MMT: overcoming the political divide.

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by a better world, Mar 12, 2020.

  1. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    But not everything is all about sustainability. By definition, extraction of a mineral resource is not sustainable. But what the hell good is such a resource unextracted? It might as well be useless rock. So to say that all mining should be halted because it is "unsustainable" is self-evidently absurd, whether you are talking about metal ores, petroleum, salt, or whatever. There are genuinely problematic unsustainable extractive industries that pose far more pressing sustainability issues than fossil fuel extraction, like destructive over-extraction of forest and fishery resources. It might be well for you to remember that the "unsustainable" petroleum industry indisputably saved most large whale species from extinction. Michael Moore's new movie, "Planet of the Humans" documents the unsustainability -- and waste and corruption -- of the "renewable energy" scam.
    Still on your "Georgism" script? Boooooorrrriiiiiinnnnng.
     
  2. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Yet you are still content to assume the cost of dealing with toxic air in Los Angeles, Delhi and Beijing will not eventually render the fossil fuel industry uncompetitive. A battery technology-breakthrough would destroy the fossil industry overnight.

    In any case the relevance of MMT to market power in natural monopolies has been demonstrated.

    [btw, Is Michael arguing against a green economy? More details, please]
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2020
  3. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    It hasn't in other places where air pollution has been cleaned up.
    That is delusional. Batteries only store energy, they don't produce it.
    Nope.
    He's showing the anti-CO2 hysteria campaign is delusional, corrupt, and bad for the environment.
     
  4. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Meanwhile Los Angeles, London, Paris, Frankfurt have yet to clean their toxic air…..

    Did I have to spell it out for you?
    Zero marginal cost electricity from sunshine and wind, stored in sufficient quantity (via batteries or pumped hydro storage} will bankrupt the fossil industry, leading to stranded fossil (the name fits) assets everywhere.

    Well..that was easy for you, at least.

    You well know my thoughts on that debate. I like CO2. But if the climate scientists are correct?

    In any case, a clean green economy will be emerge by itself, as sunshine/wind and storage becomes cheaper than filthy fossil extraction, including toxic waste treatment. (Waste recycling in a green economy will be less harmful than dealing with toxic gases from burning fossil fuels).

    And MMT would certainly speed that process, by removing funding and investment from profit seeking private sector conglomerates, and using the currency issuing capacity of the state instead, to build the necessary infrastructure.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2020
  5. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    A horrifying description of the triumph of neoliberalism and the destruction of democracy:

    Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America

    Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

    https://www.ineteconomics.org/persp...fj86Cr5-ZjKn5Sgqp3qxm2A#.XrAHML5psH4.facebook

    "MacLean details how partnered with Koch, Buchanan’s outpost at George Mason University was able to connect libertarian economists with right-wing political actors and supporters of corporations like Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and General Motors. Together they could push economic ideas to the public through media, promote new curricula for economics education, and court politicians in nearby Washington, D.C".

    A terrifying read.....all because of Buchanan's pathological hatred of government intervention in the economy.
     
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  6. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    But Tokyo, the world's largest city, has done quite well. London's air is far cleaner than it was even 100 years ago.
    Fantasy. Watch "Planet of the Humans." It's free on youtube.
    But is physically impossible.
    Anti-CO2 hysteria is not science, and those who disseminate it are not scientists. The increase in global temperature over the last 200 years has almost all been a natural return to more normal Holocene temperatures following the coldest 500y period in the last 10Ky, and it is not a threat to humanity in any way. Both increased CO2 and warmer global climate are beneficial. CO2 will continue to rise, but temperature will not. It's that simple.
    No. See above.
    That would be a grotesque misuse of the government's currency issuance power.
     
  7. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Sustainability, as employed by environmental economics, makes your reliance on orthodox Pigovian tax particularly naive. Might want to work on that ;)
     
  8. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Sustainability, as employed by environmental economics, makes your reliance on orthodox Pigovian tax particularly naive. Might want to work on that ;)
     
  9. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, I'll stick to empirically valid definitions, thanks.
     
  10. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Back to your dodge already! To what extent did Georgescu-Roegen celebrate externalities and believe it provided a key response to ecological needs?
     
  11. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Well AGW-CO2 climate change will certainly be contested for some time to come.

    What, building sufficient infrastructure to achieve zero marginal cost electricity (eg, pumped hydro storage dams) would be a grotesque misuse of resources?

    Cf with our current "wealth creation" via junk consumer-based "invisible hand" economics?

    I think one day the world will abandon money altogether - and merely reward special effort/talent with special access to certain goods/resources.
    When we have eradicated poverty and war on earth and have a flourishing international (rather, inter-ethnic) colony on Mars.

    BTW, Reiver mentioned Georgescu Roegen; I'm not so pessimistic about available resources, since nano-techology will likely prove invaluable for creating "anything out of anything" (as the ancient goal of alchemy at last proves to be possible?)
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2020
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You can quibble over elements of the approach, but the focus on destruction is relevant (particularly in highlighting how resources must be taken into account before making blanket claims over the wonders of trade through comparative advantage). It is interesting, mind you, how ecological economics advertises the desperate conservatism of the Internet Georgists. They're still stuck in a world, ironically, where externalities are easily solved. Just land value tax and Pigovian tax? Yep, they inherently think utopia ensues.
     
  13. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    From professor Bill Mitchell's MMT blog today:

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=44965

    US labour market in peril as a result of political choices made by the US government

    "Things are looking very bleak. To me, the data tells me that the US is a failed stateincapable of using the capacity the government possesses to advance the well-being, or, in this case, protect the well-being of its people.
    I am also working on an extended piece on the way the Right and the Left are behaving in this crisis. As usual, the Right are organised and forward-looking putting assets into strategies that will take their agenda to another (pernicious) level. Under the smokescreen of the crisis, they are working to cement changes that will make it even harder for government to advance general prosperity. Meanwhile, the Left appear to be asleep as usual – tweeting their heads off about Biden or Sanders and have taken their eyes off the main game. We have been there before. Even though the US labour market has probably never been here before!"
     
  14. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    It is your relentless red herrings that are the dodge. Declining to be distracted by irrelevancies is not a dodge, though you will continue to falsely claim it is because you know that it is you who must dodge. Watch:
    See? Why would anyone care what Georgescu-Roegen celebrated? Rightly criticizing both neoclassical and Marxist economics is better than nothing, and Georgescu-Roegen at least discerned that their shared error had something to do with natural resources; but that is not enough to make one right about everything -- or anything -- else.

    It is remarkable that you so readily give credence to every sort of economic nonsense, yet always resolutely reject the truth.
     
  15. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No it won't. It's already on its last legs as an empirically testable hypothesis. It will become more and more indisputable that the earth is not warming beyond natural levels seen previously in the Holocene, despite continued more or less exponential increase in atmospheric CO2. It will also become more and more indisputable that both increased CO2 and warmer climate are net benefits to humanity. Take it to the bank.
    Correct.
    Not sure what you are saying, there.
    Lots of people have strange ideas.
    <sigh> More of the silly Malthusian nonsense....
    Georgescu-Roegen didn't understand a lot of things, including the three types of natural resources: minerals that are inherently depleted by use; fertility that can be used sustainably only up to a certain level; and location (including things like sunlight and the electromagnetic spectrum) that is never depleted, only occupied.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2020
  16. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    :lol: You just love to make $#!+ up, don't you? Internet Georgists can be called many things, but "conservative" is not one of them.
    No, you just made that $#!+ up, like pretty much everything else you falsely claim about anyone who is willing to know economic facts about land. Some externalities are easily resolved, others are not, and no geoist I have ever heard of has ever said otherwise.
    No, you continue to just make $#!+ up. It is simply false, disingenuous and deceitful to say that those who propose reforms that would make conditions a lot better are claiming those reforms would make conditions perfect. Why do you always feel you have to make false claims about geoist ideas?
     
  17. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You don't see the amusement in your reliance on externalities as you ignore ecological economic alternatives? I certainly do ;)
     
  18. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    So you and BHK have disappeared without trace. Not surprising, since your "government money is taxpayer money" neoliberal brain-wash has been exposed.
     
  19. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The state doesn't have anything that it didn't steal from others. There is no "state's available resources and productive capacity". I refer to Gono because his actions are the natural consequences of the sort of thinking behind MMT.
     
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  20. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I work 60 hours a week, I have young children, and elderly family to take care of. What do you do other than proselytize the virtues of your holy government and it's divine authority while demanding that others produce and toil on your behalf?
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2020
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  21. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My role is to question your faith in the divinity of the state and your quasi-religious belief in it's rightful authority to rule and control the economic activity of people.
     
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  22. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Yes, well the natural consequence of your delusional Libertarian/Anarchist stance* is the idea that money is wealth, because that is your lived experience (and the lived experience of all of us).

    Hence you confuse your lived experience - which indeed informs you that money is wealth, with the reality that available resources and productive capacity, NOT money, are the source of a nation' wealth. The sovereign government is not constrained by money, as you and I are constrained. The sovereign government issues the ****ing stuff, whether it be dollars, yen, renminbi, or whatever.
    The constraint for government IS the nation's available resources and productive capacity. Nothing to do with "stealing"; the nation either has available resources or it doesn't.

    From the OP (re Warren Mosler):

    "You now have the operational answer to the question: “How are we going to pay for it?” And the answer is: the same way government pays for anything, it changes the numbers in our bank accounts. The federal government isn’t going to “run out of money,” as our President has mistakenly repeated. There is no such thing".

    *Libertarianism/Anarchism: delusional, because self-interest not counter-balanced by rule of law will lead to extinction.

    eg, if discovery and distribution of a covid-19 vaccine is left to private commercial interests, the virus will always be present somewhere in the world, because many people will not be able to pay for it (there's that phrase again), requiring permanent lockdown of international borders.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2020
  23. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    So you are busy; at least you have bothered to defend your (albeit erroneous) stance, unlike your similarly confused correspondent Ted, who won't be able to defend, in logic, his Anarchist utopian fantasy; cf MMT which actually describes the way money is created (but is hidden from the public)…. without reference to "divine authority" at all.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2020
  24. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Neoliberalism actually REQUIRES that some citizens are refused participation in the workforce (see NAIRU). OTOH "toiling" by no means guarantees escape from poverty.

    The real wealth creators are the scientists, educators, food producers, engineers, clothing, transport and IT people. The rest is often health destroying garbage. As is seen in this pandemic; the Fed could have paid the lost income of laid-off workers for as long as required, without debt or inflation concerns, while supporting the essential economy.

    And Bezos - a retailer - is on the way to becoming the world's first $trillionaire, while whole nations are seeking IMF support (despite the usual devastating consequences of asking for that "support"), demonstrating the madness of economic orthodoxy.
     
  25. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    Statism has certainly supplanted religion for the zealots and to speak against it is heresy to statists. I grew weary of discussing it with statist zealots long ago, no matter their denomination and I envy your ability to do so after all of these years (and I thank you for tolerating mine all of those years ago).

    Oh, I just purchased a hardback copy of "For Us, The Living". Looking forward to reading it.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2020

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