Thursday, October 1, 2015

Icahn on the Deficit and Small government


Another interesting interview with Icahn in which he challenges the myth of the deficit and the advocates of a policy of smaller government.

He and Trump are continuing to at least challenge some of the current dogmas in their public appearances.




3 comments:

The Just Gatekeeper said...

Wow, now this is interesting. I dont know much about Icahn other than that he's a Wall St guy, but this interview is surprisingly populist.

Tom Hickey said...

These guys understand where the money for the rich comes from (in terms of the Kalecki-Levy profit equation).

The Corporate Profit Equation Derived, Explained, Tested: 1929-2013

(4) Corporate Profit = Investment + Dividends – Household Saving – Government Saving – ROW Saving

This is the Kalecki-Levy profit equation, a macroeconomic accounting identity derived by Jerome Levy in 1908. What it says is that if dividends are held constant, then any increase in savings that the non-corporate sector conducts that is not offset by an increase in investment (from either the non-corporate or the corporate sector) will require the corporate sector to save less–i.e., increase it’s wealth less, have less profit. Note that governments dissave by running government surpluses and deficits, and that the ROW saves and dissaves by running trade surpluses and deficits, net of other transfers.

Matt Franko said...

And he spouts off the Fed's Bal Sheet numbers right off the top of his head....

He mentions it started at $800B ... that's exactly where it was when they started.... on the nose...

so this is revealing... he's definitely delving into this stuff...

He easily makes the connection between "the deficit" and the Fed's balance sheet, knows that what they are doing is zeroing rates AND buying all of the USTs they can get their hands on and driving savers into MUCH riskier asset classes .... which now the savers are going to get screwed....

Not yet to where we are for sure but lets see if he can stick with it....