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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    Nothing can guarantee above-poverty participation in the economy. Justice requires a secure, equal liberty right of all to access economic opportunity, not successful participation.
     
  2. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Now you ARE sounding like a 'right-winger'.....

    MMT guarantees above-poverty participation in the economy

    When the resources exist, and given that everyone WANTS to participate, then justice demands above poverty reward* for said participation.
    See article 25 of the UNUDHR.

    *not the same as equality of outcome
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2020
  3. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    The left is egalitarian/socialist, the right elitist/capitalist. I'm more of a centrist because I oppose both socialism and capitalism.
    No, it only guarantees an above-poverty income, not above-poverty participation.
    Bingo. Some aren't willing or able to do so.
    No, justice only demands rewards commensurate with contributions. Charity is different from justice.
    The UNUDHR is trash, sorry.
     
  4. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    This was ironically of use, given you revealed that you dont actually understand the Pigovian tax. That its a supply side correction is just fact. Any impact on demand is post-policy, reflecting the consequence on price by shifting the supply curve.

    Neither do you show any appreciation of the Coase Theorem. Your fellow right wingers will typically refer to it as its a means to avoid direct government intervention. They will remark that it requires idiotic assumptions. It requires a government with perfect knowledge, knowing exactly how much to shift the supply curve to eliminate the overconsumption/overproduction. it also requires a government which is not interested in re-election such that, unlike smoking and fuel examples, it doesn't just become a less visible regressive revenue raiser.

    And the Coase Theorem? It reduces the information requirements. The government merely just needs to protect property rights. Chicken farms wanting to pollute the local river? If the government assigns ownership to the people then the industrial farmers have to pay for the privilege. Unlike the Pigovian tax, the victims of the externality are empowered.

    Now, as I've already said, the Theorem's real motivation is to derive the importance of transaction costs. Of course that leads you back to the reality that the New Institutionalist approach to property rights is only superficially different from Marx. Ouch, no wonder you're so angry on here ;)
     
  5. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    You should see what happened on the PF "top income brackets should be taxed at 99%" thread.

    When I proposed an international rules based system, his Libertarian soul imploded....
     
  6. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Being argumentative is really the end goal. They use their script, just like the big business owned fake libertarians, to pretend distinctiveness. Any difference is surface deep. Scratch a little and the same limitations are revealed. We saw that, for example, with their rejection of ecological economics and dismissal of discrimination. Their anti-Marxist tirades are on a par with McCarthyism.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2020
  7. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No it isn't.
    Wrong again. It doesn't shift the supply curve. It just increases the price to the consumer, reducing quantity and thus price to the producer.
    You can never resist just makin' $#!+ up, can you?
    Which unlike your garbage, at least has the virtue of being true.
    Huh? You have become confused, and lost your way.
    Were you under an erroneous impression that you were offering some sort of argument, there?
    But absurdly increases the institutional ones.
    Wrong again. It must also fully specify, universalize and assign them, and it can't.
    BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAA!!

    "If"!

    You are priceless.
    On Planet Zondo, where you apparently live.
    Your naivety is touching. The real motivation is to erase all rights but property rights, so that the amount of rights each person has is equal to the amount of property they own.
    If you are not rich, and you are not angry, then you do not understand what the rich are doing to you.
     
  8. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    As I said, you haven't got a clue. How does it increase the price? By shifting the supply. That generates a movement in the quantity demanded. Crikey, even your Georgist pal knew that in their efforts to talk elasticites and tax burden.

    It is always difficult to respond to you as your one liners are always just flamebait or dodge. This amused me though. Like the standard right winger, you do have a preference for conspiracy theory. The Coase Theorem makes no comment about erasing property rights. It merely describes how the Pigovian tax ignores the importance of property rights, but highlights the key element of transaction costs: bargaining (particularly in the face of specific moral hazards).
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2020
  9. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Nope. It just increases the price along the existing demand curve, reducing quantity on the existing supply curve, too. Econ 101.
    No, the increased price does.
    Elasticity just indicates the responsiveness of quantity to price, it doesn't shift the supply curve.
    That's not what I said. Pay attention instead of looking for opportunities to misconstrue and make up gratuitous insults.
    Wrong. It merely assumes property rights have priority over other rights.
    So the neoliberal "solution." Like I said.
     
  10. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Hahaha! That would be a disequilibrium and mean excess supply. It is a supply side effect, ensuring the new equilibrium takes into account the true cost of the behaviour.

    Understood by shifting the supply curve upwards. You're again replicating right wing expectations here mind you ;)

    Without a shift in the curve, the elasticity of demand is irrelevant.

    When confronted with things you don't understand, you really do grunt non-economic twaddle. It makes no comment over priority of rights. It merely refers to how externalities remain problematic when rights are ill-formed.

    Neoliberalism's main demand is coercing inefficient inequalities. Your insistence on regressivity is Neoliberalism 101
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2020
  11. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Sure. And your point would be...? Don't tell me you're one of those naive neoclassical dabblers who think economics is all about equilibrium!
    That's not a supply side effect.
    Nope. Flat wrong. Quantity just moves to the left.
    <yawn>
    ?? Inexplicable.
    Hehe. That it "makes no comment" is certainly true. It just assumes.
    As they inevitably are when you assume they are all property rights. Kinda my point...
    Nope. Flat wrong, because regressivity can be efficient. You lose.
     
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    I appreciate that you dont know much economics, but understanding the Pigovian tax really isnt difficult. Ask your Georgist mate, they seem to know more. They can hold your hand to understanding supply and demand

    You're the one reliant on neoclassical analysis into externalities.

    Thats pitiful. That its supply side is just matter of fact. In the same way, a subsidy through positive externalities is demand side.

    Right winger wanting the poor to pay more tax? Shock horror!! ;)
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2020
  13. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Fundamentally wrong.

    MMT REQUIRES participation, as part of it's guarantee of full employment in the economy.

    This requirement can be met - not by force - but means of a variable JG pool of workers (which varies according to the business cycle), by matching individual abilities with local needs not supplied by the private market, when then market itself is not capable of achieving full employment (which is always the case, see below), and also to counter the normal business cycles of "invisible hand" capitalist markets.

    Note: neoliberal NAIRU economists claims "full employment" is that which is defined by the NAIRU mythology ie full employment is said to exist when a certain rate of unemployment exists, specified by the NAIRU.
    The ultimate contradiction in terms, courtesy of neoliberal orthodoxy!

    As to the "above poverty" requirement: the productive capacities of modern post industrial (robot enhanced) economies is such that no-one need be working below the poverty level.

    Certainly, elected governments might decide to change resource allocation determined by the "invisible hand" market, to allow achievement of universal participation at above poverty level, if such change in resource allocation is required; but the wealth that modern economies are capable of producing is certainly sufficient to meet the above requirements.

    Can you specify why and/or which Rights are trash?
     
  14. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    The only way it can guarantee full "employment" above the poverty level is by paying people who don't actually produce enough to earn wages above the poverty level. It can't REQUIRE their participation at that level because they are not CAPABLE of participation at that level.
    I agree NAIRU is anti-economic nonsense concocted to paper over the real cause of unemployment: the forcible removal of people's rights to liberty and their conversion into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners.
    No one? I'm guessing you have never been an employer. Some people just can't -- or won't -- do any job well enough to earn more than poverty wages. Sorry, that's just the way it is.
    Certainly we can produce enough wealth to raise everyone out of poverty. But we can't make everyone produce that much themselves. It's impossible.
    Articles 22-29 are all trash with no basis in a genuine understanding of rights.
     
  15. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    So you are saying neoclassical economics is always wrong about everything?? Come on. Not even Marx was wrong about everything.
    Non sequitur.
    Thanks for confirming that you have no choice but to make $#!+ up and falsely attribute it to me in order to evade the fact that just and efficient taxation may in some instances be regressive.
     
  16. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Zero comment from you, as usual. I've always said that a pluralist perspective is vital. Of course neoclassical analysis can be correct. It has some relevance, for example, in understanding international trade (and ironically also when international trade is damaging). What gets me is that the Pigovian Tax and the Coase Theorem build from the same perspective. Even though you don't understand that perspective, you ramble on incoherently about how one is right and the other is wrong. It doesn't surprise that you've chosen the one which harms the poor and does naff all for justice. That's your nature isn't it?
     
  17. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Objectively false, as usual.
    Except when I use facts to support liberty, justice and prosperity.
    Only in the broadest sense that they are both about economics, assume exchange in markets, etc.
    That's objectively false, as costs commensurate with deprivations inflicted on others is justice by definition.
    Objectively false. You just can't understand the concept that whether a cost is just or not does not depend on the payer's financial condition. It ONLY depends on whether the cost is commensurate with a deprivation the payer is inflicting on others.
     
  18. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    One liners again, no content. That the Pigovian Tax and the Coase Theorem are built from the same perspective is just a matter of fact. Crikey, you can show them on the same bleedin supply and demand diagram. Why don't you know this? Its like you're a right winger that hasn't bothered to understand what's going on ;)
     
  19. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    By payer, do you mean buyer?

    I'm thinking of those people who can't afford to buy food when prices rise above a certain level (due to drought etc or some sort of macro financial dysfunction). The ultimate injustice.

    So "the payer" is not the buyer, but the seller, in my above example? Can you clarify?

    {But even so, a rich farmer CAN afford to sell food at a lower price to a poor buyer, also a 'just' outcome, don't you think).

    I am concerned with your ideas of justice, because of statements like this from you:

    Like I said, we are all capable of participating whether or not we are capable of actually "creating wealth"; eg, visiting the isolated elderly in nursing homes is worthy participation, surely.

    So, why must 'justice' demand some people are to be denied above poverty participation in a JG program? This is professor John Harvey's point: if the productivity capacity of an economy is more than sufficient , the MORAL thing for the community to do is to guarantee above poverty participation.

    No doubt your peculiar (IMO) concept of justice is why you reject those articles 22-29 from the UNUDHR...

    Btw, I've have never been an employer; but how are bankers who profit from charging interest on loans - and landlords who profit from charging rent for accommodation - "wealth" producers?
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2020
  20. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, a taxpayer.
    That may be a problem, even a tragedy, but it is not necessarily an injustice.
    We were talking about the potential regressivity of Pigovian taxes.
    OK, your idea of participation above the poverty level is different from mine.
    Because they can't or won't do it.
    It can't. It can keep people out of destitution, but it can't change who they are.
    Maybe.
    The landlord presumably paid, even if indirectly, for the accommodation to be produced, and has earned that portion of the rent, anyway. He also presumably provides maintenance, etc. It is the location value portion of the rent that he is not earning by any contribution to wealth production. The banker is not contributing to wealth production -- indeed, bankers collectively are harmful to wealth production, as they cause the boom-bust cycle.
     
  21. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Interestingly, MMT minimizes the significance of taxation in public policy formulation (since a sovereign currency-issuer does not need to tax in order to spend), so your ideas on the relationship of taxation (whether progressive or regressive) to 'justice' are misplaced, in MMT.

    justice also encompasses social realities, like racially-based entrenched disadvantage.

    [The mayor of Minneapolis is rightly saying: "these riots are no longer about the death of a black man; but he has omitted pointing out the role of racially-based entrenched disadvantage in the rioting exploding across the nation].

    A tragedy that can be avoided by government intervention in markets, is injustice.

    And a heated debate it has been....

    Yes well we know - in your view - the individual's ability is your determinant of the level of prosperity to be achieved by the individual...... revealing a 'survival of the fittest mentality'.
    We already agreed that modern economies have more than sufficient productive capacity to provide - at the minimum - above poverty level living for all (I would say participation, rather than living, but you disagree given your ideas of the 'worthiness' of individuals re 'wealth creation').

    No private citizen ought to be able to live merely by receiving rent to provide housing for other private citizens. Full stop. Renting housing ought not be a means of private wealth creation. The booms and busts in the housing market are avoidable.

    We agree on that. In fact banking ought not be a private sector activity at all. [It's interesting that in Islam, charging interest on loans for profit is considered illegal (or immoral)].
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2020
  22. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No. Sometimes people simply get what they deserve, good and hard.
    No, not their ability, their contribution.
    No, it's just justice.
    Huh? Why not? If someone is providing something that would not otherwise be available, why shouldn't they be paid for it?
    Absurd. Lots of people have good reasons to rent. Why shouldn't someone be able to profit by supplying that demand?
    The booms and busts are all about LAND, not HOUSING. Clear?
    Banking as financial intermediation and risk management is just a service that people should be able to pay for if they want it because it doesn't harm anyone else. Payment clearing and deposit accounts are services that should be available to everyone, and if private banks won't provide them to everyone, there has to be a public option. It is adding to and subtracting from the money supply that the private sector should not be involved in at all.
     
  23. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Another of the consequences of government being shut out of money creation:

    https://ellenbrown.com/2020/06/04/w...ng-a-vaccine-to-market-for-a-vanishing-virus/

    "It wasn’t the first time Moderna’s stock had skyrocketed on a well-timed press release. On February 24th, the World Health Organization said to prepare for a global pandemic, collapsing stock markets around the world. Most stocks collapsed, but Moderna’s shot up by nearly 30%, after it reported on February 25th that testing on humans would begin in March. Mega-investors made tens of millions of dollars in a single day, including BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, which made $68 million just on February 25th. BlackRock was called “the fourth branch of government” after it was tasked in March with dispensing up to $4.5 trillion in Federal Reserve credit through “special purpose vehicles” established by the Treasury and the Fed.

    Meanwhile entrenched/systemic disadvantage is fuelling protests and riots all around the world.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2020
  24. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    Magic Money Theory?

    Because it concentrates all power into the hands of those that pass out the money to those they favor.

    It breaks any control the Citizenry have over how funds are spent by government, as government no longer is accountable the Citizen, for funding.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2020
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  25. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Yes: sovereign currency-issuing governments CAN issue debt-free money (with minor changes to treasury and reserve bank rules).

    No. In fact it enables democratic governments to implement policy desired by the entire electorate, without being constrained by the "how can we pay for it" question. MMT teaches the real constraint is available resources, not money.

    Do you choose our current neoliberal system that favours the few, eg by maintaining the systemic economic disadvantage among blacks - and long-term unemployed whites - or do you choose a system that guarantees employment for all.....because the resources and the economy's productive capacity CAN guarantee employment for all

    How funds are spent by government? You mean like government propping up Wall St with $trillions of borrowed money, while citizens go hungry?
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2020

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