Thursday, October 11, 2018

Katia Dmitrieva - A Hedge Fund Guy Lefties Can Love

Warren Mosler’s unorthodox take on fiscal policy is catching on with progressive Democrats.



A superb article about Warren Mosler. Did you know that Bill Mitchell developed MMT independently of Warren Mosler? Warren Mosler has a heart! 

He ran a hedge fund, lives in a Caribbean tax haven, and loves fast cars and yachts—not obvious qualifications for a left-wing guru. But that’s what Warren Mosler is rapidly becoming.

Its main argument is that governments with their own currencies can’t go broke. They have more room to spend than is usually supposed and don’t need to collect taxes (or even borrow) to pay for it. One thing they can, and should, spend money on is a jobs guarantee—offering work to anyone who wants it.

Conventional economics teaches that a government collects money by taxing and spends part or all of the take. When it spends more than it collects, it has to borrow. Modern Monetary Theory stands this on its head. The government doesn’t need tax dollars to fund spending, because it has a monopoly on creating the money. For almost a half-century, the greenback hasn’t been pegged to gold or anything else. America can’t run out of dollars any more than a department store can run out of its own gift vouchers.

But there's critics - 

Critics say Modern Monetary Theory is a recipe for reckless spending and runaway prices. “They’re too optimistic,” says Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. If the government borrows on the scale advocated by MMTers, he says, “the outcome, I believe, will be inflation. And they don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know anyone who takes them seriously besides themselves,” Gagnon says. But he’s not wholly unsympathetic, agreeing that MMTers were right to dismiss the risk of a sovereign currency-issuing nation like the U.S. suffering a Greek-style fiscal crisis.

Lots more here - 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek

27 comments:

Konrad said...

“Critics say Modern Monetary Theory is a recipe for reckless spending and runaway prices. ‘They’re too optimistic,’ says Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. If the government borrows on the scale advocated by MMTers, he says, ‘the outcome, I believe, will be inflation. And they don’t believe that’.”

Except the U.S. government doesn’t borrow any of its spending money.

The Peterson Institute has spent 37 years pushing neoliberalism. They are especially fond of “free trade” agreements that widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

The Peterson Institute is not to be confused with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an entirely separate organization that spews out the same lies – i.e. there is “no money” for social programs that help average people, and the U.S. government must “live within its means.” (That is, the government must eliminate all social programs, and only spend money on wars, weapons, and corporate subsidies.)

“In the U.S., fear of budget deficits and national debt is widespread.

Only among the peasants and among neoliberal Democrats.

Republicans only become deficit hawks when someone calls for social programs like Universal Medicare.

Calgacus said...

What's really funny is that the late Pete Peterson was Nixon's Secretary of Commerce, and one of the advisors that Nixon took to Camp David and who told him to break the last link to gold and Bretton Woods and make the dollar clearly a pure fiat currency. For practical purposes Roosevelt had done that in 1933, but Nixon made it final and open. Everybody understood basic MMT more or less from 1933-1971.

So Peterson's later deficit-terrorism shows he either became insane or a spectacular liar. Probably a little of both, with a touch of evil mixed in.

GLH said...

To me the thing about Mosler is that his solution to all problems seems to be to create more more money without regard to where it goes. If more money is created and it flows into finance then it does nothing but inflate assets running up the cost of living and hurting the economy. We need taxes to prevent that. Tell me if I am wrong.

Kaivey said...

Hi GLH. Egmont says that if the government deficit spends the money ends up going to the rich. His solution is to not deficit spend. I said to him, why not just tax the rich more to get our money back. I got no reply.

Konrad said...

@ GLH:

“To me the thing about Mosler is that his solution to all problems seems to be to create more money without regard to where it goes. If more money is created and it flows into finance, then it does nothing but inflate assets, running up the cost of living and hurting the economy. We need taxes to prevent that. Tell me if I am wrong.”

You are not wrong.

Taxes are one means to offset this problem. Other means might include re-regulating the financial sector, plus things like rent controls, price controls, and so on. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages.

MMT cannot help unless we stop the upward flow of money. For instance, if we had universal Social Security (aka a Universal Basic Income) then rents would rise to suck up the excess cash. So would insurance premiums, housing prices, car prices, property taxes, and so on.

In other words, an excess of the quantity of money without controlling the flow of money will cause inflation, and will worsen inequality.

The MMT crowd wants to debunk the myth that the U.S. government has a “debt crisis,” and that social programs are “unsustainable. That’s good, but it is only part of what we need. MMT makes no mention of private debt bondage, for example.

(Many MMT people are also dedicated to their “jobs guarantee,” which in my opinion is cultish, silly, unworkable, and unnecessary. Moreover it too fails to address the upward flow of money.)

Konrad said...

“Everybody understood basic MMT more or less from 1933-1971.” ~ Calgacus

The U.S. understood MMT when it started issuing “greenbacks” in 1861 (aka “U.S. Notes”). These were legal tender by law, and were not “backed” by gold or silver.

This is why I say that the “gold standard” was always a myth. It was a gimmick that politicians used when they wanted to claim that there was “no money” for social programs.

Politicians ignored the “gold standard” when they wanted to drastically increase spending for wars, for example.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

MMT, Warren Mosler, and the little helpers from Wall Street and Academia
Comment on Katia Dmitrieva/Bloomberg/Businessweek on ‘A Hedge Fund Guy Lefties Can Love’

There is the entertainment industry and it is about personalities/emotions. There is science and it is about knowledge/consistency. There are not many people who prefer science over entertainment. In order to appeal to the majority, one has no choice but to gossip about personality.

Accordingly, Warren Mosler is introduced: “He ran a hedge fund, lives in a Caribbean tax haven, and loves fast cars and yachts ― not obvious qualifications for a left-wing guru. But that’s what Warren Mosler is rapidly becoming.”

And this is his message: “Its [MMT’s] main argument is that governments with their own currencies can’t go broke. They have more room to spend than is usually supposed and don’t need to collect taxes (or even borrow) to pay for it. One thing they can, and should, spend money on is a jobs guarantee ― offering work to anyone who wants it.”

All this, of course, is way beside the point. Economics claims for 200+ years to be a science, MMT claims to be a superior scientific theory, so the point at issue is NOT the personality of Warren Mosler but whether MMT is true/false according to well-defined scientific criteria.

The unambiguous answer is: MMT is materially/formally false, MMTers are fake scientists, MMT’s policy proposals boil down to deficit-spending/money-creation and this translates to money-making for the Oligarchy because the macroeconomic Profit Law implicates Public Deficit = Private Profit which follows straight from the axiomatically correct sectoral balances equation (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−Sm)−(Qm−Yd)=0.#1…#7

In sum, MMT is refuted proto-scientific garbage and its social rhetoric is plain political fraud and its effect ― intended or unintended does no matter ― is to undermine genuine grassroots movements. MMT lacks sound scientific foundations and is not more than gossip/entertainment/fraud in the political Circus Maximus.

Deficit-spending/money-creation has always been a program for the self-alimentation of the Oligarchy#8 and quite naturally enjoys the support of Wall Street in general and Bloomberg in particular.

According to Stephanie Kelton, the MMT snake oil works just fine: “Democrats are beginning to see that all the stories they’ve been told, and that they in fact even repeated themselves, weren’t good stories.”#9

Indeed, but the MMT story isn’t one iota better.#10

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 MMT: agenda-pushing and money-making for the Oligarchy
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/mmt-agenda-pushing-and-money-making-for.html

#2 Rectification of MMT macro accounting
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/09/rectification-of-mmt-macro-accounting.html

#3 MMT and the single most stupid physicist
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/09/mmt-and-single-most-stupid-physicist.html

#4 MMT and the promotion of Wall Street socialism
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/11/mmt-and-promotion-of-wall-street.html

#5 MMT: The one deadly error/fraud of Warren Mosler
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/11/mmt-one-deadly-errorfraud-of-warren.html

#6 MMTers are NOT Friends-of-the-People
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/08/hope-you-get-it-mmters-friends-of-people.html

#7 For the full-spectrum refutation see cross-references MMT
http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html

#8 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/12/keynes-lerner-mmt-trump-and-exploding.html

#9 The Kelton-Fraud
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-kelton-fraud.html

#10 MMT: How WeTheOligarchy communicates with WeThePeople
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/09/mmt-how-wetheoligarchy-communicates.html

Dean said...

"Deficit-spending/money-creation has always been a program for the self-alimentation of the Oligarchy#8 and quite naturally enjoys the support of Wall Street in general and Bloomberg in particular."

This is absolutely correct and Mosler is fully aware of this. It is impossible for someone to succeed in the money game (as Mosler has) without knowing this. Those who have owned assets for a lengthy period of time know full well that money always flows toward assets - even if the rich were taxed more and more it would still not stop the rest of the money flowing into assets. Assets are like magnets and money is the little metal filings that are dispersed but always heading toward assets. Money MUST flow toward assets or be destroyed (taxed) because there are only two things anyone can do with money, spend it (which means it ends up in the hands of business owners eventually) or save/invest it (which means it is used for business purposes).

For those who ask 'why then do many business leaders and neoliberals cry against deficit spending?' it is because they know that it doesn't actually matter what government does, because all money MUST flow toward assets - the reason for all the political economic debate it because these debates themselves make money. The whole reason society is in a constant state of 'division' and debate is because this is and always has been the true source of all wealth.

GLH said...

"The U.S. understood MMT when it started issuing “greenbacks” in 1861 (aka “U.S. Notes”). " Didn't Hamilton understand it when he designed our money system?

Kaivey said...

'the reason for all the political economic debate it because these debates themselves make money. The whole reason society is in a constant state of 'division' and debate is because this is and always has been the true source of all wealth.'

I don't understand this bit, how can economic debates create wealth?.

I don't know how people are going to raise their standard of living if all wealth increases lead to inflation. Does that mean the natural law is for most people to be poor. But what if machinery and robots do most of the work, can the profits be shared?

I read a time ago about investment and that it can't go on indefinitely. Say you own a factory and make TV's and the profits got get you plough back into the factory. Eventually society gets enough TV's and doesn't want anymore. You can plough your profits into this and that, but eventually that too becomes saturated. There must come a point where you are making money but have nowhere to invest it. When 3% inflation that means within 30 years half of it has gone. I read that financialization and asset price increases was the only way the wealthy could invest their money.

Is there an alternative? Let's how so.

Kaivey said...

Do you think it might need doing back to the New Deal taxes on the rich? And capital gains should be punitive too. I know lots of home owners wouldn't like it, but just think it will put an end to house price inflation meaning cheaper houses for everyone and that's got to be a good idea. Michael Hudson says this would encourage more investment into industry and create new jobs.

Those that have invested in property for their pension would be hard it, and that wouldn't be fair, but there could be compensation.

Drastic solutions I know, but who has an answer to this? Egmont offers no answer, just more poverty for most people.

We need to stem the population growth and slow down immigration.

Dean said...

I said: 'the reason for all the political economic debate it because these debates themselves make money. The whole reason society is in a constant state of 'division' and debate is because this is and always has been the true source of all wealth.'

Kaivey said: "I don't understand this bit, how can economic debates create wealth?."

Good question..but I did say 'political' economic debate

If your economic debates spill over into the political arena then it will most certainly create wealth for the winners because that is what politics is about...but my reference to 'debate' being a source of wealth was a reference to the fact that the majority of our economy's jobs and wealth occurs out of conflict, whether it is conflicts between man and man, man and government, or man and nature...the smallest part of economy is actual production of necessities.

Dean said...

"Egmont offers no answer, just more poverty for most people. "

I'm not sure that is correct, Egmont certainly does offer a solution in his papers but whether you agree with it or not is a different matter..but then again, isn't that the whole purpose of politics, to 'debate' our solutions?

But why do we all debate our solutions?

Everyone thinks 'their' solution is the right one....it never seems to occur to anyone that the reason we all have different 'solutions' is because we are all different. But instead of seeing this 'difference' as the solution in itself, we all think we have to convince everyone else that our solution is the best one and when they don't agree we debate, scream, or eventually go to war.

If you think about it, we all fight each other because it is the only thing we are all good at.

Dean said...

"Is there an alternative? Let's how so."

I don't understand this question sorry

Are you referring to just yourself or everyone?

Put another way, are you referring to an alternative life without having to convince everyone else to do the same or is your alternative concept only possible if you convince everyone else of it?

Kaivey said...

We argue a lot here too.

I often wonder about Ron Paul? What a lovely natured guy, and yet he's a libertarian, a system that is heartless towards the poor. But I don't believe Ron Paul is heartless. I can only think he genuinely believes the world would be a better place with less government. The way he was brought up and his culture has shaped him ways I don't understand as my background is different. IMO, a lot of libertarians are heartless, but but not all of them.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Kaivey

You say: “Egmont offers no answer, just more poverty for most people.”

The task of the economist as a scientist is to figure out how the economy works. Unfortunately, economists have done nothing of the sort over the last 200+ years because they were preoccupied with agenda-pushing.

As a result, the answers economists have offered from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward have NO scientific content and have never been more than brain-dead political blather.

Needless to emphasize that people with some scientific instinct have realized this long ago: “What is now taught as standard economic theory will eventually disappear … because it simply doesn’t work: were it engineering, the bridge would collapse.” (McCauley)

But economists have NO scientific instinct. They are clowns and useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus.

This is quite obvious in the case of Warren Mosler. Yes, he gives answers and offers solutions. The humanitarian mission of Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton and the rest of MMTers is to end the poverty of the one-percenters by deficit-spending/money-creation.

To be sure, I have no qualms with MMTers pulling off a political fraud.#1 Politics is NOT the issue! What has to be made clear is that Modern Monetary Theory is NO valid theory and that MMT has NOTHING to do with science.

MMT is failed science, MMTers are fake scientists, MMT academics are campaigners for Warren Mosler, Warren Mosler, in turn, is a campaigner for Wall Street.#2

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 MMT is ALWAYS a bad deal for the 99-percenters
http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/12/mmt-is-always-bad-deal-for-ninety-nine.html

#2 Lying for money: a generalization
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/08/lying-for-money-generalization.html

Kaivey said...

Egmont, you say that when the government deficit spends the money end up in the bank accounts of the oligarchy. I asked you before about whether you support the idea that governments can care for its people and spend on the health service. You said it's down to each country and government to decide how they wish to spend their money.

This seems to suggest that you are okay about governments taxing and spending, but it's deficit spending you don't like. Now, if the government taxes the people and spends it on public services, doesn't that money also end up the pockets of the rich. In fact, when people borrow from the private banks and spend it, doesn't that also end up in the bank accounts of the rich? So, all the money that people earn will end up going up the ladder.

But there's a problem, people borrow money from the private banks and spend it, but it ends up in the bank accounts of the rich. The rich keep the money and it is thiers, but how does that money ever get paid back to the banks when the rich have it? The rest of society has to keep borrowing to create the money supply, and the rich keep capturing it, which means it's never gets pays back. Does this mean that the rest of society is clobbered with the compound interest?

The way I see it, even without government spending the rich get most of the money that society creates. But now we have a problem, as all the money was borrowed from the private banks, how does it ever get paid back when the oligarchs have got it for keeps.

Calgacus said...

The Economists Challenge:For those who ask 'why then do many business leaders and neoliberals cry against deficit spending?' it is because they know that it doesn't actually matter what government does, because all money MUST flow toward assets

This statement makes no sense. No, they cry against deficit spending because they know it matters a great deal what the government does. If it didn't matter, "because all money MUST flow toward assets" - and why does that imply anything? - it doesn't - well then, why would they bother to do or say anything?

History shows that New Deal, welfare state, full employment, Keynesian, MMT recommended spending flattened and flattens income and wealth distribution rather than skewing it, while making basically everybody better off in absolute terms, but particularly helping the working and poorer classes, creating basically egalitarian middle-class societies.

But the purpose and action of such neoliberals and business leaders is NOT to enrich themselves in absolute terms, but rather in relative terms, to keep themselves in the saddle, to create and maintain rigid class divisions. Their constant purpose is to avoid the above outcome that the great majority want. They know it is much safer and easier to do so by impoverishing and crushing others, the majority, than actually doing something positive to enrich themselves.

Therefore by corrupting the government, they create reserve armies of the unemployed, use monopoly and monopsony powers to make the necessities of life less affordable even as technology diminishes their real cost, crush wages, worsen working conditions etc., etc.
Simple as that, but people always want to write apologetics for the "upper" class, rather than observe it.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Kaivey

You say: “Now, if the government taxes the people and spends it on public services, doesn/t that money also end up the pockets of the rich.”

I have presented the axiomatically correct Profit Law on more than one occasion.#1 It reads Qm=Yd+(I−Sm)+(G−T)+(X−M) and answers ALL your questions. If the government taxes the household sector and thereby balances the budget, then G=T and the profit effect is ZERO. It is deficit-spending/money-creation that produces the macroeconomic profit of the business sector and benefits the Oligarchy immediately and exactly by the same amount. Get it: Public Deficit = Private Profit.

The Profit Law tells one also that it does not matter whether deficit-spending is private or public. The effect on profit is the same.

In the MMT balances equation (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)=0 profit does not appear. Isn’t that a bit curious? An economic theory that is completely silent about profit?#2

The MMT balances equation is mathematically false. And exactly at this point, MMT is out of science. If profit theory is false, the whole analytical superstructure is false, including employment theory.#3 A policy that is based on a false theory is a fraud. This holds also for the MMT Job Guarantee.#4

So, the matter is settled. Warren Mosler is a political fraud and MMT academics are his useful idiots.#5

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html

#2 Why the MMT benefactors of humanity never talk about profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-mmt-benefactors-of-humanity-never.html

#3 Employment theory as an example of proto-scientific soapbubbling
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/06/employment-theory-as-example-of-proto.html

#4 Full employment through the price mechanism
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/11/full-employment-through-price-mechanism.html

#5 MMT: The one deadly error/fraud of Warren Mosler
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/11/mmt-one-deadly-errorfraud-of-warren.html

Dean said...

"This statement makes no sense. No, they cry against deficit spending because they know it matters a great deal what the government does. If it didn't matter, "because all money MUST flow toward assets" - and why does that imply anything? - it doesn't - well then, why would they bother to do or say anything?"

As usual, you have misunderstood my post and seemed to have completely skipped the adjective in this line..in fact, I don't remember a time when you did fully understand what I have posted. You take one line out my post, place it in isolation and take it out of the context of the whole, and then attack it. Is there any point to me trying to answer you or re-explain or will you misinterpret the answer aswell?

Kaivey said...

Hi Egmont,

I said that if all the money in circulating came from private banks and the rich make profits and put the money into their bank accounts then society has a problem because how well this money get paid back the the banks. Then I realised that the rich will reinvest the money even if they are just buying assets and property, and even if they put it in the Caiman Islands, so it somehow gets invested back into society, and in this way society can earn the money again to pay off their loans.

What do you recon?

Kaivey said...

Hi Egmont,

If G - T = 0 then your profit equation becomes 0=0. What this means is that the government needs to tax society by the same amount it spends. This can be balanced out by taxing the rich more, maybe new deal type taxes. The government could explain that when they deficit spend the wealthy capture the money and so this needs to be taxed back again. A tough one, I know, as the wealthy will feel that they are paying for everyone's welfare. But it seems that drastic measures need to be taken.

It could be that the rich are becoming too rich and are distorting the market making everyone else poorer. They are also corrupting governments. They are also starting wars, polluting the planet, not investing enough in green energy, etc.

It seems we can't allow people to become excessively rich. It's either we do something or society will come to an end. Perhaps we need another New Deal to rein in excessive wealth, and also then governments can then deficit spend to improve society. It's like capitalism as we know it is over. This present system is destroying the world.

Did you watch the Spiders Web video I put out, which was about Britain's second empire? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NqnAp7U9vJU

These are the real issues if today.

What do you reckon?

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Calgacus

Bloomberg presents Warren Mosler as the “guy Lefties can love”.

Calgacus presents himself as a class-fighter who can read the minds of the enemies: “But the purpose and action of such neoliberals and business leaders is NOT to enrich themselves in absolute terms, but rather in relative terms, to keep themselves in the saddle, to create and maintain rigid class divisions.”#1

Bill Mitchell presents himself as a Progressive, i.e. as a true Left who brings the somewhat naive and disoriented Socialist Parties back on the right path.#2

Tom Hickey uses every opportunity to make it clear that MMT is more than macroeconomic accounting and has deep philosophical roots in Hegel/Marx.#3

Stephanie Kelton presents herself as the Mother Theresa of economics who cares about everything between babies and global warming and promises a golden MMT future with “a pony for every American”.#4

All this is crappy personality marketing.

Fact is that MMTers are NOT in any sense Left or social or caring or fighting for WeThePeople. MMT is objectively ― i.e. independently of what MMTers think or say of themselves ― agenda-pushing for WeTheOligarchy. Calgacus is part of it.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 If we only had classes
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/if-we-only-had-classes.html

#2 How Bill Mitchell stalks Jeremy Corbyn
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/08/how-bill-mitchell-stalks-jeremy-corbyn.html

#3 Note on Amy Willis ‘Can majoring in philosophy make you a better person?’
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/07/note-on-amy-willis-can-majoring-in.html

#4 The Kelton-Fraud
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-kelton-fraud.html

# Rethinking MMT
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2016/12/rethinking-mmt.html

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Kaivey

You say: “Did you watch the Spiders Web video I put out, which was about Britain’s second empire? These are the real issues if today.”

That Britain is NOT a sovereign nation but the annex to the money-making and money-laundering machine called the City of London is a well-known fact since the founding of the Bank of England.

The real issue of today is how economists helped to bring this state of affairs about. The curious fact of today is that Warren Mosler lives in a tax haven and promises full employment for WeThePeople by applying perpetual deficit-spending/money-creation. And he is supported by incompetent academics and brain-dead trolls like Kaivey.

The real issue of today is that the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” has been awarded. This has to be put in perspective.#1 Provably false:
• profit theory, for 200+ years,
• microfoundations, for 140+ years,
• macrofoundations, for 80+ years,
• the application of elementary logic and mathematics since the founding fathers.

For everyone with some scientific instinct it is quite obvious:
• Economics is a cargo cult science,
• Both Nordhaus and Romer are fake scientists,
• The economics Nobel is a fraud.

MMT perfectly fits into the big picture. The political fraud of MMT, the corruption of the British banking system, the agenda-pushing since Smith/Marx are bad, but the worst thing of all is the scientific corruption of economics in all its variants from Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, Pluralism, to MMT

This is the real issue of today

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Where economics went wrong
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/where-economics-went-wrong.html

Calgacus said...

The Economists Challenge:For those who ask 'why then do many business leaders and neoliberals cry against deficit spending?' it is because they know that it doesn't actually matter what government does, because all money MUST flow toward assets

As usual, you have misunderstood my post and seemed to have completely skipped the adjective in this line..

Sorry if I misunderstood. I do not see how. What adjective? Which word? Maybe I am blind, I am ill, but I don't see any adjective in this line. I am saying that the idea that "it doesn't matter what government does" is very wrong. That "all money must flow towards assets" is not so right, and even if so, would not necessarily mean very much. In particular, the more precise statement you called "absolutely correct" below - is quite wrong.

EKH:"Deficit-spending/money-creation has always been a program for the self-alimentation of the Oligarchy and quite naturally enjoys the support of Wall Street in general and Bloomberg in particular.

Rather, both clauses of this statement of Egmont's (who I didn't want much to talk about), are an insult to one's intelligence. Yes, it could work that way - if the government deficit-spent directly on the oligarchy on direct welfare for the rich as it does sometimes. High bond interest rates are an example. But usually it is not true. Attacks on deficit spending are almost always on "MMT welfare spending" or "New Deal spending". In that case that Egmont AND the oligarchs attack - it is VERY clearly the opposite of the truth. As shown by looking out the window. Why on earth would oligarchs so fervently and invariably attack things that enrich and empower them? They don't.

New Deal spending is not welfare for the oligarchy. Look at the real world, or note that Egmont is leaping to invalid conclusions from insufficient premises, premises that are ancient and well-known observations, not a new discovery. Egmont's irrationality can also be seen by his statement elsewhere that the effects of a Job Guarantee on employment are obscure. No, if there is a Job Guarantee there is no unemployment. Period. If the government guarantees everyone a job, everyone who wants gets a job. If there are enough ponies, and the government guarantees everyone a pony. Everyone gets a pony. It is hard to argue with someone so anti-rational to be able to disagree with this.

Assuming that I haven't confused with someone else, couldn't it be that I do understand your statements and proposals somewhat, but genuinely disagree with your proposals, in part because they violate numerous human rights laws? (I think I could easily prove this assertion) I have praised, and I meant it, your rare insight in some very important things. I apologize for piling on you a bit in another forum. On reflection, some lawfare to promote the JG is a very good idea. But getting others to understand a valid argument can be an uphill battle.

Finally, but if you don't say how a person misunderstands you, how can he come to understand you? I genuinely do try.

Dean said...

Calgacus,
You have not confused me with anyone else.

You say "Assuming that I haven't confused with someone else, couldn't it be that I do understand your statements and proposals somewhat, but genuinely disagree with your proposals, in part because they violate numerous human rights laws? (I think I could easily prove this assertion) I have praised, and I meant it, your rare insight in some very important things. I apologize for piling on you a bit in another forum. On reflection, some lawfare to promote the JG is a very good idea. But getting others to understand a valid argument can be an uphill battle.

Finally, but if you don't say how a person misunderstands you, how can he come to understand you? I genuinely do try. "

Let me be clear here:

First, I do NOT have a political agenda, I could not care less which party is in town, and I never vote. Further, I do not take sides or otherwise support workers vs oligarchy or the other way around. The people I represent make up only a small section of society and most of these people are too the same as me in this respect.

My main purpose for coming on these blogs is to determine what triggers certain reactions in people based on words used, claims put forward, evidence presented, etc, so I can learn how to communicate an idea whilst at the same time cutting through beliefs, opinions, assumptions, presumptions, ideals, subjectivity, and the plethora of images that are invoked in the mind of the reader. I do this primarily so that I can find a way to demonstrate my idea in a way that shows the other person that my idea (and that small section of society which will implement it) will not adversely affect them or the rest of society in any way shape or form. Clearly, this has been a lot harder then I first imagined.

But seeing as you have brought up my so-called 'proposal' as a violator of human rights, this is an excellent case in point.

I assume you understand the meaning of the term 'willingly' and so when you make the claim that my proposal violates numerous human rights, I must ask you, are those who will have their human rights violated the ones who willingly take part in the program, or is it the rest of society who does not take part in the program the ones who have their human rights violated?

As someone who has gone to pains to explain that my proposal is a program which everyone has the freedom to choose whether to enter it or not, then I am completely perplexed as to how it violates human rights.

Can you please clarify this for me?

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Calgacus

You say: “Attacks on deficit spending are almost always on ‘MMT welfare spending’ or ‘New Deal spending’ In that case that Egmont AND the oligarchs attack ― it is VERY clearly the opposite of the truth.”

The smart folks in the kindergarten already know that nobody can give a sh* on what politicians say about deficit-spending or austerity.#1, #2 This has always been propaganda and NOT economics. My argument is NOT about deficit-spending but about the profit effect of deficit spending.#3 It is exactly here, where the MMT fraud sneaks in.#4

You say: “… if there is a Job Guarantee there is no unemployment. Period.” Agree, but that is not the point at issue. There can be a Job Guarantee with a balanced budget and then the profit effect is ZERO. Or, there can be a Job Guarantee with deficit-spending. In this case, the Profit Law tells us that Public Deficit = Private Profit#5 and therefore the Oligarchy benefits biggly from the Job Guarantee. This is a bit ‘irrational’for a social policy measure.

I have no qualms with the Job Guarantee. This is a political decision of the Legitimate Sovereign which the economist as a scientist does NOT comment on but simply takes as a datum. My point is that the Job Guarantee is abused by MMTers to push the agenda of the Oligarchy. There are distributionally neutral ways to achieve full-employment.#6

The fraud of MMTers consists of promising social benefit and hiding the fact that WeThePeople themselves pay in real terms for every single benefit either through open or stealth taxation and by hiding the fact that deficit-spending/money-creation feeds the Oligarchy.

The social policy of MMT is a fraud. I am NOT arguing against the goals of social policy but against the fraud.#7 Whoever claims that Warren Mosler is a guy WeThePeople can love or that MMT policy benefits WeThePeople is either stupid or corrupt or both.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Austerity and the idiocy of political economists
http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/03/austerity-and-idiocy-of-political.html

#2 MMT-Progressives: stupid or corrupt or both?
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/08/mmt-progressives-stupid-or-corrupt-or.html

#3 Why the MMT benefactors of humanity never talk about profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-mmt-benefactors-of-humanity-never.html

#4 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/12/keynes-lerner-mmt-trump-and-exploding.html

#5 The profit effect of a Job Guarantee
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-profit-effect-of-job-guarantee.html

#6 Full employment through the price mechanism
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/11/full-employment-through-price-mechanism.html

#7 For details of the big picture see cross-references MMT
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/07/mmt-cross-references.html