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Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tim Harford — A universal income is not such a silly idea
Tim Harford looks at the BIG and likes what he sees, sort of.
A BIG makes perfect sense since the implicit social contract is BROKEN.
The implicit social contract is that the banks and the so-called creditworthy shall legally steal the population's purchasing power but provide us with jobs and better, cheaper consumer goods.
Instead, the population's stolen purchasing power has been used to automate the population's jobs away and so now the population is increasingly unable to afford the consumer goods its stolen purchasing power has financed.
you should stand on a street corner with a hand-drawn sign and a loudhailer, endlessly shouting the same slogans over and over again. Like the other simple people who believe they have "the truth".
Well, it's taken me a long time and a lot of pain to find the Truth so I'm quite certain I've found it or rather Him. You should start early, I suggest.
But what's so controversial about "Thou shall not steal" even by subtle means such as government backing for the banks?
And you're not being just to me or rather my spiritual guide, the Bible. No one has been able to refute me from the gold-bugs to the "money must be debt crowd." If there's a more original or prolific writer on ethical money creation, please tell me who he is and I might shut up myself.
I had hopes for you but you raise them just to dash them. No more. You're unreliable. Don't bother me anymore.
"But what's so controversial about "Thou shall not steal"
You think you're saying "thou shall not steal". What you're really saying is "thou shall not increase the quantity of a thing in such a way that it may possibly lead to a reduction in the exchange value of a similar thing, owned by someone else. This is a sin, but only if you have some sort of government backing. If you have no government backing then it is not a sin". Tell me where in the Bible it says that.
Good characterization y. I was going to say much the same.
F Beard, if somebody builds a yurt in Mongolia with his own hands - or maybe a bunch of people do it, one guy doing more of the work in return for later favors - oooh he has extended credit to these evil creditworthies!
If these rascals do this - have they stolen your power to build yurts in Mongolia? WHere you don't want to be, on land you don't own?
Yes, although it is not really the kind of thing which can be stolen, people's purchasing power can be stolen. And you are right that the banks can do this create inflation. But no, it need not be by government backed credit creation.
You have interesting ideas and some of your viewpoints, like the centrality of morality in monetary economics, are often insufficiently understood, which is why many have engaged with you. But the MMTers - and their intellectual ancestors - not all of which have been digested - are more original and prolific writers on ethical money creation.
For one, the JG is more ethical than your proposals. Your proposals fail by your own measure (which I think is a very good one). But the JG doesn't. Because it can, has and will work. Because a job offer is a moral requirement upon a taxing, money-issuing government. Because it is not a fairy tale like a big BIG.
Sorry for the late reply; my ISP has been flaky today.
Basically, the Bible forbids usury from one's countrymen (Deuteronomy 23:19-20), theft and oppression of the poor. Government-backed credit creation violates all three.
If credit creation were entirely private then the poor would have a better chance of not having their meager savings eaten away by negative real interest rates.
I absolutely agree that a guaranteed universal income is a good idea.
It sets a floor and would go a long way to drowning the scourge of poverty.
If the mindless free marketeers have an issue, then they can create the jobs and meaningful employment to eliminate the need for a guaranteed income, rendering the discussion moot.
The crackpots are the ones fronting a JG over a BIG, and I won't waste anymore time attempting to persuade those JG'ers on the errs of their ways. Beard isn't perfect, but on that score alone he runs circles around the MMT crowd. The JG'ers want capitalism. Period. Capital is their God, and the attendant alienation that comes with it. Sorry, but that dog don't bite:
Beard, I felt my japes at you at the beginning of my comment would have negated any perception of flattery from my later comments. :-) Which I stand by and reiterate things I have said elsewhere, not to you.
What I am saying is that some of your ideas fail on their own terms. They are morally bogus. A big naked BIG fails on its own terms. It is morally bogus, because it is a fairy tale, which would very obviously set off hyperinflation, as Wray, Tcherneva etc have pointed out. (By naked, I mean one without a JG paying more.) This is the kind of thing which is perfectly obvious to almost all "the lesser people", those who would be the main direct recipients of BIGs & JGs. But apparently not at all obvious to those in more cozy circumstances. One wonders if the academic BIG proponents have ever actually met a genuine poor or working person.
The tag line at several such BIG sites is a quote from Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom iirc - but slightly mangled, and hiding the fact that Russell there proposed a BIG plus a bigger JG, just as I and the academic MMTers support.
The JG has nothing directly to do with the banks. Sure, if anybody can prove theft, make the banks cough up. Whatever. Once we live in Beardtopia, and there are no more evil banks, all the restitution has been done, then what about unemployment? Thinking that "there will be none" is just buying into neoclassical fantasy economics. Thinking that the wise expert know-it-alls will give "the people" all the dough they need is another fantasy. The JG is morally superior because it, and nothing else can and will put as much agency as possible in the hands of the people it belongs in - the victims of the state, the poor, the unemployed and the general populace.
I've said it before and I'll say it again- a monetary economy without a JG is an insane idea. Just because the insanity is everywhere doesn't make it less insane.
It is morally bogus, because it is a fairy tale, which would very obviously set off hyperinflation, as Wray, Tcherneva etc have pointed out.
Hyperinflation is a result of the central bank and its cartel lending purchasing power into existence to both front-run and create inflation. Otherwise, it would take a continually increasing BIG and/or continually decreasing output to cause continual price inflation, much less hyperinflation. Neither is plausible.
Make-work is more likely to create price inflation because it pays people to waste their time. Remember Einstein wasting his time in a patent office? How many more examples of that do you want?
And of course banks steal, every single one of them. Theft of purchasing power is their business plan. Google "banking quotes" and you'll find ample confirmation from some of the most famous people in history.
A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel. Proverbs 12:10
"Basically, the Bible forbids usury from one's countrymen (Deuteronomy 23:19-20), theft and oppression of the poor. Government-backed credit creation violates all three."
"And of course banks steal, every single one of them. Theft of purchasing power is their business plan." but you have no problem with it so long as there is no central bank.
Well, I've read the entire (I may have skipped construction details since those bore me) Bible at least once. Have you?
As for assertions, I can back them up and indeed have in other comments. By now you should take me at my word but since you don't I've got to conclude you are not acting in good faith since you are not mentally incompetent, imo.
Purely private credit creation would mean eliminating government deposit insurance too, not just the central bank.
The monetary sovereign is the ONLY proper provider of a risk-free storage and transaction service for ITS fiat and to avoid violating equal protection under the law it must make no loans and pay no interest.
Let the purely private banks issue and guarantee their own private money if they can people willing to accept it.
Btw, I was once (as a beginner in these matters) in favor of forced 100% reserve banking so yes I once did oppose purely private credit creation but I've been won over to the virtue of endogenous money creation BUT IT MUST BE DONE ETHICALLY!
But I opposed it under another nom de plume I've since abandoned. I've never since then advocated forced 100% reserve banking EXCEPT during a metered universal bailout otherwise we could never reach the goal of all deposits being AT LEAST TEMPORARILY 100% backed by reserves until people had an opportunity to move their deposits to a Postal Savings Service.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
Otherwise, it would take a continually increasing BIG and/or continually decreasing output to cause continual price inflation, much less hyperinflation. Neither is plausible. Both are inevitable with a big BIG, as Wray & Tcherneva point out, and as is obvious to any Walmart or McDonalds worker.
Make-work is more likely to create price inflation because it pays people to waste their time. Remember Einstein wasting his time in a patent office? How many more examples of that do you want? That example is such spectacular self-refutation I had to reply. Einstein wasted the period he and all historians say was the most productive of his life? The job that he said was ideal?
Beard, it is all makework. Thats what a job is. You get money, and they make you work to get it.
All the JG says is ordinary people should have as much say as possible in the work they are made to do, by living in a universe where things don't happen just by wishing. All the JG is is making the worker be as much part of the "they" as possible.
Both are inevitable with a big BIG, as Wray & Tcherneva point out,
That I'll have to see! Links please, if you have them convenient?
and as is obvious to any Walmart or McDonalds worker.
You mean those same people who can't be trusted to find their own meaningful work to do?
That example is such spectacular self-refutation I had to reply. Einstein wasted the period he and all historians say was the most productive of his life? The job that he said was ideal?
The job was ideal because his boss allowed him to steal time to work on his theories! Will your bosses be so understanding? All of them? Is not being one's own boss (via an adequate BIG and other resources such as one's own land) or being able to freely choose one's own boss at one's leisure the ideal for optimizing human advancement?
Beard, it is all makework. Thats what a job is. You get money, and they make you work to get it.
You've never done make-work it seems. The Germans discovered in WWII that concentration camp workers would rather make rocket fuel from manure FOR THEIR ENEMIES than waste their time doing pointless work (after the Allies bombed the plant into uselessness)! Quite a few went insane and charged the wire, I've read, thereby committing suicide. Or have you ever read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? He lived in miserable conditions yet struggled to do meaningful work. Have you ever struggled to get a job done IN SPITE OF YOUR BOSS? I have and it wasn't fun.
All the JG says is ordinary people should have as much say as possible in the work they are made to do,
Our NATURE (and/or God?) compels us to work! But we much prefer to do it OUR OWN WAY!
But your JG proponents wish to create DISCIPLINED slaves for the private sector, which in league with counterfeiting cartel, the banks, are their oppressors!
by living in a universe where things don't happen just by wishing.
Free people make things happen all the time. But not the the things you desire? Well, too bad tyrant, live with it!
All the JG is is making the worker be as much part of the "they" as possible.
You claim a BIG is impossible?! You claim just restitution is impossible? You claim what God commands (rights for the poor,for example) is impossible?
You, Wray and sadly Professor Bill Mitchell are DEAD WRONG wrt to a JG because you think it is a substitute for justice.
And who the heck do you think you are pleasing anyway? It isn't the God of the Bible, as I've pointed out. He commands justice and restitution for theft. And read Leviticus 25 wrt land reform and Deuteronomy 15 wrt debt release. And Deuteronomy 23:19-20 wrt interest. Don't for a minute think the Christian Right is necessarily either.
I'm going to assume for a while that you guys don't get the thieving nature of our money system and try to be patient with you. But I have far less patience with hypocritical (are there any other kind?) fascists than with outright Communists.
A BIG makes perfect sense since the implicit social contract is BROKEN.
ReplyDeleteThe implicit social contract is that the banks and the so-called creditworthy shall legally steal the population's purchasing power but provide us with jobs and better, cheaper consumer goods.
Instead, the population's stolen purchasing power has been used to automate the population's jobs away and so now the population is increasingly unable to afford the consumer goods its stolen purchasing power has financed.
You can't prove that by my comment above. Just what do you object to in it? The truth?
ReplyDeleteyou should stand on a street corner with a hand-drawn sign and a loudhailer, endlessly shouting the same slogans over and over again. Like the other simple people who believe they have "the truth".
ReplyDeleteWell, it's taken me a long time and a lot of pain to find the Truth so I'm quite certain I've found it or rather Him. You should start early, I suggest.
ReplyDeleteBut what's so controversial about "Thou shall not steal" even by subtle means such as government backing for the banks?
And you're not being just to me or rather my spiritual guide, the Bible. No one has been able to refute me from the gold-bugs to the "money must be debt crowd." If there's a more original or prolific writer on ethical money creation, please tell me who he is and I might shut up myself.
I had hopes for you but you raise them just to dash them. No more. You're unreliable. Don't bother me anymore.
"But what's so controversial about "Thou shall not steal"
ReplyDeleteYou think you're saying "thou shall not steal". What you're really saying is "thou shall not increase the quantity of a thing in such a way that it may possibly lead to a reduction in the exchange value of a similar thing, owned by someone else. This is a sin, but only if you have some sort of government backing. If you have no government backing then it is not a sin". Tell me where in the Bible it says that.
Good characterization y. I was going to say much the same.
ReplyDeleteF Beard, if somebody builds a yurt in Mongolia with his own hands - or maybe a bunch of people do it, one guy doing more of the work in return for later favors - oooh he has extended credit to these evil creditworthies!
If these rascals do this - have they stolen your power to build yurts in Mongolia? WHere you don't want to be, on land you don't own?
Yes, although it is not really the kind of thing which can be stolen, people's purchasing power can be stolen. And you are right that the banks can do this create inflation. But no, it need not be by government backed credit creation.
You have interesting ideas and some of your viewpoints, like the centrality of morality in monetary economics, are often insufficiently understood, which is why many have engaged with you. But the MMTers - and their intellectual ancestors - not all of which have been digested - are more original and prolific writers on ethical money creation.
For one, the JG is more ethical than your proposals. Your proposals fail by your own measure (which I think is a very good one). But the JG doesn't. Because it can, has and will work. Because a job offer is a moral requirement upon a taxing, money-issuing government. Because it is not a fairy tale like a big BIG.
@Y,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late reply; my ISP has been flaky today.
Basically, the Bible forbids usury from one's countrymen (Deuteronomy 23:19-20), theft and oppression of the poor. Government-backed credit creation violates all three.
If credit creation were entirely private then the poor would have a better chance of not having their meager savings eaten away by negative real interest rates.
Calgacus,
ReplyDeleteI expect better from you.
1) I've never opposed purely private credit creation but government-backed credit creation violates Equal Protection under the Law.
2) A JG would make the victims of the banks work for their restitution. That's morally bogus.
3) No less a bank loving country than Switzerland is considering a BIG.
Please do not straw-man my positions or my opinion of you will fall.
Hint: You cannot flatter or co-opt me. If I aim to please anyone other than myself it's the Lord since He is the ONLY ONE to be feared.
Hint2: The Lord really does exist; Progressives gravely err by thinking otherwise.
I absolutely agree that a guaranteed universal income is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteIt sets a floor and would go a long way to drowning the scourge of poverty.
If the mindless free marketeers have an issue, then they can create the jobs and meaningful employment to eliminate the need for a guaranteed income, rendering the discussion moot.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks F Beard is a crack-pot.
ReplyDeleteJars of clay can carry the truth
ReplyDeleteand sometimes (maybe)
even cracked pots
but oft times (sadly)
it seems they cannot.
I can't be too cracked to have sent the gold bugs scurrying.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you ..."
The crackpots are the ones fronting a JG over a BIG, and I won't waste anymore time attempting to persuade those JG'ers on the errs of their ways. Beard isn't perfect, but on that score alone he runs circles around the MMT crowd. The JG'ers want capitalism. Period. Capital is their God, and the attendant alienation that comes with it. Sorry, but that dog don't bite:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1969/misc/reproduction-daily-life.htm
Beard, I felt my japes at you at the beginning of my comment would have negated any perception of flattery from my later comments. :-) Which I stand by and reiterate things I have said elsewhere, not to you.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is that some of your ideas fail on their own terms. They are morally bogus. A big naked BIG fails on its own terms. It is morally bogus, because it is a fairy tale, which would very obviously set off hyperinflation, as Wray, Tcherneva etc have pointed out. (By naked, I mean one without a JG paying more.) This is the kind of thing which is perfectly obvious to almost all "the lesser people", those who would be the main direct recipients of BIGs & JGs. But apparently not at all obvious to those in more cozy circumstances. One wonders if the academic BIG proponents have ever actually met a genuine poor or working person.
The tag line at several such BIG sites is a quote from Bertrand Russell, Roads to Freedom iirc - but slightly mangled, and hiding the fact that Russell there proposed a BIG plus a bigger JG, just as I and the academic MMTers support.
The JG has nothing directly to do with the banks. Sure, if anybody can prove theft, make the banks cough up. Whatever. Once we live in Beardtopia, and there are no more evil banks, all the restitution has been done, then what about unemployment? Thinking that "there will be none" is just buying into neoclassical fantasy economics. Thinking that the wise expert know-it-alls will give "the people" all the dough they need is another fantasy. The JG is morally superior because it, and nothing else can and will put as much agency as possible in the hands of the people it belongs in - the victims of the state, the poor, the unemployed and the general populace.
I've said it before and I'll say it again- a monetary economy without a JG is an insane idea. Just because the insanity is everywhere doesn't make it less insane.
It is morally bogus, because it is a fairy tale, which would very obviously set off hyperinflation, as Wray, Tcherneva etc have pointed out.
ReplyDeleteHyperinflation is a result of the central bank and its cartel lending purchasing power into existence to both front-run and create inflation. Otherwise, it would take a continually increasing BIG and/or continually decreasing output to cause continual price inflation, much less hyperinflation. Neither is plausible.
Make-work is more likely to create price inflation because it pays people to waste their time. Remember Einstein wasting his time in a patent office? How many more examples of that do you want?
And of course banks steal, every single one of them. Theft of purchasing power is their business plan. Google "banking quotes" and you'll find ample confirmation from some of the most famous people in history.
A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, but even the compassion of the wicked is cruel. Proverbs 12:10
"Basically, the Bible forbids usury from one's countrymen (Deuteronomy 23:19-20), theft and oppression of the poor. Government-backed credit creation violates all three."
ReplyDeleteargument by assertion, as usual.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"And of course banks steal, every single one of them. Theft of purchasing power is their business plan." but you have no problem with it so long as there is no central bank.
ReplyDeleteWell, I've read the entire (I may have skipped construction details since those bore me) Bible at least once. Have you?
ReplyDeleteAs for assertions, I can back them up and indeed have in other comments. By now you should take me at my word but since you don't I've got to conclude you are not acting in good faith since you are not mentally incompetent, imo.
but you have no problem with it so long as there is no central bank.
ReplyDeletey
You know well enough that that is a strawman so you continue to demonstrate that you are NOT acting in good faith.
So, if this blog had an ignore feature, I'd put you on my list of bad actors.
You've wasted my time for the last time.
Bye, bye!
"You know well enough that that is a strawman"
ReplyDelete"I've never opposed purely private credit creation"
Purely private credit creation would mean eliminating government deposit insurance too, not just the central bank.
ReplyDeleteThe monetary sovereign is the ONLY proper provider of a risk-free storage and transaction service for ITS fiat and to avoid violating equal protection under the law it must make no loans and pay no interest.
Let the purely private banks issue and guarantee their own private money if they can people willing to accept it.
Btw, I was once (as a beginner in these matters) in favor of forced 100% reserve banking so yes I once did oppose purely private credit creation but I've been won over to the virtue of endogenous money creation BUT IT MUST BE DONE ETHICALLY!
But I opposed it under another nom de plume I've since abandoned. I've never since then advocated forced 100% reserve banking EXCEPT during a metered universal bailout otherwise we could never reach the goal of all deposits being AT LEAST TEMPORARILY 100% backed by reserves until people had an opportunity to move their deposits to a Postal Savings Service.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
so yes I once did oppose purely private credit creation FB (moi)
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not true. My position was that if the banks had ANY government privileges then they MUST practice 100% reserve banking.
I've since moved to a free banking position where the banks can leverage as much as they dare but ONLY if they are 100% private.
Otherwise, it would take a continually increasing BIG and/or continually decreasing output to cause continual price inflation, much less hyperinflation. Neither is plausible. Both are inevitable with a big BIG, as Wray & Tcherneva point out, and as is obvious to any Walmart or McDonalds worker.
ReplyDeleteMake-work is more likely to create price inflation because it pays people to waste their time. Remember Einstein wasting his time in a patent office? How many more examples of that do you want? That example is such spectacular self-refutation I had to reply. Einstein wasted the period he and all historians say was the most productive of his life? The job that he said was ideal?
Beard, it is all makework. Thats what a job is. You get money, and they make you work to get it.
All the JG says is ordinary people should have as much say as possible in the work they are made to do, by living in a universe where things don't happen just by wishing. All the JG is is making the worker be as much part of the "they" as possible.
Both are inevitable with a big BIG, as Wray & Tcherneva point out,
ReplyDeleteThat I'll have to see! Links please, if you have them convenient?
and as is obvious to any Walmart or McDonalds worker.
You mean those same people who can't be trusted to find their own meaningful work to do?
That example is such spectacular self-refutation I had to reply. Einstein wasted the period he and all historians say was the most productive of his life? The job that he said was ideal?
The job was ideal because his boss allowed him to steal time to work on his theories! Will your bosses be so understanding? All of them? Is not being one's own boss (via an adequate BIG and other resources such as one's own land) or being able to freely choose one's own boss at one's leisure the ideal for optimizing human advancement?
Beard, it is all makework. Thats what a job is. You get money, and they make you work to get it.
You've never done make-work it seems. The Germans discovered in WWII that concentration camp workers would rather make rocket fuel from manure FOR THEIR ENEMIES than waste their time doing pointless work (after the Allies bombed the plant into uselessness)! Quite a few went insane and charged the wire, I've read, thereby committing suicide. Or have you ever read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? He lived in miserable conditions yet struggled to do meaningful work. Have you ever struggled to get a job done IN SPITE OF YOUR BOSS? I have and it wasn't fun.
All the JG says is ordinary people should have as much say as possible in the work they are made to do,
Our NATURE (and/or God?) compels us to work! But we much prefer to do it OUR OWN WAY!
But your JG proponents wish to create DISCIPLINED slaves for the private sector, which in league with counterfeiting cartel, the banks, are their oppressors!
by living in a universe where things don't happen just by wishing.
Free people make things happen all the time. But not the the things you desire? Well, too bad tyrant, live with it!
All the JG is is making the worker be as much part of the "they" as possible.
You claim a BIG is impossible?! You claim just restitution is impossible? You claim what God commands (rights for the poor,for example) is impossible?
You, Wray and sadly Professor Bill Mitchell are DEAD WRONG wrt to a JG because you think it is a substitute for justice.
And who the heck do you think you are pleasing anyway? It isn't the God of the Bible, as I've pointed out. He commands justice and restitution for theft. And read Leviticus 25 wrt land reform and Deuteronomy 15 wrt debt release. And Deuteronomy 23:19-20 wrt interest. Don't for a minute think the Christian Right is necessarily either.
I'm going to assume for a while that you guys don't get the thieving nature of our money system and try to be patient with you. But I have far less patience with hypocritical (are there any other kind?) fascists than with outright Communists.