You can't make this stuff up.
"A majority of voters are fine with a partial shutdown of the federal government if that’s what it takes to get deeper cuts in federal government spending.
"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think making deeper spending cuts in the federal budget for 2011 is more important than avoiding a partial government shutdown. Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree and say avoiding a shutdown is more important. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure."
Rasmussen has a GOP bias, but still. Over half of US voters don't understand demand and think that cutting spending will result in more jobs? Wow. MMT has it's work cut out for it.
Dennis Kelleher (Mr. Blue of The Rebel Capitalist) calls for a national debate on the deficit and debt, and he gives a good short summary of the MMT position.
Why does MMT have its work cut out?
ReplyDeleteMMT is compatible with a big or a small government, and accepts that the right size of government is a political decision.
MMT has its work cut out because it is nearly impossible to change people's deep seated beliefs. Any good marketer will tell you that. It takes large amounts of resources and energy to make people see things differently. MMT is too small a movement with too few resources and too little time to turn the tide.
ReplyDeleteMike, but what does it have to do with people wanting to cut government?
ReplyDeleteMamMoTh, it's the demand thing. CBO estimates that projected cuts will cost 700,000 jobs. That's crazy in this fragile economic environment.
ReplyDeleteThink about it - 57% might be encouraging. The public has pretty much been blasted by only messages stating how we have to cut the deficit (no one even questions it in mainstream press) or things will get worse and , and messages stating that all our troubles are because of the deficit. Those messages are pretty much all the public gets. Yet with almost all the public getting that cut deficit message and almost none of the public getting messages about how deficits benefit the economy, only 57% are in favor of reducing the budget. Or in other words, 43% are opposed, without much or any reinforcement at all. What would just a little reinforcement do?
ReplyDeleteTom, ok but the demand thing will always happen if you shrink the government. If the issue is bad timing then I wouldn't say that it has to do with MMT (not exclusively at least, far from it).
ReplyDeleteMamMoTh, almost no one gets sectoral balances and demand leakage.
ReplyDeleteTom, and I'll add to it most dont perceive the built in unemployment bias of a balanced fiscal budget that John has identified.
ReplyDeleteI think what our John Harvey has identified, is that for the US, a balanced fiscal budget means built-in mass unemployment by definition.
So these depraved balanced budget morons, are reasoning amongst themselves into advocating for mass unemployment and chaos.
I'll try stay invigorated by focusing on Crake's observation that the glass may be "43% full"...
Resp,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110403/ap_on_re_us/us_gop2012_budget
ReplyDeleteThe comments to this news article are encouraging. The comments on Yahoo news are usually pretty anti-federal debt etc. Yet it seems almost all the comments are against what Ryan is proposing. This is not a scientific poll of course but it might indicate the following: many Americans are behind the general message of deficit reduction/balanced budget but most are against details of how to do it. Therefore, actual detailed proposals of how to do it are going to be a very hard sell even on people supporting cutting the deficits.
Crake, the majority of Americans are for balancing the budget by taxing the rich rather than cutting their benefits. Surprise.
ReplyDeleteThe only way the GOP can sell this is by creating fear that if the cuts are not adopted there will be government insolvency. That's why the solvency debate going on right now is important.
BTW, Krugman finally admitted that the US cannot become insolvent here, if anyone missed it.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteKiller comment by Beowulf over there repost:
"Let's see, Zimbabwe borrows in foreign currency (US dollars) and pays for imports in a foreign currency (US dollars). Its rather ill-designed (well there was no design) land reform plan of kicking productive farmers off their land and replacing them with inexperienced political hacks resulted in food production dropping 45%, which in turn caused a supply shock that drove unemployment to 80% and forced Zimbabwe to import food for the first time. At that point, faced with either hyperinflation or mass starvation, they took the lesser of two evils (I know, moral hazard, etc etc).
So it is undeniably true, if the US Government chose to kick farmers off their land (good luck getting that through the Senate, Paul) and chose to forfeit its monopoly power to create US Dollars by borrowing and importing only in foreign currency, then yes we "can still end up like Zimbabwe".
I imagine Congress will cut off ethanol subsidies at some point before they send the Army in to force out farmers at gunpoint. I'll start worrying about "fiscal solvency" sometime between those two events."
He's too good!
Resp,