Commentary by Roger Erickson
Effects of Automatic Stabilizers on the Federal Budget
Old hat, since this is what MMT basically began with, pre 1996. Seventeen years on, we are still exhaustively RE-belaboring simple policy decisions first inaugerated ~1933 - and we're STILL just beginning to make the public aware of what was originally obvious circa 1933? Is the dent in public mis-awareness even noticeable yet? Sometimes it takes ~87 years of 2x4s before the information starts to sink in for the mule?
If this is ground zero in public understanding of currency operations, we're in trouble. It's like the captain of the Titannic not knowing there's this thing called a rudder?
Did anyone ever consider that this is what "Automatic Stabilizer" MEANS in a fiat currency system? The people that enacted various Automatic Stabilizer policies knew this. What's happened to everyone since? Any general knows they must resupply any army after EVERY engagement, win or lose. Every sports coach knows to feed the team after EVERY game, win or lose. Every business has to restock after every season, whether sales were up or down. Every fiat currency issuer has to restock national liquidity after every business cycle, whether up or down. Yada, yada.
How on earth can this be a surprise to anyone? Marriner Eccles must be turning over in his grave! :(
More than anything else, this reminds me of jokes with tape recorded messages telling dumb blondes that they must breathe out after breathing in. Except we're talking about our Congress AND the US electorate here, not just metaphorical dumb blondes! AND - our Congress, press and electorate is busy laboring over every ripple and subtone in every breath!!! BMHOTK! If this isn't as natural, and automatic, as "breathe in, breathe out," then lord help us!
Don't tell me it's really that bad! ? Do we have to send "Fiat Spend More, Fiat Spend Less" tapes to every Congressperson and voter, reminding them to automatically "public-spend more" when private spending dips, and "public-spend less" when private spending goes wild?
If that's the need, wouldn't it be simpler to bypass Congress and institute Automatic Policy Stabilizers that replace ignorant policy staff with intelligent ones, whenever policy agility drops below survival thresholds?
Even better, bypass our broken education system that's obviously failing our nation, and institute Automatic Policy Stabilizers that replace voters ignorant of Situational Awareness, with a more informed crop of citizens, whenever policy agility drops below survival thresholds.
If we can't do something so simple, Nature is simply going to let her Automatic Stabilizer - the one called Evolution - automatically replace the USA.
Then of course, there are people actively lowering the median IQ.
Witness: "An Infinite Amount of Money" and especially note the steady descent in idiocy from Bloomberg to Mauldin to the one comment. (TRIPLE face palm!)
Weepin' Buddha on a decline! Are we doomed?
2 comments:
Are we doomed?
In the long run we are all dead, if that is any consolation.
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else. — Winston Churchill
But remember, the US did not begin to prepare until Pearl Harbor.
Can we ramp up in time this round as the challenges of increasing complexity put our adaptability to the test?
this is rich from Mayor Mike:
"“We are spending money we don’t have,” Mr. Bloomberg explained. “It’s not like your household. In your household, people are saying, ‘Oh, you can’t spend money you don’t have.’ That is true for your household because nobody is going to lend you an infinite amount of money. When it comes to the United States federal government, people do seem willing to lend us an infinite amount of money.… Our debt is so big and so many people own it that it’s preposterous to think that they would stop selling us more. It’s the old story: If you owe the bank $50,000, you got a problem. If you owe the bank $50 million, they got a problem. And that’s a problem for the lenders. They can’t stop lending us more money.”
... what a moron.
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