreign markets and large financial firms).
The end result is of course rhetoric that doesn't match action from the Republican end. Even when they get exactly what they've been asking for in order to raise the debt ceiling they get pissy and move the goal posts and start demanding that the cuts be exactly where they want them instead of where they are offered.
I didn't vote for my current local representive precisely because he stated he was going to go to Washington and "tell them how it is -- I'm not going there to compromise... it'll be my way and that's that" -- and I have this thing against voting for dictators and tyrants... I don't do it. Especially ideologues that can't even follow what they spew.
About 9 out of 10 government workers is most.
So teachers, soldiers, firefighters, park rangers, public defenders, judges, police officers, regulators, safety inspectors, postmen, VA doctors (or psychologist), FBI, CIA, ATF, tax collectors, social security admins, and air traffic controllers -- those aren't the majority of government workers and don't do anything useful?
Just want to make sure we understand you correctly. People like the scientist at NASA (doing a constitutionally mandated job actually)?
Because these statistics don't bear out what you are saying
In fact if anything there is a huge lack of people doing the jobs that need done in government -- our regulators are so universally underfunded and understaffed that they can't actually complete their jobs at all. A teacher requires almost as much training and schooling as a doctor but makes at best half as much and generally has to pay for their own schooling or indenture themselves to a specific school to get debt forgiveness. Perhaps the government lawyers (prosecutors and the like) that are continuously ridiculed as being 'second best' since they took a lower paying job working for a government making less than half what they could working in the private industry?
In fact there are very few government jobs that you could get someone in the private industry to do for the same or less pay, precisely because the government workers are already generally at 1/2 or less of what the private industry already pays someone to do that job.
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About 9 out of 10 government workers is most.
So teachers, soldiers, firefighters, park rangers, public defenders, judges, police officers, regulators, safety inspectors, postmen, VA doctors (or psychologist), FBI, CIA, ATF, tax collectors, social security admins, and air traffic controllers -- those aren't the majority of government workers and don't do anything useful?
I am sure 1 out of 10 of those guys are doing something useful.
Hell in that case I'm sure the same can be said of any private business out there.
I'm sorry but this part of your argument is the weakest, most mentally lazy piece of drivel I've seen recently (and that's including mainstream media in whatever flavor you want to show it). The rest of it I can almost follow and see something behind -- however your insistence that just because someone is on government payroll means that they are most likely lazy, ineffectual and not useful is absolutely inane.
I've never understood such a juxtaposition of positions.Here you go. :)
If reading a wiki entrance on cognitive dissonance is too difficult for anyone, here's a video of how if functions.
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Let's review what Gailbraithe has claimed about how things work in the real world.
1) If the government doesn't borrow money, it, for all practical purposes, doesn't exist.
2) If money isn't spent, it doesn't help. Your savings in the bank apparently just sits there, doing nothing.
3) If we borrow more money, we won't default because we will be able to pay our debts. If we stop borrowing money, we won't be able to pay our debts.
I'm not Gailbraithe (thank Gygax), but I'd like to alter some of your statements just slightly.
1) If the government isn't able to spend anything, it, for all practical purposes, doesn't exist.
2) If money accumulates tax-free, is kept in offshore accounts, and is spent overseas as as "business expenses" without being properly taxed, it's not doing a whole lot for the U.S. economy. So, yes, that money would be doing nothing.
3) If we suddenly stop borrowing money, don't increase revenue collection, and don't stop spending, then the proverbial excrement hits the fan.
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It is being discredited again now, unemployment is still high despite trillions in extra government spending. The grave is dug and the Keynesians are grasping at straws. The funeral is coming.
300 billion is not "trillions." The stimulus in total was 800 billion, half of that was tax cuts (i.e. not spending) and the other half hasn't been entirely spent. You do your argument no credit by making up ridiculous claims.
Oil is a nonstandard commodity that functions differently than other commodities? Baloney.
The entire world economy runs on oil. Changes in oil prices have impacts on every single sector of the economy. Power costs, transportation costs, and manufacturing cost all rise when oil prices rise. No other commodity is like this. A steep rise in the price of pork bellies leads to shift away from pork bellies, but we cannot shift away from oil. Oil is what makes the modern industrial economy possible.
Thus a steep rise in the price of oil has the effect of increasing the price of all other goods (causing inflation), while not resulting in any actual growth (thus unemployment doesn't go down).
This doesn't point to a flaw in Keynesianism, it points to a flaw in all economic models that treat oil as a commodity no different than other commodities.
LOL, Austrian economics is firmly opposed to fascism and specifically points out the meaningful choice lies with customers. FYI laborers are customers too, you don't know the first thing about Austrian economics.Yeah, only fascist dictatorships like Pinochet's Chile can take advantage of Austrian economics, since Austrian economics require the removal of meaningful democratic choice from the laboring class.
Consumption choice is not the same as democratic choice. Austrian economics are incompatible with democracy - that's why the only nations that have ever been able to implement Austrian economic models have been fascist states.
What Austrians don't like to admit is that the completely free market lunacy advocated by Austrian economic models will tend to result in surplus labor, and the only means an Austrian economic model has to deal with a surplus in a market is for contraction of that market. In the case of the labor market, this always ultimately means people starving to death (because Austrian models are ultimately too hypothetical and refuse to account for the many realities confronting the economically nonviable). Austrian economic models refuse to consider people dying as a result of lack of economic opportunity a bad outcome, yet actual people will always see this as a bad outcome.
Thus, the laboring class in an Austrian economy will always vote to dismantle the Austrian model and replace it with a model that takes concepts like social justice into account, because the real world cannot function on the basis of Austrian's bizzaro models (which fall prey to the homo economincus fallacy more so than most economic models). Thus the only way to maintain an Austrian economy is to remove democratic choice from the laboring class, which requires a fascist government.
Therefore our only viable course of action is to borrow more and invest wisely - infrastructure, education, scientific research. Once the economy is in a boom cycle again, then we can focus on reducing the size of government, balancing the budget and reducing the debt.The latter has never happened, the size of the government doesn't shrink, the budget doesn't balance and the debt is not reduced.
Bill Clinton reduced the size of government, balanced the budget and reduced the debt.
I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your arguments, as the consistent theme of your arguments is saying things that just plain old aren't so - whether it be the claim above, or your claim that the depression didn't end until the post-war recovery, or your claim that the stimulus spent "trillions" and accomplished "nothing."
There's only so much blatant dishonesty I can stand from one poster. I won't pretend that liberals and progressive have done everything perfectly, but I'll be damned if I'm going to waste time arguing with someone who claims they've done everything wrong when the only example of his own ideas being implemented was a fascist dictatorship.
Keynesian economics is dead. Just look at that over-taxing, wealth-destroying train wreck Norway.
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Keynesian economics is dead. Just look at that over-taxing, wealth-destroying train wreck Norway.
It's Morphin time!
Sorry, I don't get it. Unless you're accusing me of being the worst sock puppet ever?
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Let's review what Gailbraithe has claimed about how things work in the real world.
I was not aware that "review" meant "create strawmen from."
1) If the government doesn't borrow money, for all practical purposes, it doesn't exist.
This is basically true. It's not true for every single dollar of government spending, but it is true for most dollars of government spending. There are several reasons for this.
The first is related to infrastructure benefits. Roads, utilities and mass transportation (everything from ports to rail lines to busing systems) all facilitate trade. The CBO estimates that every $1 spent on infrastructure creates $1.8 dollars in the economy. That means the government is taking $1 out of private sector and returning it in the form of a $1.8. Even if the government is borrowing that dollar and paying it back, as long as its paying it back for less than a $1.8 then there is no net loss to the economy. Meanwhile, in the third world poor infrastructure is a major hindrance to economic development.
The free market cannot address the issue of infrastructure because the costs are enormous and the benefits diffuse. Consider roads. While for-profit roads are a theoretical possibility, they will never be as efficient as public owned roads - roads increase the profitability of local markets by allowing consumers and producers to externalize the costs of facilitating movement of goods onto the community as a whole. If all players were to pay their actual individual costs, there would be a net loss of players, which in turn would drive up the costs to play, driving away more players, in an ever upward spiral of inflation.
Education and health care are other areas that the free market cannot address efficiently. Notice that we devote 16% of our GDP to health care and get poorer results (meaning our actual GDP is less than our potential GDP due to lost labor by the uninsured and minimally insured getting needlessly sick) than other western nations that have socialized health care costs and spend less (average of 10%)
The simple reality is that there are a number of preexisting conditions of the human experience that create market inefficiencies -- general ignorance, sickness and disease, imposing geography, criminal behavior, hostile outsider groups -- that the market cannot address. That's why we have the state. Some things are simply better addressed collectively than individually. Some problems are best solved through cooperation rather than competition.
If you want to build a better mousetrap, you need a free market. If you want to ensure that better mousetrap can penetrate the broadest range of markets, you need a solid infrastructure.
Another reason that the point quoted above is essentially true is because some percentage of the money borrowed is borrowed from foreign markets. We export a significant portion of our manufacturing work to China, which creates wealth in China. By borrowing that wealth, we return it to our market. If we then invest it in our market in such a way that it produces a return greater than the rate we are borrowing at it at, then we have a net gain in wealth that would not otherwise exist.
2) If money isn't spent, it doesn't help. Your savings in the bank apparently just sits there, doing nothing.
If interest rates are low enough, then yes. If the value of currency is decreasing, then yes. Money is just a means of facilitating the trade of goods. If money is not spent, then it is not facilitating trade. Trade is what creates wealth.
If you take a million dollars and stick it in a coffee can and bury it, it does nothing to grow the economy. If interest rates are zero, then banks that aren't loaning money are just coffee cans.
3) If we borrow more money, we won't default because we will be able to pay our debts. If we stop borrowing money, we won't be able to pay our debts.
This is, of course, context dependent. If it is certain that revenues will increase in the long term so long as spending continues in the short term, and if there is a serious risk that if spending does not continue in the short term, then the sensible course of action is to keep borrowing to keep spending until the recovery occurs. And, obviously, the rational thing to do is spend on things that will both encourage and help sustain the recovery and subsequent boom.
The other option is to allow for massive contraction, including contraction in the labor market. Which is, again, a euphemism for people starving to death.
And finally...
The contraction of the economy is businesses dying which are no longer useful, and we can't get new growth until that happens. Keeping zombie businesses and banks alive only saps up capital that could have been put to good use.
Oh, I see. You have no idea what a recession is at all, or really how the economy functions at all.
Most small business are not useful in any significant sense. The vast majority of small businesses, the one's you trumpet as job creators, are involved in the sale of luxury goods. Paizo, for example, sells luxury goods. Role playing games are only useful if you are already fed, clothed, sheltered and able to transport yourself about town. Because that is when you find yourself needing entertainment.
If people have less money, then they strongly trend towards spending that money on necessities before luxuries. So if the housing market goes under and people stop building house, then millions of construction workers stop being employed. They then spend less on luxuries, which means that the small providers of luxury goods and services tend to get whacked first.
Those are not useless zombie businesses, unless your definition of useless zombie business is "all of those small companies that produce jobs." Those kinds of businesses are a vital sign of the health of an economy.
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At the risk of bad taste, I'm going to cross post from the other thread on this topic. It should save time.
To me it's really quite simple: Our country has overspent. It doesn't matter why or how, or which party is more culpable -- it is done, and we're all on the hook for it. To fix it, we're all going to have to sacrifice. That means more taxes at the top, and fewer services at the bottom. Being the liberal I am, I happen to believe those most able to shoulder a larger burden should be asked to do so, but beliefs aside, it should be obvious to both sides that we're past the point where either spending cuts or increased revenue alone can get us out of this jam. Yet the majority of people seem to be sending a simple message to the representatives: Let the other guy pay, but don't touch mine. Don't raise *my* taxes. Don't cut the services *I* need. Bereft of a sense of national unity, we have no empathy for our fellow citizens. But like it or not, we're in this together, and unless we can rekindle those feelings somehow we'll run right off the cliff -- together.
Are the politicians complicit? Of course. But ultimately we're the ones who have used the ballot box (and our wallets) to make compromise a dirty word.
Now back to your regularly-scheduled ideological finger pointing.
I'm beginning to think our country may have reached an ideological impasse, and will not survive intact.
I'm beginning to think our country may have reached an ideological impasse, and will not survive intact.
As am I.
It also seems to me that, particular when it comes to the debt ceiling, a great many of us are willing to cut off our nose to spite our face.
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I'm beginning to think our country may have reached an ideological impasse, and will not survive intact.
I am seriously worried about the next election. If a Republican unseats Obama, then were really screwed. The Republicans have no idea what to do about the economy, and they've become so ideologically committed to slashing taxes and cutting spending I think they'll crash the economy and provoke an uprising in urban areas.
If Obama wins, and especially if Democrats sweep the Republicans out of power on the state and national levels, I think the right wing base could freak out dangerously.