Bill Mitchell — What is the problem with rising dependency ratios in Japan – Part 1?

Later this week I will be in Japan for a series of presentations and meetings with a broad spectrum of Japanese politics. The various hosts of the events which I will confirm in Wednesday’s blog post are all committed to advancing an MMT understanding in Japan and ending the hold that ‘sound finance’ has on the public policy debates and regularly lead to poorly contrived policy shifts (such as the recent sales tax hike) in pursuit of lower fiscal deficits. As part of my preparation for my presentations I have been studying various aspects of the Japanese situation so that I can address the issues with a solid evidence base. One of the recurring themes put forward by the ‘sound finance’ lobby (which includes much of the economics profession both inside and outside of Japan) is that its ‘challenging’ demography demands that the Government move to surplus to ‘save up’ to avoid the impending fiscal disaster associated with a rising dependency ratio. This issue is not confined to Japan, of course. It is just that Japan’s demography is a little further down the ageing road than other nations. But while rising dependency ratios matter and need attention, the construction of the problem by the ‘sound finance’ lobby misses the point completely and their ‘solution’ to their ‘non problem’ only serves to exacerbate the real problem. That is what today’s blog post is about. In Part 2, I will elaborate more on the nature of the productivity challenge and some of the options that have been suggested to deal with it.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
What is the problem with rising dependency ratios in Japan – Part 1?
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — Neoliberal economic Groupthink alive and well in Europe

It is Wednesday so only a couple of snippets today. I was going to write about the BBC’s ridiculous attempt to portray Jeremy Corbyn as a sort of Russian-spy-type-dude in its Newsnight segment last Thursday (March 15, 2018). They manipulated his peaked hat (via Photoshop or through lighting) to make it look like a typical Lenin-type “Soviet stooge” hat and presented him against a red Kremlin skyline of Red Square (href=”https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/newsnight-denies-photoshopping-jeremy-corbyn-image-to-make-him-look-russian-a3792681.html”>Source). The BBC denied they had altered the hat but then admitted the BBCs “excellent,hardworking) graphics team … had the contrast increased & … colour treated) but it was only accidental (not!) that he was made to look as Leninesque as possible. Amazing how deep the anti-neoliberal Groupthink has penetrated. This is the public broadcaster! But Groupthink is alive and well in Europe and doing its best to pervert, distort, stifle and suppress debate on important matters relating to democratic freedoms and the failure of the EU.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Neoliberal economic Groupthink alive and well in Europe
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Black — Debt Derangement Syndrome: Saving Our Grandkids from Wall Street

Pete Person again with "The Grandchild Guilt Gambit (G3)."

New Economic Perspectives
Debt Derangement Syndrome: Saving Our Grandkids from Wall Street
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

David Dayan — Debate Moderators Under the Spell of Deficit-Obsessed Billionaire Pete Peterson

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an organization that is virtually unknown outside of Washington, was nonetheless cited in four different questions during this year’s presidential and vice-presidential debates.

Moderators Elaine Quijano and Chris Wallace, seemingly unable to string together an intelligent thought about domestic policy on their own, outsourced their questions to a cabal of self-styled serious grown-ups who believe that advocating for cutting Social Security and Medicare makes them look like paragons of virtue.…

 Sociologists, psychologists and PR people call it cultivating an image — of being VSPs —Very Serious Persons.

HRC is in Peterson's pocket, in addition to that of George Soros, Wall Street, Saudi Arabia and all the rest of Bill and Hillary's patrons and donors.

The Intercept

Debate Moderators Under the Spell of Deficit-Obsessed Billionaire Pete Peterson

David Dayan

Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute and former BOE policy wonk, doesn't understand BOE sets rates

First of all we know about Pete Peterson and his self-serving and subversive mission to end Social Security.

He's been known to hire lackey's who are nothing more than relentless, high paid human propaganda machines for his sick mission. Guys like David Walker, that lying SOB who I got to admit that Social Security checks would never bounce and there was no issue with insolvency.

Now here's Adam Posen. He's the head of the Peterson Institute a deep pocketed think tank that works to spread the lies and support the liars who would make Peterson's dream of ending Social Security come true.

Posen was on the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, yet here's what he said back in February with respect to the possibility of Brexit.

"Very high interest rates."

So there you have again, another example of a guy in a high policy post who doesn't have a fucking clue that it is the Bank of England--the very fucking institution this guy works for--that sets interest rates.

Let's hope the other morons over at the BOE don't think this way, too. I won't be holding my breath.

Brad DeLong — Avi Rabin-Havt: “Why Is the CBO Concocting a Phony Debt Crisis?

Been reading too much of the propaganda from the Peterson people? They are just making stuff up.

WCEG — The Equitablog
Must-read: Avi Rabin-Havt: “Why Is the CBO Concocting a Phony Debt Crisis?Brad DeLong

William K. Black — Democrats Need to Give Up Being Deficit Hawks Even When it Feels Good Politically

No, we need to return to non-simplistic, real economics, and stop spreading simplistic myths about money and federal deficits spread by Wall Street vultures eager to profit from the destruction of the safety net.

This is what Bernie should be saying.

I am not so sure that the Democrats are as guilty of playing politics as Bill is. I would say that they are simply financially and economically illiterate — morons rather than manipulators. They have bought into all the myths and associated shibboleths.

New Economic Perspectives
Democrats Need to Give Up Being Deficit Hawks Even When it Feels Good Politically
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

Bill Black — Wall Street Declares War on Bernie Sanders

The sheriff is back in town.

New Economic Perspectives
Wall Street Declares War on Bernie Sanders
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

Steven Rosenfeld — Will Democrats Try To Kill The Party's Progressive Wing To Regain Power?

The GOP went after its more principled wing. Will Democrats follow?

Absolutely. Didn't the election show that the votes are on the right? (snark)

AlterNet
Will Democrats Try To Kill The Party's Progressive Wing To Regain Power?
Steven Rosenfeld

Salon
“I hear you”: President Obama responds to midterm rout of Democrats, lays out centrist agenda

Luke Bunker

Obama said, the two parties could find common ground on “tax reform that closes loopholes,” which would allow for a lowering of corporate tax rates.… 

Finally, the president called for cooperation on international trade agreements.

Just what the public signaled it wants. Not.

Obama also announced that he will soon ask Congress to authorize American air strikes against the Islamic State militant group; a chorus of bipartisan critics had decried the administration’s decision this year to launch the strikes without seeking congressional approval. The president reaffirmed that the U.S. was engaged in the struggle against the Islamic state for “the long term.”

War is always popular — without boots on the ground.

Angry Bear — The Big Lie at the Core of Pete Peterson’s Attack on the Baby Boomers

Pete Peterson and Bank of America team up to stoke generational warfare in order to privatize Social Security. Another blood boiler.

Angry Bear

The Big Lie at the Core of Pete Peterson’s Attack on the Baby Boomers
run75441

Steven Rosenfeld — How Deficit Hawks Are Pitting Millennials Against Seniors to Attack Social Security and Medicare

Pete Peterson and cronies at work. Disgusting.

AlterNet
How Deficit Hawks Are Pitting Millennials Against Seniors to Attack Social Security and Medicare
Steven Rosenfeld

Mary Bottari — What a Victory: How a $40 Million Attack on the Middle Class Went Up in Smoke

The blow-by-blow of the grassroots v. the astroturf.

AlterNet
What a Victory: How a $40 Million Attack on the Middle Class Went Up in Smoke

Mary Bottari | Director of the Center for Media and Democracy’s Real Economy Project and editor of the www.BanksterUSA.org site for bank busting activists

Dave Johnson — 5 Billionaires who are making life miserable for ordinary Americans

Pete Peterson is right at the top of the list.

Here is how it works these days: You start hearing about a big, national problem and then it becomes a drumbeat. First there are a few articles and columns mentioning that such-and-such is a problem. Then a number of articles appear, then a “study” from a “think tank” confirms the problem and sounds the alarm about how terrible it is, and then just as the issue seems to be the only thing you are hearing about a solution is presented. Of course, the solution always involves taking something away from you and giving it to some company or industry standing in front of a billionaire or three. The right question to start asking when you hear about these “problems” is which billionaire is driving this.

Here are five-plus examples of billionaires who use their money to try to get us to think what they want us to think in order to enact a right-wing economic agenda.

Salon
5 Billionaires who are making life miserable for ordinary Americans
Dave Johnson, Alternet

When they try to scare you with the national debt, give them the national assets

I'm sure you've heard of the debt clock, right? That is that big electronic billboard ticking away at light speed in Times Square that shows the size of the national debt, which is currently at $17.3 trillion, and debt per citizen at $54,000.

Well, what they don't show you are the national assets, which are at least five times more. The national assets are $108 trillion and assets per citizen are at $341,000.

Walk into any bank and ask them for a loan. Then say, "Here are my debts." What do you think the banker is going to ask you? What are your assets!

However, in our national dialogue about debt our assets are never even mentioned. And by the way, our assets are WAAAAAY more than $108 trillion. If you count land value, natural resources, intellectual assets, etc, it's probably closer to a quadrillion dollars.

David Walker responds to my tweet

He calls himself "Deficit Ranger." Oh brother.

@mikenorman - Your clip is a gross misrepresentation of my interview via selective editing. My comment was on current not L/T solvency. DW

— Dave Walker (@DeficitRanger) December 29, 2013

Says I "misrepresented" him and he was referring to the "long-term" deficit. So, we're going to run out of dollars in the long term, David?

Here's Greenspan.

Mary Bottari — Astroturf “Fix the Debt” Caught Ghostwriting for College Students

...Jon Romano, press secretary for the inside-the-beltway PR campaign “Fix the Debt” and its pet youth group, The Can Kicks Back, have been caught writing op-eds for college students and placing the identical op-eds in papers across the country.

This is the latest slip-up in Fix the Debt’s efforts to portray itself as representing America’s youth. Previously, they were caught paying dancers to participate in a pro-austerity flash mob and paying Change.org to gather online petition signers for them.The newspapers involved in the scam were not amused.

Campaign for America's Future

Astroturf “Fix the Debt” Caught Ghostwriting for College Students

Mary Bottari

PRWatch — Pete Peterson Exposed: The "Grand Bargain" Hoax

Pete Peterson Exposed: The "Grand Bargain" Hoax

PRWatch

karoli — Obamacare Is Right-Wing Proxy For Social Security and Medicare

Despite all the sound and fury about Obamacare, here's the truth: It's not the prime target of the right. The real targets are Medicare and Social Security, as Rep. Barton admits in the video above when he says he wants "real reforms in entitlements".

Over the past couple of weeks, it's become apparent to me and many others that this entire showdown is not over Obamacare. The ACA is a convenient patsy because it is new, untested, and they've managed to poison public opinion around it over the past three years.
The real target is Social Security and Medicare. From a political standpoint, waging a war using those programs as hostage would be so wildly unpopular no sane or insane politician would dare choose that route. And so Obamacare has become the convenient stand-in, a cardboard stand-in for their real goals.

As Diane noted in her post here, the New York Times published an exposé showing how this strategy formed over the months since Barack Obama's re-election. As usual, it was financed and formed by the Kochs and their right-wing partners. But the Kochs are hardly the only players in this particular round of attacks.

Attacking the safety net from the 'left'

Billionaire Pete Peterson has been instrumental in creating a campaign to kill Social Security and Medicare that gives the appearance of coming from the left. His "FixTheDebt" campaign launched in 2011 was crafted to fool centrists and even those calling themselves liberals into believing there was a crisis afoot that must be fixed.

In many ways, Peterson's astroturf campaign has been far more insidious than the Koch effort, if for no other reason than the way they try to disguise themselves as "independent" and "centrist" with left-leaning roots.

Read the rest. The real rightist agenda and strategy exposed. "Disaster capitalism" as articulated in her eponymous book is the favored tactic of neoliberalism in attacking popular programs. Now they are going for the throat of the welfare state all out in order to replace it with the neoliberal "market state" run by crony capitalism to complete the process of enclosure through privatization in the name of "freedom" (theirs) and "efficiency" (in looting).

Crooks & Liars
Obamacare Is Right-Wing Proxy For Social Security and Medicare
karoli

See also

The Wichita Eagle

Rep. Pompeo: Shutdown is about substantial entitlement reform
Bill Wilson

In a wide-ranging interview, the Republican congressman from Wichita voiced his discomfort with the ongoing shutdown, while dismissing the Oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline set by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew as “not a magical date” and proclaiming that Republicans will agree to raise the debt ceiling when Democrats agree to reform Social Security, Medicare and the president’s signature health care law.

Thom Hartmann — Why Is Obama Taking Orders From A Secretive Billionaire?

Peter Peterson, founder and chairman of Peter G. Peterson Foundation. (Photo: Lingjing Bao / Talk Radio News)

Truth-Out
Why Is Obama Taking Orders From A Secretive Billionaire?
Thom Hartmann, The Thom Hartmann Show | Op-Ed

Ryan Grim — Bill Clinton At Deficit Summit: 'Paul Krugman Is Right In The Short Run'

Former President Bill Clinton began his appearance at Pete Peterson's annual fiscal summit Tuesday by approvingly invoking the name of the movement's arch ideological enemy.

Paul Krugman, The New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, has been the leading opponent of deficit hysteria and austerity, while Peterson has spent some $500 million since 2007 encouraging deficit reduction.Clinton, interviewed on a keynote panel by MSNBC's Tamron Hall, began by saying he wanted to address "one factual dispute."

"I think everybody in this debate has an obligation to say what they believe," said Clinton. "I think Paul Krugman's right in the short run, and Pete Peterson and Simpson-Bowles and all those guys, everybody's right in the long run. And the question is timing." 

By raising the specter of Krugman, the bane of the deficit-hawk movement, Clinton is sending another signal that the politics of austerity are waning. "It's obvious that if you overdo austerity, you get Europe," he said, noting 12 percent unemployment on the continent.

Clinton's very appearance at the summit, however, testifies to the movement's enduring strength. Clinton was sure to speak out Tuesday against the problem of long-term debt. He warned that if interest rates spiked unexpectedly, the resulting increase in debt costs would "make the sequester look like a Sunday afternoon walk in the park."

The Huffington Post

Bill Clinton At Deficit Summit: 'Paul Krugman Is Right In The Short Run'

Ryan Grim

OK, Clinton is either a moron or subversive of public interest, being in the pocket of the elite. But, to come out in favor of Paul Krugman at a Pete Peterson event is a huge step forward. Count it a win for MMT to the degree it influenced Krugman.

Clinton was sure to speak out Tuesday against the problem of long-term debt. He warned that if interest rates spiked unexpectedly, the resulting increase in debt costs would "make the sequester look like a Sunday afternoon walk in the park."

Now that insolvency has been buried, inflation, interest rates, and the yield curve is the next area that needs to be tackled. This is where the push back is coming from. While Scott Fullwiler dealt with this issue in Interest Rates and Fiscal Sustainability, it needs to be broken down so that non-economists can easily grasp it and repeated widely. There's already a lot of work done on this, for example, the MMT Fiscal Sustainability Teach-In and Counter-Conference.

But apparently word hasn't spread sufficiently yet.