Monday, August 15, 2016

John Shaw — US Budget Week:Hill Seeks Tsy/Fed Debt Limit Contingency Plans


Get ready for another debt ceiling rematch. The GOP seems determined to kneecap Uncle Sam and send the US into Third World status with "expansionary fiscal austerity." The Chinese must be rolling on the floor laughing.

MNI
US Budget Week:Hill Seeks Tsy/Fed Debt Limit Contingency Plans
John Shaw
ht Kevin Fathi

2 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

We know how to measure growth. How do we measure optimization. What we measure matters and we don't even have a measure.

Tom Hickey said...

We developed a measure for growth, for inflation rate, for employment rate, etc. Optimization relates to systems, socio-economic optimization is basically getting all factors of the system performing as effectively and efficiently as possible together for public purpose and individual well-being.

All these concepts have to be defined technically in terms of a particular system. Different societies are different historically, culturally and institutionally.

So there will be socio-economic optimization with American characteristics, Chinese characteristics and so on. These are political choices that are made in terns of the sovereignty of a people.

There is also the issue of socio-economic optimization wrt to the global system. This is an issue that hasn't really been explored much yet from a systems POV. This is especially important for world peace and prosperity in a multi-polar world.

The US is attempting to impose a neoliberal solution based on market fundamentalism with special property rights and institutional rules that are designed by the hegemon. The assumption is that socio economic systems that are based on economic liberalism are self-organizing and self-optimizing iaw marginalism, rational choice assuming individualism, and general equilibrium. So in this view it is not necessary to measure optimization but only keep judging toward more and more economic liberalism. This is the basis for neoconservatism and liberal internationalism-interventionism.