Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Renegade Shorts - STEVE KEEN on Government Surplus

If only the public knew how they were being duped by the financial sector and austerity governments. KV.


2 comments:

Konrad said...

Excellent video, except for one error. Contrary to Steve Keen, the central bank does not “finance” the Australian central government. This error falsely suggests that the central bank lends to the central government.

Instead, the Australian government decides how much money it will create out of thin air for a given fiscal year, and then various federal agencies instruct banks to credit myriad bank accounts by an aggregate amount that matches the federal outlay.

For example, if there are 1 million recipients of Social Security benefits, and the federal government decides to create $1 billion out of thin air for those recipients, then the federal government instructs various banks to credit the bank accounts of 1 million recipients by an average of $1,000 each. The $1,000 does not come from the central bank. It is not a loan. It is created out of thin air, simply by changing the numbers in bank accounts. It is exactly the same as a sports scoreboard. We create or destroy points simply by changing the numbers on the scoreboard.

The video correctly notes that our financial nightmare began in the 1980s with the “Reagan-Thatcher revolution,” which introduced gratuitous austerity in order to drive the masses into the jaws of the bankers.

As the bankers devoured countless victims, Thatcher screamed down at the victims, “There is no alternative!”

So many victims were deceived by her lies that in 2011 a movie was made that praised Thatcher’s evil. It was titled “The Iron Lady.”

************

The video mentions the Clinton Surplus. Specifically, the U.S. government ran a $69.3 billion surplus in 1998, a $126 billion surplus in 1999, a $236.2 billion surplus in 2000, and a $128 billion surplus in 2001.

Over those four years the U.S. government sucked $559.5 billion out of the U.S. economy. This disaster was called “fiscal responsibility.”

Beginning in 2002 the U.S. government shifted back into deficit spending for the war of terror. In 2003 the U.S. government planned to run a deficit of $80 billion, but because of the war of terror the actual deficit ended up being $375.3 billion.

This (again) was called “fiscal responsibility.”

Matt Franko said...

Keen’s explanations here are Monetarist...