I don't think Conservatives or Progressives correctly understand economics

​

See my post #175.

Apparently you know that 1+1=2, but you have yet to show that you know 2+2=4.

Eg, re Trump's tariff and trade policy; you failed to see the implications for poverty eradication in China, while proposing the benefits of the same policy for poverty reduction in the US.

Own up: you don't actually believe in poverty reduction at home or abroad.

"Equitable and sufficient access to the world's vast resources"? (NB not the same as equality of outcome)
"Universal above poverty level participation in the economy"?

An awareness of motivation based on (unconscious) instincts of self-preservation (that drives us all), is vital for a functioning political and economic environment, sadly lacking at present.

You have stated that managing an economy to achieve eradication of poverty means "reversing evolution"...the priority is your own access to goods and services, preferring profit before people, eg promoting junk consumerism as 'choice' - eg 23 deodorants, over and before ensuring children have sufficient access to food.

Equity of course implies an international rules based system, but some (the war party) put self-interest above rule of law (accepted by the peace party).

 

Why are you arguing?

Obfuscating changes nothing.


The value of money is important if you wish to trade for it.
If you wish to print money for the purpose of buying goods and services with it, the value of the money you print is important.

If the resources you wish to trade this printed money for already exist, printing more money does not create any additional "developable" resources nor does it develop any more resources. It is a zero sum gain, It simple changes the ownership of said resources from one person to another.

Adding the word "developable" to resources doesn't change anything.

Existing available labour can be paid for with existing available money.
Neo liberal or any other kind.

Obfuscating with big words, doesn't change anything.
It doesn't make you smarter or me dumber or alter the physical relationship in any way.

Using big words to con people out of their money only works if they are stupid and don't understand that you are trying to steal money from them.
But as soon as you start trying to blind people with jargon instead of using the simplest possible terms they automatically know that you are.

Keep it simple. Keep it honest.



Cut the bull ****.

What you want is to be in control of the economy. To take from the economically successful and use their resources to fund your pipe dream.
To make a utopia of your design.

And this is economic stupidity.
Plain and simple.
No one but you wants this. So if you want to divert resources to your pet project what is required is for you to earn those resources and then do so.

And if you are successful and become rich we will all learn from your role model and imitate you. And if you are still as unsuccessful as you are now, we won't.


So we won't take resources from the proven to be productive and give them to the demonstrably unproductive.
This is not smart economics. I appreciate how smart you think you are, but you have to prove it first. No one is going to take your word for it.

 

I consider there are sufficient (untold) resources in the world to quickly eradicate poverty. (Note: people who have access to above poverty-level participation in the economy will limit propagation to match their financial means - automatically limiting population growth to sustainable levels.)

Now, the world's smartest economists are notorious for arguing; so don't expect me to roll over in the face of your ideological certainties. Unfortunately, economics is likely as much a political endeavour (pitching self-interest against community well-being) as it is a non-ideological descriptor of economic realities.

Before you can trade, you need (post education) access to the labour market with a living wage. Obviously.

I'm proposing government money printing for the purpose of eliminating involuntary under-employment and its associated inadequate, morale-destroying welfare. This requires government to create work outside of the neoliberal market, since this (profit driven) market will never employ all available labour at a living wage.

Note: the essential resources already consumed by the underemployed (food, housing, transport), even while they live in poverty, are roughly the same as when they are able to save money (through living in some measure of financial security) for rewarding activity in the long term eg travel, hobbies etc.

Addressed above. Physical resources, whether developed or waiting to be developed, are fixed on planet earth (disregarding the possibilities of technology to 'increase' these resources).

Who "owns" all the undiscovered/undeveloped resources that exist (eg trillions of tons of iron ore) or developed resources (eg roads, highways) and importantly, knowledge, in the world? The main resource I wish to buy/fund with printed money is currently underemployed labour, as discussed above.

I'm guessing you hate the idea of a living wage for all workers, because your "zero sum gain" concept implies the 'spoils' of economic development should go to those most able to compete in the neoliberal marketplace; but I have already mentioned that these spoils are built on the efforts of untold millions who have gone before you: in fact those who make fortunes on the 'backs of giants' ought to be taxed by government for the knowledge and inspiration bequeathed to society by the mathematicians, scientists and inspirational artists who have gone before us.

Read about (google) the 'Ford hunger march' aka the Ford massacre, in the Great Depression.
Available workers, willing and able to work in the Ford factory (fully equipped with all necessary resources), murdered by government sanctioned thugs for the 'crime' of wanting to go back to work to support their families, were locked out of the factory because consumers had no money to buy Ford's products, an insanely vicious example of the business-cycle inherent in unregulated markets. Your "existing available money" certainly did not pay the existing available labour. Actually the government should have printed and posted US$1000 to every unemployed worker in the country, and subcontracted Ford to press the 'start' button on his assembly line... instead it took a world war to sort out the economic mess. You still want to whine about inflation?

Only as far as is necessary to ensure a living wage for all citizens; in that context you have my blessing to become as rich as you
like.

 

The worlds smartest economists don't make pedantic arguments or argue the fundamentals.

I guess neither of us are that smart.


I'm not looking for you blessing, thanks all the same.
None of us are.

Since you have identified all these surplus resources and have found a smarter place to use them, I will leave you to get on with gathering them and distributing them.
I don't think it's going to work out to be the utopia you envision myself. So I won't be joining you in this endeavour.
But if you prove me wrong, I'll soon change my tune.


I can trade before I have "post education access to the labour market". Whatever that means.
I can trade from the moment I have something an other person values. For myself, that was about aged 4.

These dribble words you keep spouting. It is meaningless gobbledegook.


Currently as already pointed out, we have "full employment".
You are proposing money printing to put involuntarily unemployed to work, only there aren't any to speak of.
You seek to cure a problem we don't have.
And use this non existent work force to do your bidding.

Not much to discuss there.
Unless you are proposing this as an international scheme?
That's going to be a hard sell I think. How do you intend to persuade people to do this? Where do you see their self interest and their reciprocation to be?


What I can discuss is the effect of money printing on the rest of the labour force.
This produces a national pay cut.
It is a stealth pay cut to everyone in the country.
In doing so you cut the value of everyones pay.
Those who were on minimum wage are now on less. those who were on a living wage are now on less.

If you wish to raise wages, do the opposite.
Buy up money and burn it.

 

Basic error! Full employment would only be possible if there is zero underemployment. We know that isn't the case. There are people forced to work zero hour contracts and also there is rampant overeducation, as people are forced into low paid employment.

 

if the liberal has evidence of that I will pay him $10,000 in a legally binding bet. Bet?

 

China for example just switched to capitalism and instantly eliminated 40% of all the poverty on earth. Conservatives and libertarians believe in capitalism because of the very obvious evidence while liberals lack the IQ to see, let alone understand, the evidence. Do you understand?

 

no idea what point you are trying to make with above gibberish. If you know please try again in clearer English

 

if you have evidence that is true I'll pay you $10,000. Bet?

 

if this is true I will pay you $10,000. Bet???

 

As it turns out the USSR and Red China had one or no brands of deodorant and 120 million starving to death.If there is no deodorant there is no food. If there is deodorant there is food since people who are on the margin will obviously buy food before deodorant. 1+1=2

 

and many forced to work 70/hour/week contracts. So??? As long as the free market is allowed to operate people get what they agree to or want or they don't participate.

 

so? if everyone gets a Ph.D in Social Work and then cant find jobs the free market will correct their error as it should.

 

obviously absurd since an American family already gets welfare of $70k/yr which is 100 times what they get in Africa or China to live. Plus, everyone is already living in America so why do they need a living wage when they already have the income to live?

 

Absurd!! Friedman did not believe there was a business cycle! 1+1=2. He believed in using monetary policy to correct monetary policy until inflation/ deflation was 0%

 

Friedman was innocent?? Where???

 

Wrong as usual. He took exception to using the term "cycle", but that was just semantics. As I said, you fellows really don't know your right wing economics. You adopt a caricature, based on a childish understanding of the MV=PT 'identity'

 

not semantics at all but central to his thinking. He said Austrian school did get harm to modern economics by so much focus on business cycle which did not exist.

 

His contribution on Austrian Economics critique was minimal. Amusingly, his greatest contribution (at least for orthodox economics) was the notion that ludicrous assumptions in economic modelling doesn't matter. You can assume pigs fly as long as the model has predictive power. That's at least consistent with your approach to assumptions. You just miss out the prediction bit!

 

Since he was far and away most important economist of 20th Century his critique was the most important.

 

Not true at all. Monetarism was a flop. Even right wingers rejected his views on the Phillips Curve.

I noticed that you forgot to mention his views on "pigs can fly" assumptions. Strange that.

 

Friedman and Bernanke used monetarist conclusions to prevent 2008 from becoming another liberal Great Depression. It is gospel in modern economics and monetary policy everywhere. Friedman said no trade off between inflation and unemployment and he was right.

 

More drivel I'm afraid. Friedman took a false argument with the neoKeynesians (who took the Phillips Curve and IS/LM to ensure macro consistency with neoclassical micro orthodoxy) to argue the toss between a short run and long run Phillips Curve. Even right wingers sneered at it, arguing his use of expectations just wasn't up to scratch (thereby deriving the ridiculousness of New Classical macro).

Monetarism was tried by Thatcher in 1979. Quadrupling unemployment and destroying the industrial base, it engineered the worst recession in Britain's history.

 

(A quick google search cites the following):

"What is the US underemployment rate?
The rate is created by adding unemployed workers, who are looking for work, to the amount of workers employed part time but seeking full-time work. In July 2017, the U.S. underemployment rate was 12.5 percent".

And no doubt there are also people who have given up looking for work, so the actual numbers are likely worse than reported

It's amazing how ideological blinkers prevent awareness of such statistics, even if you are living in a gated community.

The poverty rate:

"Current estimates on poverty in the U.S. The official poverty rate is 12.3 percent, based on the U.S. Census Bureau's 2017 estimates. That year, an estimated 39.7 million Americans lived in poverty according to the official measure. According to supplemental poverty measure, the poverty rate was 13.9 percent".

Did I mention ideological blindness?

This is actually a serious question and one worthy of in-depth consideration.

In 1946, men of vision like Keynes, who advocated a "clearing union" to which all nations would belong, in order to eliminate trade and currency wars, and also pernicious trade surpluses/deficits (observe Trump's current concerns and proposed remedies!); and Dr. Evatt, who resisted adoption of the veto in the (about to be created) UN Security Council, to eliminate recourse to war as a means of dispute settlement - obviously these men described the policies necessary for peaceful, global development.

Why 1946?

Because much of Eurasia was laying in ruins, with irreplaceable loss of the heritage of mankind, with 40 million mostly civilian dead, and the image of that cloud over Hiroshima; there was some idealism and urgency for change in the world.

So what happened? Reason tells us Keynes and Evatt were on the right track...but if instinct still rules the world.....

So even today we see Trump telling Hondurans fleeing war and poverty to go back home, otherwise he will cut millions in aid.... as if that will fix the problem..

Again a serious question, for which I thank you.

I mentioned unreasoning (instinctive) self-interest in a previous post; perhaps people will wake up to the fact that is in their self-interest to end wars and poverty in other countries, in order to avoid the refugee crises we are all experiencing today.

In 1932 (when the govt. was shooting workers for demanding the right to work), money printing would have enabled immediate return to pre-crash employment levels in the nation, and put money back into everyone's pockets. Inflation was not the problem at that time.

Current underemployment levels are unacceptable and require a new response.

Interestingly, governments have been trying to cause inflation over the decade since the Great Recession, with artificially low interest rates. Generally this policy has failed, with government and/or private debt at record levels, and many reduced to penury because of the destruction of life savings, pension funds, mortgages etc.

So maybe some judicious money printing, to eliminate involuntary underemployment and with it the need for morale-destroying welfare, is just the ticket...

 

That Clearing Union exists in NAFTA, and in the EU (largely based upon a common-currency that avoids most of the hurt).

Donald Dork dumped Obama's effort to launch a NAFTA for the Far East countries. That was called "TPP" as described in this NYT article here.

Because it was Obama's idea Donald Dork thought, so ipso facto, it was BS. In fact, many American companies thought it was an excellent manner in which to challenge China for its excessive use of near slave-labor hourly-rates.

Let's watch Donald Dork try to bring it back AFTER the mid-terms ...