I guess the Reason libertarian morons didnt get the memo that today is a holiday... stupidity never takes a day off.
How to Balance the Budget in One Easy Step http://t.co/mbWOIGHLLA
— reason (@reason) September 7, 2015How to Balance the Budget in One Easy Step http://t.co/mbWOIGHLLA
— reason (@reason) September 7, 2015
17 comments:
What about bunch of ignorant asses. I assume that name "Reason" is some kind of ironic name like calling so giant fat guy "Tiny".
How about this laugher:
"Before it took effect, federal spending was on track to consume one-fourth of America's GDP. By last year, Washington sopped up only one-fifth of America's wealth."
Elsewhere in the real world, when the Govt buys airplanes from Boeing that ADDS to Boeings and the private sector's income. And when the Govt increases pay to doctors, this increases the incomes and subsequent spending of Doctors and thus the private sector. And when the Govt cuts FICA taxes allowing Americans to keep more of their income, private spending increases not decreases. So what rationale basis would anyone have in saying the Govt "consumes" GDP. Govt fiscal policy IS GDP!!!!!!!!!!
A, iirc its funded by the Koch bros.... its the magazine of Cato ... all libertarian stuff...
"Sounds reasonable!" ;)
Again the confusion of real resources and financial things.
None other than the libertarian idiot himself, Ted Cruz (He does represent Houston where space is a big industry) sponsored and passed a version (s.1297) of the space commerce bill, so maybe they aren't complete goofs. The House has passed their space commerce bill (HR 2262) also despite progressives blocking progress. Once they iron out their differences, the Dept of Transportation, Dept of Commerce, Fed. Courts, Dept of Space Commerce, President and all the federal agencies will have the power to license, regulate and promote our private business activities in space. Right now some of this stuff isn't illegal but isn't legal and the military and NASA aren't designed to regulate. Business needs stable good laws and legal framework in which to operate. And it comes not a moment too soon as the next asteroid mining prospector launches next week after the first one launched last month.
Not enough time, not enough money, not enough resources... stupid limits on ourselves. Nearly always, not doing anything does more harm than doing something wrong and having to learn and fix it.
"Before you know it, the government will be running the whole damn,country!"
comment at http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=10600
Nathanael: "200-year campaign by the rich and powerful for their own benefit, to put it simply. You’re an economist, but this is an essentially political problem. They’ve convinced all too many Americans that allowing big business to poison their water — POISON THEIR WATER — is morally good, so a little thing like convincing people that full employment is a bad idea and should not be pursued by the government is easy for them now."
MMT is running on auto-loop now. It's all been said, multiple times over. Only task is a REAL marketing campaign now.
" It's all been said, multiple times over. "
We should be examining what has been/is being said then.... you are assuming what has/is being said is the correct course of action ... evidence would point increasingly to the contrary...
imo, 'euthanize the ideologues'..... stick to the technological case
I wish Bill all the best with his 'framing' and metaphorical adjustments but I dont think that is going to work either...
the long history of individual and group adjustments & eventual solution shows a nearly universal divergence between initial momentum and later solution
that's what gradual "shaping" of fluid responses is all about
You don't herd cats by telling them human solutions. You tell 'em what they want to hear, to augment existing momentum, and then keep re-shaping the message, to slowly steer them to what they need to do.
That's the reality of herd & crowd behavior. Re-shaping ongoing momentum trumps hoping to start momentum where none exists ... every time.
Ever read about the long, slow training of Helen Keller?
It's the same for aggregate electorates, only slower.
MMT is running on auto-loop now. It's all been said, multiple times over. Only task is a REAL marketing campaign now.
Need to massage the messaging into a few main points and keep beating on them.
"The central idea is that government fiscal policy, its spending and taxing, its borrowing and repayment of loans, its issue of new money and its withdrawal of money, shall all be undertaken with an eye only to the results of these actions on the economy and not to any established traditional doctrine about what is sound and what is unsound. This principle of judging only by effects has been applied in many other fields of human activity, where it is known as the method of science opposed to scholasticism. The principle of judging fiscal measures by the way they work or function in the economy we may call Functional Finance ...
Government should adjust its rates of expenditure and taxation such that total spending in the economy is neither more nor less than that which is sufficient to purchase the full employment level of output at current prices. If this means there is a deficit, greater borrowing, "printing money", etc., then these things in themselves are neither good nor bad, they are simply the means to the desired ends of full employment and price stability."
— Abba Lerner, "Functional Finance and Full Employment"(1943)
"MMT is running on auto-loop now"
It should be running at full steam ahead not on auto-loop. MMT concepts are easy to understand but the politics are hard. Designing systems that are resistant to corruption and work in the real world are far more challenging than the simplistic ideals of MMT. The progressive movement has captured MMT as their own which is good and MMT folks are bursting with pride as finally someone is giving MMT mainstream exposure and credibility.
But progressives will use MMT for their own ends and bastardize the concepts to fit their ideology and benefit their $upporters. Even Bernie has half baked solutions with a nod to long term deficits as problems. After this close association with progressive politics and Amy Goodman types(The obnoxious Rush Limbaugh of the left), MMT will forever be associated with the extreme left ideology. That odor won't wash off for a very long time and many minds will be closed, which is unfortunate.
Agreed, Ryan,
MMT is just plain operational know-how and common sense. Since both are lacking among literally billions of homo sapiens, the solution to our ills lies much deeper than simply proving a point most neither grasp the context of, nor care to know.
We won't get out of this until we have another wholesale renaissance in how we prepare citizens, starting in Kindergarten.
My thoughts are laid out here (overlapping political operations, for foreign & fiscal policy).
https://plus.google.com/104140272098689841413/posts/ZU48xgFmQAZ
Not much more to add at this time.
Hold the growth of government spending to 2 percent per year.
..."You don't herd cats by telling them human solutions. You tell 'em what they want to hear, to augment existing momentum, and then keep re-shaping the message, to slowly steer them to what they need to do."
Okay, they want 2% per year, give them what they want. Give until it hurts.
:) Bob
More likely, ya give 'em 2.9%, then 3.9%, then 4.9% ... until they forget what they SAID they wanted.
Humans, ya gotta love 'em, since the aggregate doesn't seem capable of loving itself as much as it wants or needs.
I was apolitical most my life.
My first inclination was libertarian, but stuff like this turned me off. Now I'm an MMT believer. No one had to convince me, I was already trying to articulate some MMT ideas, it was a relief to know "hey, I might be crazy in other ways, but more people are at least seeing this too and they articulate it much better than I could."
Don't be shortsided in your political and social goals. The changes we needed to see may involve small shifts, but they are tectonic, so to speak. We need to facilitate building proper social, financial, and economic relationships, which will emerge as the old institutions shudder and people look right and left for the right solutions.
The one thing that I like about libertarians is that they aren't sitting on their butts waiting for the establishment to approve of their efforts before trying to solve technical problems(perhaps bitcoin only real example of this). That being said, MMT has taught me that public institutions are critically important. We should be looking to both improve and build institutions that can represent our needs and interests. We should work with the establishment and through proper channels as much as we can manage.
So many key decisions are made at the top, it can be frustrating trying to lay a foundation for grassroots changes. But we don't have to convince everyone we are right, we just have to create solutions that work that people can benefit from.
I have been exploring some different ideas when it comes to cryptocurrency: http://github.com/derekmc/trust-coin
It is only a drop in the bucket.
Not everyone who leans libertarian is crazy and useless. I am a huge fan of Paul Graham. He has his share of bad ideas, but he is doing a lot and really trying to solve prioblems. Instead of only writing articles about how uber sucks, we should be looking to create similar distributed solutions that can help people and solve problems the way we want to see them solved. Maybe the only real problem with MMT is when people expect it to provide answers to every question.
What kind of grassroots movements and technical solutions do you think could be MMT compatible? It makes statements about monetary sovereigns, but I think the ideas are powerful enough to empower people who still can't directly influence those entities.
Roger no one is satisfied with current outcomes...
If you went to people and asked wrt economic outcomes "Do you want full employment and stable prices?" huge majority would say yes...
These economic goals/outcomes are already codified in various laws... "the people have spoken"...
Like this:
Lets say you had a growing community on a peninsula, getting crowded as growth continues...
Community states a goal: "we would like to be able to conveniently and safely cross the river to expand our community into the land on the other side of the river..."
How does bridge or ferry then happen? It just appears out of thin air?
No, COMPETENT technocrats then go to work to implement an effective material solution.
today, we have codified goals of "maximum employment with stable prices"...the solution being presented by the unqualified/incompetent people in technocratic position is "have the CB buy UST securities!"
This would be like handing people giant wing flappers to attempt to fly over the river instead of building a bridge or ferry service....
We already have the goals... and we dont need to "shape" the current people in the technocratic positions, we need to REPLACE the people in the technocratic positions.... step one should be purely to expose their incompetency and lack of qualifications as technocrats.
rsp,
Agreed, Matt,
Yet that means we have to convince voters to start replacing the people they vote for. Everyone thinks all politicians OTHER than their local/state/Federal reps should be replaced. :(
The three chief goals of economic policy are growth, employment and price stability. Everyone is for those goals, but the belief is that all three cannot exist simultaneously. Since growth and price stability have the highest priority, that employment must be traded for growth and price stability. That is a false assumption.
This is where to attack.
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