Well, I suppose this is so.
What is your problem with big Gov.?
Mostly it seems to me it is "Oh my God, you want to rise my taxes" and a claim that private industry always does things more efficiently.
I point out that private industry [in this case health insurance comp. and healthcare providers] have not been efficient at all. Every other modern advanced nation spends a lot less of their GDP on healthcare and they all live longer, healthier lives. This is just one counter example, there are many others. Besides which if/when the Gov. spends on rebuilding the nation's infrastructure it will mostly do it by firing private contractors to do the work.
Gov. spending, even wasteful spending, adds to the money in the hands of the people and so helps create demand and grows the GDP. I like "ear marks", we should bring them back.
MMT claims that now that the Gov. is off the gold standard it must deficit spend almost every year to keep the economy humming along with steady growth. So, most of what I want the Gov. to do will be done with deficit spending and not by raising taxes on anyone except the super rich.
MMT points out that there are 7 times in American history that the Gov. ran a surplus for a few years in a row. In every case there was a Bank Panic, Depression, or Recession. The last case was in the late 90s which let to the Dot-comm bubble recession. BTW, the GFC/2008 was not caused by this, it was caused by excessive Private debt that could not be paid or even the payments kept up with. Which will cause another fairly soon unless Private debt is reduced and not grown. [The rich make a lot of money off growing private debt but far less off growing national debt. No wonder they like private debt over Gov. debt.]

 

double post

But, oops. Not "firing". I meant "hiring" private contractors..

 

BTW --- Way back in the 1800s Bank Panics were not as bad as they Great Depression because far more of the population were farmers. They didn't starve as long as they had their land. They could feed distant relatives also.
. . . Of the 7 times that having a Gov. surplus for several years led to a Bank Panic, Recession, or Depression; 2 or 3 have been in the 1900s and 2000s. This leaves 4 or 5 in the 1800s. In the 1800s there was just 3 wars [Mexican, Civil War, and maybe Spanish-American]. In the 1800s the Gov. deficit spent on a massive scale only during the Civil War and never without a war. So, there must be a third way to end a Bank Panic. Maybe a massive increase in gold mining?
. . . Anyone have any ideas here.

 

Oh.
You want to know what the problem is with big government?
By definition, big government interferes with freedom.
Big government has always been corrupt.
Big government is inefficient when providing services.
Big government takes away the option of choice.
What big government gives, it can take away.

Our founding fathers had a healthy fear of a too powerful government. Its why its power is restricted and more power is given to the states.

Social security is one example of how big government fucks up an otherwise good idea.

 

Well, as I said to you before, simple assertions mostly just convince the already convinced. Here I don't know specifically what you mean in every case.
Of course Gov. [big or small] interferes with complete freedom. For example, now it says you can't own people as slaves.
Of course, big organization can be corrupt, big corporations can be corrupt.
As I explained, now, the healthcare payment and delivery systems have massive inefficiencies in them.
What "choice" are you thinking of? This seems like just a restatement of the freedom one you started with.
Yes, this is sad.For example before 1930 Labor had few rights, then FDR gave Labor a bunch of rights, now most of those rights have been taken away. You probably see this as a good and proper return to the correct way it should be, while I see it as a terrible thing.
The Founding Fathers compromised with slavery, not everything they did was a good thing.
Soc. Sec. is not fucked up IMO. YMMV, and you say it does. But, you didn't say how it is fucked up, so I can't really show how you are wrong in my opinion.

 

hehehehe Shooter found a hackberry stump to argue with.

 

Shooter will explain (again) the problems with social security.
Both employees and their employers contribute to social security during the employees working life.
If the employee lives long enough the government will determine when, and how much the employee receives.
The government can change the rules at any time and even take away the benefits. If the employee leaves money in their account the government keeps it.

A simple law mandating the same employer/employee contribution but to a private retirement account that includes insurance against disability and some guidelines for investment will yield a larger benefit. The employee however controls when and how much and for how long they collect. Any residual would remain in the employees estate.

Social security was (and is) a good program. It is not as good as one private industry could provide with only minimal government intervention.

 

conroe4,
All your side seems to have in this discussion is insulting slurs like calling me a hackberry stump.
I post talks by actual tenured economics professors and you reply with insults & assertions that they and I are wrong.
No evidence just assertions.
I grok that your side is defending your strong position as the mainstream of economic thinking.
So, the burden to convince the lurkers is on my side. So, I provide evidence [the links to talks] and arguments for my side.
The thing is that my side is making gains. Your side is losing ground.
Two reasons for this are 1] The working class in America and Europe are being screwed. That is, additional wealth is being created by their work and they don't see any of that wealth in their wages. In fact they are losing inflation adjusted income. They feel the pain and want changes. Mainstream economists claim this is unavoidable, MMT economists say it can easily be changed.
2] The Repud Party keep providing evidence that [within reason] deficits don't matter. They did this by for the last 35 years pushing the national debt [which by definition is the accumulated deficits] up from $1T to $21T. All along the way there was moaning about how the shit would hit the fan very soon, but it never did. Vastly most of those deficits were under Repud Presidents or under Obama who just continued the policies the BushII Admin. put it place in response to the GFC/2008. I emphasis that he just continued what the Repud Admin. had started to do.
. . . Anyway, the shit has not hit the fan for 35 years now. The doom sayers are seeming more and more like the boy who cried Wolf.
. . . The logic says that the US Gov. can always pay its bills as they come due (Alen Greenspan said as much under oath on camera) and the Fed. Res. can and has bought T-Bonds directly from the Gov. (the law says they can't but that law has been ignored in the past and could be changed in any case.) So, the Gov. can always sell its bonds.

 

shootersa,
Did you ever hear of Bernie Madoff?
Do you realize the many investment comp. charge fees that eat into the profit?
Ever hear of churning?
The problems you see are certainly now the result in the change in the law in 1983 which changed the pay-as-you-go system into a pay-as-you-go and also Pay-ahead-of-time system. This was done to help the Gen. X pay for the larger Baby Boomers generation. The tax was increased and the small Soc. Sec. Trust Fund grew and grew to $3T. Using MMT the tax would not need to pay for all the benefits, deficit spending could pay for some. And the cap on wages that are taxed could be lifted and the tax could also be extended to Capital Gains (but at a much lower rate). So, the tax rate could be lower. One MMTer is calling for the temporary end of the FICA taxes to stimulate the economy.

 

Big government is almost never able to provide services as effectively as private industry.
You cannot put Obama's debt on Republicans, not when Obama had 8 years to choose a better path. The $10 TRILLION debt his administration ran up is on him.
The ugly secret in Washington is that a significant portion of that $10 TRILLION debt is directly attributable to Obamacare, and it is why paying off that debt will be so difficult.

 

1st, deficits don't matter until there is inflation.
2nd, the debt can never be paid down even $2T let alone $21T.
3rd, the debt doesn't ever need to be paid off. It hasn't been for over 150 years now and most of those years America was on the gold standard.
Now that America is off the gold standard, the debt certainly never needs to be paid off.
Only under the gold standard is there any benefit to paying off the Gov. debt.
In fact the Gov. debt is also, the people's savings. This is just accounting. When you get a loan to buy a car.The IOU you give to the bank is its asset (saving) and your liability (debt).
Why the Hell do you want the Gov. to tax away the people's savings? I would want to keep my savings, thank you very much.
4th, there was no better path after the Recession. Increasing the Gov. debt is the Keynesian thing to do in a Recession. Keynesian economics is also mainstream.
Austerity has been a much worse solution in Europe. The reason America is doing better than Europe is deficit spending.
5th, the economy is not doing well. You and Trump say so, but workers know they are not doing as well as they were in 2007. Ten years into the recovery and the workers are not back to where they were before the recession started. This is not my idea of a "good economy".
You are a Trumpett, so of course, you blame everything on Obama, and exaggerate things too.

 

People, the key fact that so many of you don't understand is that ---
the US Gov. is not at all like a family or like a corporation.
The US has a fiat currency, floats its currency, always borrows in its own currency, and has no foreign debt in any other currency or gold.

Besides this, the national debt is now so large that it is impossible to ever pay it off without just creating close $21T to do it.
This because if the Gov. taxes enough to run a surplus of say $200B for the required 50 years, the US economy would be forced into a Depression far worse than any in history, worse than the Great Depression and worse than the current situation in Europe.
. . . Besides, as I have said above, if we look at the Gov. debt from our point of view, then the Gov.debt becomes our (the people's) savings assets. So, why in Hell try to pay it off. I like having my savings. Why do you want the Gov. to take yours away?

 

Interesting.
Government debt is really just figures on paper. Meaningless.
We've always had debt, so don't worry.
We can't afford to pay off the debt so ignore it.

Shooter is a fairly smart fellow.
He has a college degree to prove it.
And for over 40 years was successful in his chosen career. He made a lot of money doing what he enjoyed doing.
He's also successfully raised two kids.

But this new age "debt isn't really debt" logic strikes him as little more than a pile of steaming shit trying to masquerade as elitist economic voodoo to justify a big all controlling government.
A government we can't afford, can't justify, and won't benefit from.

Must be because Shooter is a "trumpet".

 

shootersa,
If you can't pay it off and it is going to male the shit hit the fan very soon, then you are screwed, right?
So, what should the Gov. do in that case before the SHtF? I say there is nothing we can do but hope MMT is right and it will never make the SHtF.
So, your basis for your claim that we must keep the deficit small (I think this is your plan for now) is your gut feeling.
Never mind the source of your gut feeling. We are off the gold standard. Try to grok that.
Maybe the US is unique in that the dollar is the world's reserve currency. That the world was saved in the GFC/2008 by the fact that the Fed. Res. could create $26T to supply to financial markets/comp. to keep them afloat. So, if the dollar was not the reserve currency then millions would have starved and revolutions would have been common. Anyway, given the status of the dollar the people of the US can live better lives if the US deficit spends to get the economy going faster. And to do a Green New deal.
A progressive Gov. will do good things for everyone, except the super rich. Only a Progressive Gov. will adopt MMT thinking. They go hand in hand.
MMT says that the US Gov. can afford to buy anything that is for sale in US dollars. MMTers use true assumptions* and logic the "justify" its proposals. It is up to the America voters to elect Reps. who will make sure that the citizens as a whole do all benefit from all this. There is so much that needs to be done for the nation as a whole (rebuild infrastructure, etc.) and for the working poor that will trickle up (as money always does) to those more well off.

You are a Trump supporter. Is there any evidence that his policies have made a big difference in most citizens' lives? His tax cuts mostly went to the top 5% and the ones for the rest of us were temporary. So yes, they did help the economy a little, but not in a big way. Tax cuts for the working poor would have done far more. What else has he done? One MMTer has been calling for eliminating the personal part of the FICA tax for those making less than the median income [but still having their employer pay his part]. This would create a lot of demand in the economy that would add to the profits of small business and then larger businesses. Thus making everyone richer.

.*. . Yes, actually true assumptions, not the bunch of obviously false assumptions that all other schools of economics start with. Why the fuck can economists get away with this? In any other science they would be laughed at until they sat down and shut the fuck up.
. . . Some examples --- They assume that the economy is in or near equilibrium at almost all times. They did this because in the 60s there was no math that let you work with non-linear equations that feed back onto each other. But, in the 70s a new math was discovered, Chaos it was called. Dr. Steve Keen has created a computer program anyone can download for free that uses Chaos math to simulate the economy, at least one that is more like the real economy. It does strange things, but it models economic history in broad terms. Over 35 years of simulated time it --- has high inflation with high unemployment, followed by a long time with low inflation and moderately low unemployment, followed by for no apparent reason the economy veering off into deflation and high unemployment. This is exactly the economic history we see. The stagflation of the 70s, the great Moderation of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, followed by the GFC/2008. The years since.are different because of the massive input of cash by the Fed. changed things in ways that are not in the program yet.
. . . Another is --- Assuming that every buyer and seller has all the same info about every relevant fact. This is obviously false. But it is used anyway to prove that the market does everything right.

 

We can deal with the debt, and we need to.

I for one do not want, and will not tolerate, a big, inefficient, expensive all intrusive government. If you will, enjoy your chains.

The goofy "logic" you use to justify ignoring the debt and spending with no intention of paying for it is just too transparent: its nothing but a way to justify more government.

Social security is but one example of why we shouldn't let government get so big.

 

In the grand scheme of things I just want to be happy and enjoy as much of the little time I am here to without all of the things that worry me to worry me. And unfortunately with our government and the way politics are going , have always been going, I'm not going to be as happy as I would like to be but going to be as happy as I can.. I think.

 

Oh May, Don't get all wrapped up in the politics. It's mostly horseshit. Treat it as such.

<oh, and ignore rawstory, thebeast,thehill, polls, et. al.> sheesh what a load they spread. hit tip to stumbles, I'd never know these existed.

 

shootersa,
So, you don't respond to most of my specific points and questions. Well, I can't make you.
I STRONGLY ASSERT THAT --- the US can NOT DEAL WITH THE DEBT.
The US can deal with the deficit. But the deficit is not the debt.
How the f*ck do you intend to "deal with" or pay off the $21T national debt?
And, you still don't get it that all those US T-bonds are held by Americans and others. And, magically eliminating them would crash the world's economy. Do you understand that taxing $21T out of the US economy is FLATLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I already explained to the lurkers one way to solve Soc.Sec.'s problems. That you don't get it is a result of your closed mind.

 

The private sector provides excellent goods and services for those who can afford them. Many people can't. This is not really a problem with transportation. Those who cannot afford automobile transportation, and those who prefer to get along without cars, can move around by walking, riding bicycles, and taking public transportation.

With health care it is a problem, unless you think that the rich should live and the poor should die.

 

Steve American,

Your knowledge of economics is impressive. You have only been here since January 26, 2019. That has been enough time for you to learn that the right wing posters here have strong opinions. Unfortunately, they are poorly informed. They know little beyond their own lives, and what misconceptions they have picked up from FOX News and Rush Limbaugh.

Their arguments rarely if ever rise above the two bottom levels of Paul Graham's Pyramid of Disagreement:



My advice is that you respond calmly to their insults with fact based and logical arguments. You seem to be good at that.

I am not sure that I agree with you about the irrelevance of the national debt, however. At the beginning of the First World War the German government decided to pay for the German war effort almost entirely with deficit spending. They reasoned that they would win the war quickly, and pay off the national debt by exploiting land conquered to the east and west of Germany. We know how that turned out. (At least you and I do. I am not sure how much history the right wing posters of XNXX know.) German war debts plus the cost of paying reparations to the Allies led to the German inflation of the early 1920's.

In the United States Republican leaders like a high and rising national debt. It makes it difficult for the Democrat Party to spend money on those of constituents who make low incomes. The GOP benefits when white blue collar workers think, "The Democrats never did me any good. At least the Republicans won't take my guns."