Its' a very positive article, but unfortunately, the job guarantee is not presented in terms of the basic issue — the choice between a buffer stock of employed or buffer stock of unemployed, and how the former is superior using efficiency and effectiveness as criteria.
The other key issue is how the JG is an integral aspect of policy formulation that promises to reconcile the trifecta of growth, employment and price stability, previous thought to be impossible without using one as a tool to target the others.
Adoption of policy based on MMT analysis should keep the economy operating a close to optimal output and employment along with moderate inflation, with the JG playing the dual role of providing a price anchor, on one hand, and on the other, mopping up residual unemployment after the application of function finance to fiscal policy based on stock-flow consistent macro modeling.
Huffington Post
Stephanie Kelton Has The Biggest Idea In Washington
Zach Carter
Huffington Post
Stephanie Kelton Has The Biggest Idea In Washington
Zach Carter
69 comments:
HUFFINGTON POST: “Kelton teaches plenty of feminist economics in her courses.”
“Feminist economics?” That’s a new one for me.
Feminists want all rights and privileges with no duties and responsibilities. Feminists want the freedom to destroy men, while feminists continue to call themselves victims. Feminists want men to give them compliments so that feminists can respond by shouting “rapist!”
What does this have to do with economics?
Oh well. At least the Huffington Post is talking about MMT.
HUFFINGTON POST: “If Kelton’s MMT doctrine is right, then the way nearly every politician talks about government debt, deficits and even money itself is mostly wrong.”
Actually “wrong” is not the right word. They are LIARS.
HUFFINGTON POST: “Conservatives have accused Stephanie Kelton of worshipping a ‘magic money tree’.”
Conservatives worship a magic money tree that consists of Wall Street bailouts and endless war.
Each year the money given to the Pentagon increases another $80 billion. Each year sets a new record.
When I demand more money, I am being reasonable. When YOU ask for more money, you are worshipping a “magic money tree.”
I note the usual conflation of not being a wage-slave with unemployment. Questions:
Are the rich unemployed?
Are the retired unemployed?
Are the self-employed unemployed?
Or are they, with the possible exception of the self-employed*, LIBERATED?
Then why isn't liberation the goal for the rest of humanity? Instead of the replacement of wage-slavery to the private sector with wage-slavery to government as automation continues to eliminate the profitability of even poorly paid wage slaves?
*Due to inadequate income or other resources, the self-employed can a form of slave too.
ANDREW ANDERSON WRITES: “Why isn't liberation the goal for the rest of humanity?”
Exactly. When we ask this question of JG advocates, they ignore us. They want to guarantee that everyone in the lower classes has a chance to toil for the rich. They want to guarantee every slave a spot on the plantation.
JG advocates imagine that the JG is way to thumb their noses at the rich. However the U.S. government is owned by the rich. Therefore, even if people are paid by the U.S. government, they will still toil for the rich.
I want people to be able to get jobs if people want to work, but this JG thing is not well thought out. During the 1930s New Deal, people were put to work without “guarantees.”
Without things like rent controls and affordable housing, the JG will cause more money to flow to the top, and it will cause housing bubbles everywhere. After all, an explosion of tech jobs created the housing bubbles in Seattle and San Francisco, and with it, a vast sea of homeless people.
Will the JG reduce school tuitions and student loan debt? No. Will it stop Big Pharma and the medical profession from gouging patients? No. Will it make housing affordable? No. Will the JG alone stop the USA’s ever-worsening inequality? No.
I am not being a pessimist. I am not barking, “It will never work” whenever someone suggests a solution. I am saying that without changes in US society, the JG will be of little use.
In one sense the JG is a utopian “nice idea.” And, being utopian, its advocates form a cult which they angrily defend.
In another sense, the JG is anti-utopian. JG advocates regard inequality as inevitable and unsolvable, and right and just. For JG advocates, everyone in the lower classes must toil.
However I come back to the same question: Why isn't liberation the goal for the rest of humanity?
Konrad and Andrew, I got banned by SK for raising some of these issues on her twitter feed
I got banned by L. Randall Wray for questioning Wray's mantra that "taxes drive money."
These people are cultists.
The JG can’t solve all the problems of a ‘monetary system.’ The response to all of these complaints is that it’s hard to do worse than what we are doing now. And you are either in favor of an unemployed or employed buffer stock of labor. Other problems require other solutions.
“Actually “wrong” is not the right word. They are LIARS.”
Presented as usual with NO evidence...
“I got banned by L. Randall Wray for questioning Wray's mantra that "taxes drive money."
hahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!
“I got banned by SK for raising some of these issues on her twitter feed”
hajahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
Oh I haven’t laughed this hard in a looooooonnnggg time!!!!
Thanks for the laughs guys !!!!!
This is tooooo good!!!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
“Then why isn't liberation the goal for the rest of humanity?“
The artists side don’t do as well of a job at seeing to it that their share is distributed evenly....
Leo Dicaprio makes $16M per picture, Giancarlo Stanton makes over $20M per year...
How much does a small community theatre actor make? Zero? How about amateur baseball players? Zero?
How many scientists/engineers do you see making $16M or $20M SALARIES???? zero ... how many do you see making $zero? zero ....
Art majors are f-ed up...
Just because Art majors are all f-ed up don’t blame everybody else.... we material people are getting along mostly just fine...
MMT economists don't want to go "there."
As Michael Hudson has pointed out, classical economic, which culminated in Marx & Engels, was chiefly concerned with economic rent, that is, gain in excess of that which is socially necessary to bring production into exchange. They stood at the cusp of the transition from the agricultural age, characterized by feudal property, to the industrial age characterized by bourgeois property. The chief concern then was ending landlordism as the mechanism of rent extraction. Marx viewed capitalism as the transformation of landlordism into capitalism, with owners of the industrial means of production the replacement of the feudal landlords. The challenge of the future is elimination capitalists in the same fashion as landlords under feudalism.
For M & E, the wealth of nations is socially produced by collective coordination and cooperation and equitable distributed among individuals should be according to the principle, from each according to ability and to each according to need. Under bourgeois liberalism, wealth is assumed to be produced individually and is distributed socially in markets by price rationing. Under marginalism, all factors receive their marginal product and the outcome is "just deserts." Some people get a bigger share of the pie and enjoy greater leisure owing to their contribution, even if that is just holding savings at interest (based on loanable funds).
For all practical purposes, the only out of the box thinkers are M & E. All other thinking in in the box of bourgeois liberalism, and no one dares to go there. So the MMT economists are not alone.
This is not exactly a cop out, in that the solution of M & E was either wait for the mode of production to change owing to the internal contradictions of capitalism or the introduction of new technology, or else opt for revolution. That latter hasn't worked so well for a variety of reason, from the inability of the leaders to craft a satisfactory system, to capture of the state by a new class, of the necessity to hold off incursions of capitalists nations bent on their destruction.
So the safe way is stay in the box and punt as much as possible, but always with the possibility for reversion to the status quo ante, as has been the case following the New Deal as moderate form of capitalism.
Until a solution superior to M & E is on the table, that is the only viable option to the status quo other than moderating it along the lines of Keynes and others working in the box.
As I have said, the design problem includes not only there but how to get from here there in a way that is feasible.
True, there are anarchistic proposals on the table, but I regard them as utopian in that there is no plan for getting from here to there, and whether they would work is, let's say, "controversial."
I actually did an MA thesis on this subject entitled "Revolution or Evolution: Toward a Theory of Social Change." I concluded that what is necessary for evolution is an expansion of the level of collective consciousness elicited through raising the general level of education along with a spiritual awakening to greater appreciation of universality. It's not an economic issue as much as a psychospiritual one that includes humanism as well as transpersonalism. See humanistic and transpersonal psycholog, both of which attempt to express this in analytical concepts. Abraham Maslow was a pioneer of both. He also wrote Eupsychian Management, reprinted as Maslow on Management.
Economics is important as a means in this endeavor to move in the direction of more ideal society, but the endeavor involves much more than economics.
Seven comments by idiotic Fatt Stanko that say absolutely nothing.
A new record?
"I got banned by L. Randall Wray for questioning Wray's mantra that "taxes drive money."
These people are cultists."
The only person I see cultist here is comrade Konrad. Of course taxes drive money in a capitalist economy. You can have a system like Soviet Union where taxes generally are not necessary. They used taxes from time to time to make people join the collective farms and to give up their private means of agricultural production. They had some taxes in place but these taxes were not necessary to drive money.
Carlitos wrote:
"The JG can’t solve all the problems of a ‘monetary system.’ The response to all of these complaints is that it’s hard to do worse than what we are doing now. And you are either in favor of an unemployed or employed buffer stock of labor. Other problems require other solutions."
Sure It cannot solve all the problems not even most of them. I agree.
"In another sense, the JG is anti-utopian. JG advocates regard inequality as inevitable and unsolvable, and right and just. For JG advocates, everyone in the lower classes must toil.
However I come back to the same question: Why isn't liberation the goal for the rest of humanity?"
This is exactly how communists destroy economies. They are talking about just and right societies yet every society we know has always had some hierarchy.
Is Konrad's talk nice? It sure is, what not to like about It?
"I want people to be able to get jobs if people want to work"
Yes Konrad, and pay taxes when they want to pay taxes. I am not kidding, there was this Marxist who said to me that we should get rid of all the taxes and government should just print. She was against the taxes because rich people talk about how much they pay taxes. Me telling her that system would collapse if we didn't have any taxes did not convince her. Today she is a politician in a parliament and she is advocating UBI. Communists have very nice ideas, the problem is these ideas don't work.
"I want people to be able to get jobs if people want to work, but this JG thing is not well thought out. During the 1930s New Deal, people were put to work without “guarantees.”"
What a stupid rant, like job guarantee is forcing someone to get a job. If people want to work they can. The difference in between now and JG is that jobs are guaranteed. Konrad holds this against job guarantee that he wants people to get jobs when they want to work. That is exactly what JG is for, when people want to work they can.
All the arguments I have seen for UBI are defective. Konrad wants people to have jobs when they want to work. Otherwise they should just freeload. I guess because capitalists are so rich and the society is so unjust they have every right to freeload.
The real freeloaders are the rentiers, people who collect money based on ownership instead of work. Because it is the work of others that they profit from.
“All the arguments I have seen for UBI are defective.”
Please name one argument, and explain why it is defective. Otherwise your assertion is worthless.
“Konrad wants people to have jobs when they want to work. Otherwise they should just freeload.”
Rich people freeload. They are parasites. They get the biggest handouts of all from the government. You defend their vampire-like nature so that you can imagine you are somehow one of them. That’s selfish and pathetic.
“I guess because capitalists are so rich and the society is so unjust they have every right to freeload.”
It’s called equality.
This may help you…
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/equality?s=t
NOAH WAY WRITES: “The real freeloaders are the rentiers, people who collect money based on ownership instead of work. Because it is the work of others that they profit from.”
Exactly. Little dwarfs like “Kristjan” defend the freeloaders in order to fantasize about being one of them. For “Kristjan” freeloaders are slaves who do not work hard enough for their owners, who are the real freeloaders.
Jeff Bezos keeps his Amazon slaves on such short leashes that the slaves have pee bottle by their sides in order to avoid being penalized for visiting the restroom.
“Kristjan” dreams of being a freeloader like Bezos. So does Natt Phranko.
When "Kristjan" refuses to understand something, or is simply in the mood to be an a**hole, “Kristjan's” all purpose response to any assertion is, "You're a commie."
Pathetic.
I really thik you are Konrad, if you don't like it I can call you a radical leftist anarchist, sounds probably better because communism is a bad word in America.
UBI is not really connected to communism but It is another utopic idea, all the reasoning behind It is wrong usually. In Italy they will probably do It also, I don't think the system would collapse because of this but depending on how they do It, It is either a neoliberal project that screws the economy and makes rich richer or It is this an utopic idea that Konrad is pushing that people should work only if they want to, otherwise they should freeload. It is just so crazy that I cannot see any normal person pushing something like this. Let's say there are some people who get this free income, how would you explain this to the people who work and create economic value, who the government forces to pay taxes? What would you say to them? This our new progressive program you should pay your taxes and work so those freeloaders can enjoy themselves?
Konrad,
I share your doubts about “feminist economics”. But it’s not as bad as “feminist maths”. Presumably in feminist maths two plus two makes five instead of four, though I haven’t studied feminist maths in detail, and cannot vouch for that...:-)
Konrad, Unknown and Matt Franko,
Sorry to hear you’ve been banned from various academic’s twitter feeds etc. I’ve been banned from various academic’s sites as well. Academics are certainly a touchy lot. Presumably the reason is that their careers are adversely affected when someone successfully rebuts their arguments, so they do what Adolf Hitler did: censor the opposition.
I am not a Communist or a “radical leftist anarchist.”
I am a National Socialist; a paleo-Nazi (as opposed to Neo-Nazis who I have patience for).
The idea of a UBI is not to reward everyone munificently, but to furnish everyone with the bare minimum they need to survive. That’s why it’s called a “BASIC” income.
With universal Social Security (i.e. a bare minimum) people will not be forced to tolerate exploitation at work. If people are abused, or if they are automated out of a job, then people can go find a better job without fear of automatically becoming homeless. This would force CEOs to pay more to workers in order to keep them. As things are now, CEOs of huge corporations are paid obscene amounts of money, especially in the USA.
In addition, a UBI would free a lot more people to become entrepreneurs. A UBI would jump-start the economy by putting more money into circulation.
NOTE...
When we dread our jobs, we dream of being free, like rich people are. We justify our misery by imagining that people who do not suffer as we do are “freeloaders” (even though the real freeloaders are rich parasites). We imagine that with a UBI, everyone would sit around doing nothing, just like we dream of doing (because we dread our jobs).
However this is a misunderstanding of human nature. People are not naturally lazy. People only seem lazy when they are enslaved, and they resist toiling for their owners. When people are liberated, they become energetic and creative. This is why Europeans came to the New World. They wanted to be free to work on making their own fortunes.
Or consider prison. Inmates could lie in bed all day if they wanted, but most inmates would find this to be so boring that they would regard it as torture. Most inmates’ desire to work is so strong that work is a privilege that must be earned.
In places where UBI has actually been tried, the recipients worked MORE, not less. I can give specific examples of this.
A federal UBI would not be paid for with tax revenue, since the U.S. government has no need or use for tax revenue, and effectively destroys it upon receipt.
A federal UBI would be paid for with money the U.S. government creates out of thin air.
@ Ralph Musgrave: Every intelligent person has been banned at least once from some blog or twitter feed or whatever. I have been banned from many, for saying exactly what I say here.
People like Natt Phranko imagine that being banned saddens us or upsets us, when in fact we are indifferent about it.
Being banned is routine. It’s part of using the Internet.
That money created out of thin air doesn't do the trick as far as other people are coersed to pay taxes for the money to have any value at all. Yet not these people who receive this basic income.
You say that people are not lazy, but this doesn't take into consideration the very basics about our monetary system that It serves the public purpose. People not being lazy can mean anything, they start their own space program but do you understand that this doesn't serve the public purpose if that is not politically decided that needs to be done.
"in addition, a UBI would free a lot more people to become entrepreneurs. A UBI would jump-start the economy by putting more money into circulation."
There is nothing in UBI that makes people entrepreneurs that cannot happen without the UBI. All the reasoning behind It is still wrong. Fiat system is capable of almost any outcome, you don't need UBI for that.
I get the impression that you are angry, frustrated, and unhappy in your life. Perhaps this is why you are so rigid, negative, and defeatist, and why you are so eager to call ordinary people "freeloaders."
Since you are too bitter to listen to reason, I will respond to only one of your assertions…
“There is nothing in UBI that makes people entrepreneurs that cannot happen without the UBI.”
Most people, in order to become entrepreneurs, must have a minimum degree of freedom before they can launch an enterprise. For some people this freedom consists of money they have saved. For others it is a loan, or a gift, or whatever. A UBI would make such freedom more widely available in society. With a UBI, a person would have the freedom to launch an enterprise without fear of becoming homeless if the enterprise fails.
As things are now, the number of homeless people is multiplying exponentially. Perhaps you sneer at the homeless and say, “Better them than me.” My own attitude is, “Today it’s them. Tomorrow it’s me. Soon most of us will be joining them, unless something changes.”
That is all I have to say on this matter.
How MMT enlightens Washington
Comment on Zach Carter’s ‘Stephanie Kelton Has The Biggest Idea In Washington’
Anybody with an IQ around room temperature counts as a genius in Washington. Against this benchmark, Stephanie Kelton’s MMT policy proposals look like a rather big idea.
MMT promises to reconcile “the trifecta of growth, employment and price stability”. Note, first of all, that distribution is not mentioned. For good reasons. Distribution is the lethal flaw of MMT.#1
“Adoption of policy based on MMT analysis should keep the economy operating close to optimal output and employment … with the JG playing the dual role of providing a price anchor, on one hand, and on the other, mopping up residual unemployment after the application of functional finance to fiscal policy based on stock-flow consistent macro modeling.”
And here exactly lies the problem. MMT analysis and macro modeling is anything but consistent. Because of this, MMT policy guidance never had valid scientific foundations. MMT is soapbox economics. MMT’s foundational macroeconomic balances equation is provably false and this settles the matter once and for all.#2
According to the axiomatically correct macroeconomic Profit Law, it always holds Public Deficit = Private Profit. Therefore, MMT is a program for the one-percenters and has never been anything else.
The Job Guarantee is the banner that Stephanie Kelton and the rest of the MMT sales team enthusiastically waves in order to cover the one-percenter-agenda. The Huffington Post’s attempt to sell Stephanie Kelton as the incarnation of the triumph of the working class/ninety-nine-percenters over Wall Street/one-percenters is a bad joke.#3
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/keynes-lerner-mmt-trump-and-exploding.html
#2 Down with idiocy!
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/down-with-idiocy.html
#3 MMT vs Neoliberalism: Just another clown show fight
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/mmt-vs-neoliberalism-just-another-clown.html
"Most people, in order to become entrepreneurs, must have a minimum degree of freedom before they can launch an enterprise. For some people this freedom consists of money they have saved. For others it is a loan, or a gift, or whatever. A UBI would make such freedom more widely available in society. With a UBI, a person would have the freedom to launch an enterprise without fear of becoming homeless if the enterprise fails."
This person doesn't become homeless with JG either. I have nothing against freedom but what you are saying is that some people have to work for others to be free, because you mean that other people have to provide them with goods and services. And I am sure you don't deny that not everyone can live on this UBI. Like I said before all these arguments are fundamentally wrong.
Correct me if I am wrong but basically your argument is that people are not lazy and receiving such income doesn't mean that they are not contributing to society, It just gives them more freedom.
Well, why cannot they contribute to society by selling something useful or doing something useful for the society? If they don't want to do It for the money then why do other people have to do It to provide them with such freedom?
Perhaps you didn't get enough love as a child.
Whatever the reason, you just want to keep getting fed while you offer nothing helpful in return.
What was your term again?
Ah yes.
Freeloader.
I guess all your arguments have been heard. Just because someone doesn't agree with his UBI utopia, that person has not received enough love as a child. I don't agree with Ralph that these academics are somehow afraid of different opinions, they are tired of trolls like Konrad.
Thank you. Now run along. The adults have things to discuss.
Kristjan is of course right.
Konrad:The idea of a UBI is not to reward everyone munificently, but to furnish everyone with the bare minimum they need to survive. That’s why it’s called a “BASIC” income.
Yes, that is the idea. There is also the idea of flying off a building by flapping your arms. The UBI and its proponents are about as realistic. Furnishing everyone with the bare minimum is a laudable goal, but a UBI can't do that, because it explodes the economy first.
In places where UBI has actually been tried, the recipients worked MORE, not less. I can give specific examples of this.
A real UBI hasn't been tried anywhere & probably never will. Those "experiments" are a joke. They aren't a UBI. So some people can win a lottery. That has been known for a long time.
"in addition, a UBI would free a lot more people to become entrepreneurs. A UBI would jump-start the economy by putting more money into circulation."
Keynesian spending or a JG is jumpstarting. A UBI is attaching a powerline to your car - one with enough juice to make it melt or explode. Worrying about inflation with a JG but not with a UBI is breathtakingly illogical. It is simply, far more money, too much money creation for any society to withstand.
The most basic argument, hidden inside the correct inflation argument against a UBI is that a UBI is against freedom. It is a supposedly omnipotent government telling people what to do, but hiding it, while a JG is founded on free choice, on playing well with others. One indicator is that the truer the UBI is to the original concept, the worse it is, while the truer the JG is to the concept, the better.
And of course, Nazism is not a nice thing. The historical ones did not play well with others and had to be taught how to at great cost.
Now children, play nicely.
UBI is social security for everyone. JG is a job for everyone. The former would eliminate a vast array of bureaucratically inefficient and politically opportunistic "programs" as well as generational grinding poverty, hunger, etc.; the latter would enforce a minimum wage and create a labor pool for desperately needed environmental and infrastructure projects.
Arguing that one or the other is "better" or that either or both are useless or worse is inane without real world testing. Arguing that either is economically unviable simply perpetuates the economic myths of scarcity and merit that we live under, and that are used to enslave the vast majority for the benefit of a few.
The real problem is that neither has possibility of being instituted in any meaningful way - let alone tested - in this plutocracy.
“Arguing that one or the other is ‘better’ or that either or both are useless or worse is inane without real world testing.” ~ Noah Way
A jobs “guarantee” has never been tried or tested, but UBIs have been tested many times around the world, and have always proved successful. Two examples that come to mind are the “Mincome” experiment in Canada (1974-79) and of course Social Security in the USA, the Philippines, and elsewhere.
Food Stamps are a form of partial basic income, as is the Alaska Permanent Fund in Alaska. Venezuela has a Food Stamp program. In Brazil there is the Bolsa Familia program for the poor. Iran introduced a national basic income in autumn 2010. 60% of the French population wants a basic income. In Iceland’s parliament the Pirate Party is trying to enact a UBI. In Japan the New Party Nippon and the Greens Japan support basic income.
In the USA, Social Security has worked just fine for 83 years. A UBI is simply an expansion of social Security.
In all cases the UBI faces two obstacles: political opposition from right-wing parties, and naysaying from bitter and frustrated losers who hate the idea of anyone (other than themselves and the rich) getting government benefits.
Konrad, Calgacus, Kristjan, Tom Hickey
Sandwichman has compiled the key statements of Zach Carter’s portrait of Stephanie Kelton over there at EconoSpeak.* Here is the copy/paste:
“Everybody wants a piece of Kelton these days because a simple, radical idea she has been workshopping her entire career is the next big thing in Democratic Party politics. She calls it the job guarantee... “
“Once an outsider, her radical economic thinking won over Wall Street. Now she’s changing the Democratic Party.”
“A onetime college dropout at California State University in Sacramento, Kelton has managed to earn the esteem of both Sanders and an oddball clique of multimillionaire Wall Street traders.”
“If you listen to Kelton long enough, you notice that she never refers to “bankers” or “Wall Street” with the derisive tone common among her political allies. She talks instead about “the financial community.””
“After all, Wall Street took her under its wing before Democrats took her seriously.”
“Her career had changed tracks. She wasn’t just a clever economist with some quirky ideas anymore. Her credibility with Wall Street began to register as academic clout.”
“There are thousands of left-wing economists. But it’s hard for the economically inexpert to distinguish brilliant creativity from quackery. Kelton’s social credentials with Wall Street helped her stand out.”
In other words, MMT pushes the agenda of the one-percenters and Stephanie Kelton is the ideal person for emotional social marketing and hijacking the political grassroots movements. The Job Guarantee serves as a door opener for the MMT salespeople. Wall Street’s ultimate goal, though, is deficit spending and the perpetual growth of public debt. #1, #2, #3, #4, #5
Poor Bernie Sanders, his supposedly left-wing economic platform has been written by Wall Street operatives.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
* EconoSpeak
http://econospeak.blogspot.de/2018/05/jobs-jobs-jobs-guaranteed-may-20-update.html
#1 MMT: Just another political fraud
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/mmt-just-another-political-fraud.html
#2 MMT: So-called progressives as trailblazers for Trumponomics
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/04/mmt-so-called-progressives-as.html
#3 Bill Mitchell, MMT’s fake scientist
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/03/bill-mitchell-mmts-fake-scientist.html
#4 MMT: academic snake oil for the people
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/02/mmt-academic-snake-oil-for-people.html
#5 MMT = proto-scientific junk + deception of the 99-percenters
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/01/mmt-proto-scientific-junk-deception-of.html
Konrad & Noah Way, you are calling things which are not UBIs UBI's. Social security, food stamps, the Alaska fund, those pointless experiments etc are not UBI. UBI would destroy them, whether they are formally destroyed or not, because it would destroy the whole economy by inflation.
A UBI is a lottery where everybody wins. The human race has been running lotteries for millennia, but never one like that, because no one had yet attained the level of learnèd ignorance, the lack of common sense, to consider one. That shows how rich we are now - we can be that detached from reality. Long ago and then for a short time when I learned about MMT, I was that detached from reality, too. But just think about it. What would be inane is a real world test of the UBI, not arguing against it, which is like arguing against someone who thinks he can jump off a building and fly if he wants to hard enough.
That supply of a multitude of things, some essential, would be dwarfed, would be indeed be scarce in comparison to the enormous UBI demand is not a myth, but grade school arithmetic.
Job guarantees, albeit imperfect ones if you want to quibble have been tried everywhere and have been successful everywhere. The New Deal was perhaps the biggest single case. These "imperfect" job programs are far, far closer to the Job Guarantee concept than these purported "UBIs" are to the genuine UBI.
The UBI has no chance ever in any possible world, but arguing about it may lead more to embrace the alternative that will change everything, that does have a chance, that is becoming every more popular and possible - the Job Guarantee. So having the UBI out there may do some good - it has some good aspects, but those are precisely the ones that make it impossible or pointless.
@ Calgacus
You have made an empty argument based on and supporting the status quo.
Your inflation argument is simply based on the bullshit debt economics used to enslave the masses and benefit the few. Inflation isn't controlled by interest rates (used to benefit the ownership class), it is controlled with taxation - by increasing or decreasing the money supply.
A UBI would indeed be a form of social security, just one that is applied to everyone equally. It would replace social security as well as housing assistance, food stamps, etc. A UBI for motherhood would be the same as a job guarantee that pays for parenting.
What we need is a combination of UBI and JG AND a tax policy that prevents the accumulation of the vast wealth that translates directly to vast power, that is by definition controlled by a tiny minority who use it to subvert any possibility of democratic process.
@ Carlitos
Trump syndrome?
The crazy seem to be going over the top everywhere, and the news is all gaslighting.
I'm not an economist, but my instinct goes with a combination of both too.
I don't know what your economic system is, but I doubt I suspect it's Aimee type of libertarianism, which is definitely the system of the a One Percenters.
Tom,
I don’t know what’s just dawning on me but yes.
The bad gonzo craziness out there makes more sense when viewed thru the lenses of the Trump effect, or syndrome, as you called it.
Besides numerous flashing red lights, Nazis were in favor of Trump and celebrated his victory. That should have told everyone right there this was going to be fucked up time.
Tom Hickey
You seem to have lost orientation: “Trump syndrome? The crazy seem to be going over the top everywhere, and the news is all gaslighting.”
No, not at all, it’s economics as usual. The whole UBI-JG discussion is pointless because economists in general and MMTers, in particular, lack the true Employment Theory since Keynes wrote the General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.#1, #2
Keynes also messed up the Profit Theory.#3
So, neither MMT, nor Keynesianism, nor Walrasianism, nor Marxianism, nor Austrianism has any scientific merits.
This, though, does not matter much because in economics it is NOT the scientific truth value that matters but the political use value. To recall, economics started as Political Economy 200+ years ago and is a cargo cult science since then.
Economists are not scientists who try to figure out how the monetary economy works but agenda pushers. This is pretty obvious in the case of MMT and Stephanie Kelton. As Zach Carter plainly states: “After all, Wall Street took her under its wing before Democrats took her seriously.”
This is a good old tradition since Engels took Marx under his wings and Cowles took Koopmans, Arrow, Debreu, etcetera under his wings and it is kept alive by the Koch brothers, George Soros, and “an oddball clique of multimillionaire Wall Street traders” (Carter).
The stupid oligarchs spend their money more on porn stars, the smart oligarchs spend it more on economists. There is nothing to be confused about.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Keynes’ Employment Function and the Gratuitous Phillips Curve Disaster
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2130421
#2 Full employment through the price mechanism
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/11/full-employment-through-price-mechanism.html
#3 How Keynes got macro wrong and Allais got it right
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/09/how-keynes-got-macro-wrong-and-allais.html
“What we need is a combination of UBI and JG AND a tax policy that prevents the accumulation of the vast wealth”
This is from the Bernie play book and hasn’t gotten anywhere...
I could see a UBI and a JG together (JG pays substantially more) but once you start then adding on some sort of punitive tax scheme it kills it politically... people’s commie radar starts going off...
" Bad enough that Matt and Mike have lost their fucking minds "
Our knowledge of the system exceeds theirs imo sorry... we have kept to studying the system..
they have stopped learning... idk one time Tom referred to a PhD as a "terminal degree" which might be true in more ways than one... you can see it in the Keen thing with these people they just get all closed off and refuse to be taught something by others...
Its a scientific mind vs. other type of mind... the scientific mind keeps on learning... they are not scientists sorry they are Art degree people...
Besides numerous flashing red lights, Nazis were in favor of Trump and celebrated his victory. That should have told everyone right there this was going to be fucked up time.
In addition both DJT and "the resistance" are bigly into gaslighting.
I survey the spectrum with my RSS feeds and it's alternate universes with each cohort trying to control the narrative, and the one's powerful enough also trying to marginalize the others or actually suppress them and prevent them from getting their POV out there.
This has always been true to some extent but now it is bizarro.
It's all gonzo and bozo.
This was predictable when the basis of eduction shifted from liberal to utilitarian. A liberal education is about culture and refinement of heart and mind. A utilitarian education is about succeeding in a battle for scarce resources. We are not witnessing the result of that shift.
"some sort of punitive tax scheme it kills it politically"
I am not going to argue the political feasibility of increasing taxes on the rich as this is the essence of the problem.
You clearly have no idea of the true purpose of taxation. Tax is a means of manipulating and controlling behavior. Example: Increasing the tax on cigarettes reduces the number of smokers, and by consequence the amount of health services required to deal with smoking induced disease.
The accumulation of wealth has been fostered by tax and other government policies that reward those who accumulate wealth. This rewards a select few individuals to the detriment of society as a whole. Taxing vast wealth would eliminate its political power and thus restore that power to the people (all citizens) who are supposed to have it.
Thus taxes could be used to reinforce the democratic process. What we have now is a plutocracy, not a democracy.
"commie radar" is 1950's propaganda bullshit, try to up your game a bit or at least bring it into this century. While communism didn't work neither does capitalism. Many Russians actually long for the days of communism over their newfound capitalist system.
The social democracies of northern Europe are pretty much the best systems going.
“Tax is a means of manipulating and controlling behavior.”
The public believes that the purpose of taxes is so that govt institution has munnie to spend hello...
You start talking about taxes like you are and everybody starts thinking “commies!”....
"Many Russians actually long for the days of communism over their newfound capitalist system."
Not just "Russians." Eastern Europeans under communist governments, too.
I know several now living in the US that are appalled at the actual effects of capitalism and the absence of democracy.
Sure life is better in the sense of being more opulent and comfortable for them, but their ideal has been shattered. Now they realize that there are tradeoffs.
Of course they don't want to go back to "communism," but they say that the system under which they lived was not the communism/socialism they were taught about it school either. As in the capitalists countries, TPTB generated a class structure based on oligarchy.
that are appalled at the actual effects of capitalism Tom Hickey
Except no coherent definition of "capitalism" allows government-privileges for banks, credit unions, etc.
Tom Hickey, Andrew Anderson, Matt Franko, Noah Way, Carlitos, Calgacus
There is political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.
Theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years.
Political economics is easy to identify. It applies emotionally charged keywords like democracy, freedom, liberty, slavery, serfdom, poverty, exploitation, inequality, happiness, alienation, capitalism, socialism, Nazi, Commie, WeThePeople, etcetera.
Political economics, clearly, is NOT science. The Original Sin of economics is that science and politics have never been kept properly apart. As a result, economics stagnates since 200+ years at the proto-scientific level. And this means, in turn, that economic policy guidance NEVER had sound scientific foundations.
This holds for Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism. This, of course, holds also for MMT. MMT is NOT a valid scientific theory, MMTers, like the rest of orthodox and heterodox economists, do not even understand what science is all about.#1 Worse, as the Huffington Post’s portrait of Stephanie Kelton clearly shows, MMT is Wall Street-sponsored agenda pushing for the one-percenters dressed up as progressive social policy.
“The basic idea is that the government can’t run out of money. It creates money just by spending.” (Stephanie Kelton) Because the macroeconomic Profit Law says Public Deficit = Private Profit, MMT’s social policy in effect co-creates the most unequal distribution of income and financial wealth in the history of mankind.
Since Adam Smith/Karl Marx, economics is a scientific fraud and MMT is integral part of it.#2 Let’s face it, bloggers like you keep economics ― intentionally or unintentionally does not matter ― firmly in the bottomless swamp of political economics.#3 With your senseless blather, you do not contribute to the solution of any economic problem. As useful political idiots, you ARE the problem.#4
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Both orthodox and heterodox economists are cargo cult scientists
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/05/both-orthodox-and-heterodox-economists.html
#2 MMT is idiocy and fraud
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2018/03/mmt-is-idiocy-and-fraud.html
#3 Yes, economics is a bogus science
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/11/yes-economics-is-bogus-science.html
#4 For details of the big picture see cross-references Failed/Fake Scientists
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/11/failedfake-scientists-cross-references.html
For a demonstration of bogus science visit http://axecorg.blogspot.de.
You start talking about taxes like you are and everybody starts thinking “commies!”....
Once again, Franko confuses his asinine opinion with fact. Funny how he keeps trumpeting his ignorance without embarrassment.
Majority Say Wealthy Americans, Corporations Taxed Too Little
http://news.gallup.com/poll/208685/majority-say-wealthy-americans-corporations-taxed-little.aspx
@Noah Way: I was idly curious to see why that German moron (“AXEC”) hated MMT. So I glanced at one of "AXEC's" blog posts and saw that it was filled with mathematical formulae. F
Idiotic fools do this when they have no idea what they are talking about, and they want to seem “scientific.” Nobody ever reads such excrement. Even the idiots that scribble it never read it.
Pretentious and illogical a**holes like “AXEC” call everyone “unscientific.” They seek to please rich oligarchs by pecking out meaningless trash so that poor slaves think they are not smart enough to understand economics. Therefore the slaves do not revolt.
Meanwhile Phranko is pathetically obsessed with “commies.”
@Konrad
What I love about AXEC is how he uses links to his own BS to validate his BS. I have yet to see him post an independent link. This guy is a legend in his own mind. He reminds me of Peter Dow.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Peter_Dow
http://peter-dow.blogspot.com/
(enjoy)
FYI your posts are better when you leave out the emotion, anger turns people off. Yes Franko is a jackass but it's far more effective to prove him wrong than to call him that. Also the nationalist socialist stuff has extreme negative connotations no matter how you phrase it. People will dismiss you entirely in a heartbeat.
Phranko repeatedly called me a "commie."
So, I jokingly said no, I am a Nazi. Dun-DUN-DUNNN!
Regarding anger, if someone condemns MMT proponents as "frauds," "fake scientists," "idiots," "cargo cult scientists," and so on (as the person did above) then I call him a moron.
Incidentally it is not possible to prove Phranko wrong, no matter how many facts you cite. Attempts at communication are useless. Therefore I never try.
Konrad
This is the sectoral balances equation, Stephanie Kelton, Warren Mosler and the rest of the MMT salespeople present on any occasion (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)=0. #1, #2
This equation is provably false because the balance of the business sector = profit is missing. It is lethal for the foundational macroeconomic equation not to contain the pivotal economic magnitude profit.
This is the axiomatically correct balances equation (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)−(Q−Yd)=0. As you can easily see it contains profit Q and distributed profit Yd.
Whoever does not understand the economic content of the two equations is out of economics.
To sum up the thread ‘Stephanie Kelton Has The Biggest Idea In Washington’:
• Stephanie Kelton is an agenda pusher for the one-percenters.
• MMT’s social policy proposals ― the Job Guarantee in particular ― are a political bluff package.
• It is an unassailable scientific fact that Public Deficit = Private Profit.
As far as MMTers do not understand the Profit Law they are stupid. As far as they understand it and nonetheless claim to promote the cause of the ninety-nine percenters, they are corrupt.
Whatever counts in Washington as “biggest idea” is with absolute certainty both stupid and corrupt.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Down with idiocy!
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/down-with-idiocy.html
#2 MMT: The one deadly error/fraud of Warren Mosler
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/11/mmt-one-deadly-errorfraud-of-warren.html
This is what I that thought, and this is why I have repeatedly asked him to write a post explaining his ideas in plain English, but he has refused to do this so far. I think it was in plain English we would be able to find holes on his theories, or maybe not, but we will never know. He says he's anti elite so I'm ready to study his ideas but I don't have time to study the maths for hours on end.
" it is not possible to prove Franko wrong"
You got that one right....
Egmont,
"Theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists "
it wasnt 'hijacked!" that is a figure of speech you are using there but something else went wrong in the training/education process for sure...
The academe has a major defect in this discipline... the undergraduate degree program is not rigorous enough in applied mathematics and scientific methods...
this is not a 'hijacking!' you are drifting into conspiracy theory...
Matt Franko
You say: “The academe has a major defect in this discipline... the undergraduate degree program is not rigorous enough in applied mathematics and scientific methods .... this is not a 'hijacking!' you are drifting into conspiracy theory.”
I said: “Theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers).”
This is a historical fact.#1, #2, #3, #4 The current curriculum is an entirely different matter.#5
MMT is agenda pushing for the one-percenters. The T=Theory in MMT is a misnomer because it refers to science. Science, in turn, is defined by material and formal consistency. MMT’s balance equation, though, is inconsistent. So, MMT is storytelling cross-dressed as science. In other words, in the case of MMT, political economists (= agenda pushers) have hijacked theoretical economics (= science).#6
The task of theoretical economics is to figure out how the monetary economy works. MMTers have no idea how the price- and profit-mechanism works because they do not even know what profit is.#7
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Agenda pushers, hijackers, and scientists
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2014/12/agenda-pushers-hijackers-and-scientists.html
#2 Scientific suicide in the revolving door
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/11/scientific-suicide-in-revolving-door.html
#3 Funny folks in the big omnibus
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2014/12/funny-folks-in-big-omnibus.html
#4 Economics: a science without scientists
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/10/economics-science-without-scientists.html
#5 See cross-references Econ 101/Old Curriculum/New Curriculum
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/11/cross-references-econ-101.html
#6 The end of political economics
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/06/the-end-of-political-economics.html
#7 Rectification of MMT macro accounting
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/09/rectification-of-mmt-macro-accounting.html
Intellectual midget wrestling! Somebody pass the popcorn.
Incidentally it is not possible to prove Phranko wrong, no matter how many facts you cite.
Impossible to prove to Franko that he is wrong, a simple matter to prove it to others. In fact he often does this himself.
"MMT is agenda pushing for the one-percenters"
The MMT elites HATE the one-percenters...
Matt Franko
You say: “The MMT elites HATE the one-percenters...”
Hate/love are soap-opera criteria. They do NOT apply to science. The criteria that apply here are true/false with truth defined as material and formal consistency.
So, it is a matter of indifference what the MMT elites hate.
Fact is that the sectoral balances equation MMT is built upon is provably false.#1 Because of this, the whole analytical superstructure = theory is false. This is quite compatible with the observation that some MMT propositions are correct or trivially true, just as some propositions in Greek mythology or Grimms fairy tales are correct or trivially true. But the fact that Baker Street exists does not change the meta-fact that Sherlock Holmes is a NONENTITY.
MMT’s sectoral balances equation (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)=0 describes a zero-profit economy. Clearly, a zero-profit economy is a NONENTITY.
The MMT elites can tell exciting stories about who they hate or love. That is cheap sales talk. The economic fact of the matter is that according to the Profit Law it holds Public Deficit = Private Profit. Whether they are aware of it or not does not matter, MMTers de facto promote the cause of the one-percenters.#2
The MMT elites are either stupid or corrupt. In any case, they are NO scientists.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Rectification of MMT macro accounting
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/09/rectification-of-mmt-macro-accounting.html
#2 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/12/keynes-lerner-mmt-trump-and-exploding.html
"This is what I that thought, and this is why I have repeatedly asked him to write a post explaining his ideas in plain English, but he has refused to do this so far. I think it was in plain English we would be able to find holes on his theories, or maybe not, but we will never know. He says he's anti elite so I'm ready to study his ideas but I don't have time to study the maths for hours on end."
I have studied AXEC for almost two years now. Yes, it is hard to digest at first, but so is anything and everything which may challenge beliefs or the status quo.
I would turn to the publication the Bank of England released in 2014 titled 'Introduction to Money' as a starting point (and the companion publication 'money creation in modern economy'), wherein they state that:
(i) most financial assets are claims are against other financial assets, and (ii) If everyone in the economy were to pool all of their assets and debts together as one, all of the financial assets and liabilities — including money — would cancel out, leaving only the non-financial assets.
This tells us that profits (jobs and retirement funds are dependent on profits) can only come into existence initially if someone somewhere has gone into debt, whether that be the government, households or foreigners.
From a law perspective, the BOE publications made a lot of sense to me because my study of law including bankruptcy, was demonstrating to me that 100% solvency (i.e. every entity which derives some form of income and has bills to pay) is not possible because one mans wealth is another mans debt; the AXEC materials have helped me to see the same thing from an economic perspective.
As far as the JG programs etc go, I have been working on the theory that it is not capitalism itself that is an issue, it is the fact that it becomes over-crowded; by this I mean, as unemployment reaches lower and lower levels more disposable income is invested in financial assets which not only creates more competition for them (as more money chases yield), it also increases the profit ratio (passive to active income ratio) overall meaning active workers have to keep producing more and getting paid less.
We can see from this source how much each active worker is producing compared to what they get paid:
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/theausinstitute/pages/1500/attachments/original/1497298286/Labour_Share_Hits_Record_Low.pdf?1497298286
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