Saturday, February 23, 2019

Jeffrey Sachs — Green New Deal is feasible and affordable


Jeffrey Sachs becomes the first major conventional economist and public figure to advocate the Green New Deal as necessary and affordable. No qualifiers. This is a huge step forward.

Jeffrey Sachs doesn't mention MMT in his justification for the affordability of the GND and associated progressive programs because he sees this policy proposal as being cost-saving rather than "budget-busting." It "pays for" itself and actually "saves" money. No need for a "socialist" government to pony up.

While I haven't seen this stated in terms of rent yet, the GND entails using true price based on true costs, which eliminates the extraction of economic rent through socializing negative externality, the bill for which is now coming due on global society and the global economy. The system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional, while the fat cats become fatter on rent extraction. Actually, they are not only predators but also parasites on the system as free riders.

Take away the rents and "capitalism" works all by itself through actual market price by preempting rent-seeking and rent extraction (as many Austrian, economists have been saying from the right and Marxist and Marxian economists from the left.

CNN
Green New Deal is feasible and affordable
Jeffrey D. Sachs | Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development, and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

3 comments:

Kaivey said...

Some good news for once.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Economists: Trolls with a mortarboard
Comment on Tom Hickey on ‘Jeffrey Sachs ― Green New Deal is feasible and affordable’

The axiomatically correct Profit Law for the economy as a whole is given by Q=Yd+(I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M) and reduces to Q=(G−T) if Yd, I, S, X, M is taken out of the picture for a moment. The reduced Profit Law says that the monetary profit of the business sector Q is equal to the deficit (G>T) of the public sector, in a nutshell: Public Deficit = Private Profit.

So, from the standpoint of plain self-interest, the one-percenters and their useful academic spokespersons should consistently argue FOR deficit spending and the ninety-nine-percenters and their academic spokespersons should consistently argue AGAINST it. Reality is different.#1, #2, #3, #4, #5

The communicative problem is this: the Oligarchy cannot argue, folks we need permanent public deficits for our economic well-being and growth of cash-backed political power, so they let their academic trolls argue, folks YOU need public deficits for YOUR social well-being and YOUR survival in view of rapidly increasing environmental hazards.#6

It was MMTers like Warren Mosler who took it upon them to actively promote deficit-spending/money-creation and a continuously growing public debt as a benefit for WeThePeople. This is a fraud because just the opposite is actually the case, that is, MMT benefits the Oligarchy. What can be currently observed, is that not only a growing number of economists is jumping on the MMT bandwagon but also opinion leaders of the Oligarchy like Warren Buffet.#7

It seems that virtually all economic schools are now for socially/environmentally enlightened capitalism with state-generated profits for the Oligarchy. The remaining tiny problem being those pesky rent-seekers who simply take their public-deficit free lunch without pretending that they work hard for the best of humanity: “… the GND [Green New Deal] entails using true price based on true costs, which eliminates the extraction of economic rent through socializing negative externality, the bill for which is now coming due on global society and the global economy. The system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional, while the fat cats become fatter on rent extraction. Take away the rents and ‘capitalism’ works all by itself through actual market price by preempting rent-seeking and rent extraction (as many Austrian, economists have been saying from the right and Marxist and Marxian economists from the left.” A great coalition of economic trolls is currently in the making.

Tom Hickey fails to realize or to mention that nothing has ever produced more profit = rent than the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation. Fabulous financial wealth is the mirror image of fabulous public debt ($22 trillion).#8

Since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, economists fail to tell WeThePeople where profit and financial wealth really come from. MMTers are only the last in a long series of storytelling academic trolls.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Austerity and the political games Progressives play
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/05/austerity-and-political-games.html

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

#3 MMT: academic snake oil for the people
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/02/mmt-academic-snake-oil-for-people.html

#4 Economics as a cover for agenda pushing
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/economics-as-cover-for-agenda-pushing.html

#5 Stephanie Kelton and the self-destructive stupidity of the super-rich
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/stephanie-kelton-and-self-destructive.html

#6 MMT: If you’ve got a problem, I don’t care what it is, let me help
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/mmt-if-youve-got-problem-i-dont-care.html

#7 MMT for beginners
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/mmt-for-beginners.html

#8 Stephanie Kelton on how to become fabulously wealthy
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/01/stephanie-kelton-on-how-to-become.html

Noah Way said...

Do not feed the troll.