An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
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Thursday, September 3, 2020
RT — Anthropologist David Graeber, the man behind ‘We are the 99%’ slogan, dead at 59
"We are the 90%" will be the motto of fascists. Just so you know, those with guns will number around 10%. That's what it takes to suppress the other 90.
Very sad. He commented here and at naked capitalism a little, IIRC. Remember him writing that he sent the drafts of Debt to the MMTers but they neglected to reply and they apologized for not doing so later.
Yous say: “Remember him [David Graeber] writing that he sent the drafts of Debt to the MMTers but they neglected to reply and they apologized for not doing so later.”
To recall, Debt: The First 5000 Years is about all forms of debt slavery. For the deficit cheerleaders of MMT this is not exactly an issue to popularize.
Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/06/stephanie-kelton-sells-children-into.html
Egmont, were it true that MMT sells children into debt slavery, I would oppose it. But it doesn't. Your arguments are defective and fall into (once) well-known errors. Policies springing from these errors may lead to debt slavery, not MMT deficit spending. That's what historical experience shows, and logic too. Based on those specious arguments, most Marxists or socialists (outside the USSR) had a crazy fear of deficits and helped create the tragedies of the 30s and 40s, rather than prevent them. The other exception of course was Roosevelt's USA, so the New Deal was quite to the left of, more socialist than the socialists.
If I come upon a good new, more exact reference in the 1930s & 40s debates on Keynesian economics when it was new, better than the pointers I've given before, that shows why you are mistaken, I will post it. But to follow such arguments, one needs to have somewhere the belief that "I may be mistaken". While you have good taste concerning others' works, that belief needs some internal nurturing.
There was no real issue with Graeber & the MMTers - they could have helped him on the economics and write a better book, one that was a bit less goodies v. baddies, more about structure. Hey, I think the MMTers need some similar perspective too - the right way to look at things is to see all human economies as gift economies. Nothing in economics makes sense except in light of the (often hostile) gift? :-) They don't, not enough, except for Mosler with gnomic pronouncements. Those are my gnomic pronouncements of the day.
“ Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery”
Oh right!!! Right!!!! Nice figurative language you piece of shit... Lol!!! she’s not going to sell any other human being into anything... this is a disgusting piece of figurative language ...
You art degree people are human garbage ... that is the key take away...
This is just another example of what human garbage all you art degree people are...
MMT and the unbearable lightness of public debt slavery Comment on Calgacus on ‘Anthropologist David Graeber, the man behind "We are the 99%" slogan, dead at 59’
I said “To recall, Debt: The First 5000 Years is about all forms of debt slavery” and referred to a post of mine.#1.
You answered, “Egmont, were it true that MMT sells children into debt slavery, I would oppose it.”
This if-my-grandma-had-wheels-she-would-be-an-omnibus counterfactual does NOT count as a refutation of my argument.
While nobody denies that debt slavery/bondage#2 is a historical fact and still practice in many countries, MMTers assert that no such thing can ever happen with the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation as long as the debt is internal, i.e. not denoted in foreign currency.
Of course, purely internal debt slavery happens also but WeThePeople a.k.a. the 99-percenters normally do not realize it.
MMT policy is a two-step process:
1. According to the macroeconomic Profit Law it holds PublicDeficit = PrivateProfit. While the Oligarchy gets a free lunch, WeThePeople are taxed in real terms via a one-off unnoticeable price hike (NO inflation!). Deficit-spending increases public debt but WeThePeople do not care much because they think that this is a matter of the state. This is an error. For public debt holds WeThePeople owe the debt and the Oligarchy owns the corresponding financial assets.
2. Now, there is an interest rate greater than zero on the public debt. Because the public debt is not paid off but grows continuously through deficit-spending, the interest has to be paid for an indefinite time by children, grandchildren, etcetera.
At this point, MMTers apply Lerner’s Lie: “… if our children or grandchildren repay some of the national debt these payments will be made to our children or grandchildren and to nobody else.”
No, rather, the children or grandchildren of WeThePeople will pay annuity/interest to the children or grandchildren of the Oligarchy. They will pay it in the form of taxes. And this is why WeThePeople realize NOTHING. They hate the IRS and the taxman who, as a matter of fact, acts merely on behalf of the Oligarchy who owns the financial assets as the other side of the public debt.
In real terms, the disposable income of WeThePeople’s children and by consequence their part of the output is reduced while the opposite applies to the Oligarchy’s children.
When the veil of money/deficit/debt/tax is taken away, the situation is not much different from the children of WeThePeople working part-time on the plantation of the children of the Oligarchy.#4 Therefore, it is economically correct to say that the deficit-cheerleader Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery.
Needless to emphasize that academic MMTers and their social media applause trolls stick to Lerner’s Lie and pose as progressive Friends-of-the-People. The fact is that they are merely the useful idiots of the Oligarchy.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/06/stephanie-kelton-sells-children-into.html
#2 Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage
#3 Some nasty MMT surprises behind the time horizon https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/some-nasty-mmt-surprises-behind-time.html
#4 For the broader issue of slavery/debt/interest see Leaf Garrit, British Abolition, Another Massive Taxpayer Heist http://mileswmathis.com/wilber.pdf
His stuff will now be able to be synthesized with other theses...
ReplyDelete"We are the 90%" will be the motto of fascists. Just so you know, those with guns will number around 10%. That's what it takes to suppress the other 90.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Keen is a lapsed Catholic with all the Purgatory references....
ReplyDeleteHeck.
ReplyDeleteReally sad to hear that.
Very sad. He commented here and at naked capitalism a little, IIRC. Remember him writing that he sent the drafts of Debt to the MMTers but they neglected to reply and they apologized for not doing so later.
ReplyDeleteCalgacus
ReplyDeleteYous say: “Remember him [David Graeber] writing that he sent the drafts of Debt to the MMTers but they neglected to reply and they apologized for not doing so later.”
To recall, Debt: The First 5000 Years is about all forms of debt slavery. For the deficit cheerleaders of MMT this is not exactly an issue to popularize.
Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/06/stephanie-kelton-sells-children-into.html
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
Egmont, were it true that MMT sells children into debt slavery, I would oppose it. But it doesn't. Your arguments are defective and fall into (once) well-known errors. Policies springing from these errors may lead to debt slavery, not MMT deficit spending. That's what historical experience shows, and logic too. Based on those specious arguments, most Marxists or socialists (outside the USSR) had a crazy fear of deficits and helped create the tragedies of the 30s and 40s, rather than prevent them. The other exception of course was Roosevelt's USA, so the New Deal was quite to the left of, more socialist than the socialists.
ReplyDeleteIf I come upon a good new, more exact reference in the 1930s & 40s debates on Keynesian economics when it was new, better than the pointers I've given before, that shows why you are mistaken, I will post it. But to follow such arguments, one needs to have somewhere the belief that "I may be mistaken". While you have good taste concerning others' works, that belief needs some internal nurturing.
There was no real issue with Graeber & the MMTers - they could have helped him on the economics and write a better book, one that was a bit less goodies v. baddies, more about structure. Hey, I think the MMTers need some similar perspective too - the right way to look at things is to see all human economies as gift economies. Nothing in economics makes sense except in light of the (often hostile) gift? :-) They don't, not enough, except for Mosler with gnomic pronouncements. Those are my gnomic pronouncements of the day.
“ Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery”
ReplyDeleteOh right!!! Right!!!! Nice figurative language you piece of shit... Lol!!! she’s not going to sell any other human being into anything... this is a disgusting piece of figurative language ...
You art degree people are human garbage ... that is the key take away...
This is just another example of what human garbage all you art degree people are...
Graeber deserves to get to Heaven for this short video clip in which he explains the five basic types of bullsh*t job:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/kehnIQ41y2o
MMT and the unbearable lightness of public debt slavery
ReplyDeleteComment on Calgacus on ‘Anthropologist David Graeber, the man behind "We are the 99%" slogan, dead at 59’
I said “To recall, Debt: The First 5000 Years is about all forms of debt slavery” and referred to a post of mine.#1.
You answered, “Egmont, were it true that MMT sells children into debt slavery, I would oppose it.”
This if-my-grandma-had-wheels-she-would-be-an-omnibus counterfactual does NOT count as a refutation of my argument.
While nobody denies that debt slavery/bondage#2 is a historical fact and still practice in many countries, MMTers assert that no such thing can ever happen with the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation as long as the debt is internal, i.e. not denoted in foreign currency.
Of course, purely internal debt slavery happens also but WeThePeople a.k.a. the 99-percenters normally do not realize it.
MMT policy is a two-step process:
1. According to the macroeconomic Profit Law it holds PublicDeficit = PrivateProfit. While the Oligarchy gets a free lunch, WeThePeople are taxed in real terms via a one-off unnoticeable price hike (NO inflation!). Deficit-spending increases public debt but WeThePeople do not care much because they think that this is a matter of the state. This is an error. For public debt holds WeThePeople owe the debt and the Oligarchy owns the corresponding financial assets.
2. Now, there is an interest rate greater than zero on the public debt. Because the public debt is not paid off but grows continuously through deficit-spending, the interest has to be paid for an indefinite time by children, grandchildren, etcetera.
At this point, MMTers apply Lerner’s Lie: “… if our children or grandchildren repay some of the national debt these payments will be made to our children or grandchildren and to nobody else.”
No, rather, the children or grandchildren of WeThePeople will pay annuity/interest to the children or grandchildren of the Oligarchy. They will pay it in the form of taxes. And this is why WeThePeople realize NOTHING. They hate the IRS and the taxman who, as a matter of fact, acts merely on behalf of the Oligarchy who owns the financial assets as the other side of the public debt.
In real terms, the disposable income of WeThePeople’s children and by consequence their part of the output is reduced while the opposite applies to the Oligarchy’s children.
When the veil of money/deficit/debt/tax is taken away, the situation is not much different from the children of WeThePeople working part-time on the plantation of the children of the Oligarchy.#4 Therefore, it is economically correct to say that the deficit-cheerleader Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery.
Needless to emphasize that academic MMTers and their social media applause trolls stick to Lerner’s Lie and pose as progressive Friends-of-the-People. The fact is that they are merely the useful idiots of the Oligarchy.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
#1 Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/06/stephanie-kelton-sells-children-into.html
#2 Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage
#3 Some nasty MMT surprises behind the time horizon
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/some-nasty-mmt-surprises-behind-time.html
#4 For the broader issue of slavery/debt/interest see Leaf Garrit, British Abolition, Another Massive Taxpayer Heist
http://mileswmathis.com/wilber.pdf
David Graeber on basic income
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/BEb4Bda_06c