Friday, July 25, 2014

When A "Surplus" Of Fiat ... Is A Negative, ...... aka, ....... N-tuple Entry, Indirect Semantics

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)




From the Mad Hatter department, this just glossed over too lightly, even at MNE.
Labour says it wants budget surplus if it wins next UK election
In a seemingly unprecedented mix of broken semantics, the only loser is the sectoral balance between sense and nonsense in public discourse.

In the great fiat debate, if anyone simply asks "what does that mean" - or spends 10 seconds doing a google search on a term - then they might quickly note the following. In the parallel universe of Double Entry Accounting as applied to sovereign fiscal policy, a "surplus of fiat" involves a net drain or a "negative" flow of net private financial savings. Exactly which "deficit" matters, to whom, when?

Some could be excused for concluding that Labour is threatening to "cut" it's citizens, i.e., make them "bleed" if they DO elect them.

Or, is that a very sick punk politician's circuitous way of asking for institutional help?

And to think that some wag just accused me of using inscrutable jargon, i.e., twisted semantics! :)

Sometimes even "yes" isn't an adequate response, when people say you're trying diverse jargon to get them to notice their own broken semantics. When enough different options are introduced, someone in the audience at a Kabuki play will eventually accuse you of indirection, while STILL not seeing their own. Fine. Should we just bribe a politician to formally name the next government Fiscal Spending measure as the "Word Games Bill?" Based on past experience, even that might not work.

If that doesn't work, what's a teacher to do? Start blaming the parents? (And if they blame the storks? What then?)

To explain net creation, innovation or return-on-coordination to some Control Frauds, it may be expedient to invoke Dark Blather, but that won’t work on everyone, all the time.



4 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

The Labour Party is one of the many groups round the world, often referred to with disdain by Bill Mitchell, who run around claiming to be "progressive" while pushing non-progressive policies.

Roger Erickson said...

It's hard to disagree with Bill on this topic. The UK Labour Party seems to work hard at keeping it's foot firmly planted in it's mouth.

Unknown said...

I agree with Professor Mitchell on this topic. The evidence supporting his position is overwhelming.

Roger Erickson said...

Seve141, so how much Dark Blather must be invoked to "explain" Labour's continued position?

In politics, things don't happen by accident. There's a Great Game afoot, the Middle Class is Afghanistan, and carrying on up the Khyber Pass isn't a viable option.

But we're doing just that anyway, in nearly every country in the world. Something will have to give in either reality, or in the theories invoking Dark Blather. It's just a question of when the NeoLibs tombstone appearance peaks.