Can you be liberal and Christian at the same time?

I didn't ask about digging a hole and filling it again.
The answer to 'your' question is that they are worth exactly what others/consumers are willing to pay for them.

 

A One World govt. by definition would make laws regarding how your nation conducts its internal affairs, something I have never envisioned.

However, nations have different resources and must trade. Obviously the most successful global outcome will be achieved by central management of this trade - any complex system needs central management to achieve the best results ie as much management as is necessary to achieve universal, just and sufficient access to the world's resources (not to be confused with equality of outcome; see Article 25 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

The less than "best results" are currently on display for all to see. (I wonder what Chinese officials are thinking at present).

You say we all have to deal with competition in our own lives, which is true, but we also have the ability (through our governments) to manage the global environment in which this competition occurs ie to determine whether the global environment is characterised by war or peace, poverty or prosperity,

[I will consider the rest of your post later.]








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Seems this which is a better choice for survival of the fittest fascists one world - no one world government banter in liberal Christian homicidal sociopsychopathic human farming technique is as digging a hole & filling it in with either, &/or a combination of The Communist Manifesto & Mein Kampf; both of which would probably have to be read in comparing of some master race master plan economic manipulation of others/consumers fixing the market value since the more perfect union of an Islam - liberal Christian second coming at Y2K thru 9/11 . As if WW II Nazi death camps set a standard which the Catholic Church megalomaniacal crusades have exponentially killed from a fabricated misnomer of an immaculate conception over 2000 years ago to rule the earth & destroy the world, other churches of the cross, Mexican drug lords, South American drug cartels, Japanese Yakuza, Russian mob, Italian mob & Italian cabals along with USA KKK churchstate godvernments in educating how an Islam Christiananality pedophile mentality pyramid scheme functions monetarily.

 

As already explained, an effective international rules based system need not be equated with "One World govt"; each sphere of govt., whether local, state, national or international, has its own area of judicial responsibility.

Socialistic tendencies - arising from an awareness of economic justice - certainly do exist and are not so easily dealt with; hence, eg, your willingness to arm yourself, to deal with the criminality resulting from the demoralisation of the disadvantagd in an environment of entrenched pockets of poverty.

I have already made the point that people are unwilling to pay sufficient taxes to eliminate poverty and disadvantage. I see this as a systems problem, because the resources to eliminate poverty do exist, so we have a systems problem which could be solved by govt. money printing, to fund specific, non-inflationary, socially useful economic activity. I have shown the special case for public education funded by money printing, a proposition you have yet to explain how, in your view, would result in inflation.
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But money is already printed as the population increases. The employment of all existing un/under-employed labour, by public sector funding as described, could be regarded as merely increasing the population of participants in the economy, therefore the "relative value of money" would not change. (And btw I contend the 'value' of gold is in no way comparable with the 'value' of knowledge, proving that money itself has no intrinsic fixed value).

But the community can usefully and advantageously employ double the number of teachers, double the number of nurses, and many more cleaners (environmental as well as built property) etc etc; the problem is the "cost" of paying said workers.
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Right..... so it's time to let Trump know this, so he can order them to start printing the bloody stuff immediately, to quickly establish universal above poverty level participation in the economy. (Money itself has no intrinsic value, it is a merely a measure of wealth).

Currently, around 38 hours per week, which ought to be sufficient to guarantee an above poverty existence.

But as AI and IT advance, this number of hours ought to be able to be reduced; instead currently we have the madness of higher retirement age for access to a pension, and the requirement that people work multiple jobs to earn a living wage - if they can get work at all.

So not only do we have poverty within our own communities, requiring possession of weapons by individuals to defend themselves (so it is claimed) from criminals - or gated communities within communities (the definition of dystopia), we have walls between nations, eg Trump's proposed wall on the Mexican border. to keep the poverty-stricken hordes from other countries at bay.

Which gets me back to my opening sentence:

As already explained, an effective international rules based system need not be equated with "One World govt"; each sphere of govt., whether local, state, national or international, has its own area of judicial responsibility.

 

I don't see anything different about AI or IT jobs that would reduce the number of hours a wage earner would have to work to earn a living wage.

The living wage problem has to do with our method of determining pay. Ai and IT won't change that method.

 

Robots have the potential to reduce the amount of work required to produce the physical resources and services - as opposed to the knowledge/education - required for above poverty level living for the whole population, in which case a living wage could be based on less hours of work. (Eventually of course a basic guaranteed (above poverty level) income might be possible, regardless of employment status, but that's far in the future, I think).

But I agree, the method of determining pay is a significant issue.

Apparently Bernie Sanders has recently noted the systemic problem, potentially quite dangerous for all of us, eg, of Amazon's CEO, now the world's richest person, earning as much in a hour (or is 10 mins?) as the average company employee earns annually - employees who are currently complaining about the robot-like conditions demanded of them.

Can you point to the error in my proposition of public sector money printing as described, as a solution to low minimum wages in the context of significant un/(involuntary) under-employment, which is running around 15% in the US at present, with poverty rates c. 11%? (The current designation of 'full employment' is a sham). Then there's the 50% poverty rate in neighbouring Mexico.....and even so, this doesn't prevent Trump from complaining about 'unfair' trade/tariffs with Mexico!

 

Which topic of your post would you like to most concentrate on discussing? Pick one, and we'll see if we can achieve agreement on them one at a time.

 

OK.

1. The concept of public sector money printing, to provide an additional source of public funds eg for education, outside of the usual requirement for increased highly contested taxation of the private sector.

Do we agree that money is created, in the present system, when private banks, under 'surveillance' of the central bank, write loans for (supposedly or hopefully) 'credit worthy' customers?

(hence the joke about banks existing to lend money to people who don't need it...)

 

Banks, by charging interest on borrowing and paying interest on savings don't actually create money, that is done by the BEP.

 

But we agree that loan writing by banks, overseen by the central bank, is the way that money - whether actually physically printed by the BEP or whoever (legal, that is) - enters the economy?

 

That's been true for a long time. There is nothing new about the fact that we live in a land of plenty and that spreading it around under slightly different rules would make a huge difference in the lives of those struggling to make a living.

I don't believe "printing money" is the way to look at the problem you want to solve. It sounds like you want to have a guaranteed minimum income. There is a country that did that. You might want to look up what they are doing and how it is working.

 

Deposits in a bank create debt owed by the bank.
Loans by the bank produce debt owed by the borrowers.
Banks are not creating money, only debts.
Money enters the economy by being spent. A small quantity of money would require a higher velocity of exchange between persons while a large quantity of money would reduce the velocity by which money is exchanged.
"New" money ONLY enters the economy as a result of being printed by the BEP, allowing banks to borrow from the Central source and maintain their fractional reserve requirements if savers need to withdraw large sums due to a recession, or borrowers default on their loans. The "NEW" money, effectively devalues the currency which will inevitably provide the means for inflation to occur in the future, ad infinitum.

 

Anyone voting Republican is a diehard fan of involuntary servitude just as much as those voting Dem.

 

Are you referring to the left, the right, or both ?

 

Whilst the crooks on Capital Hill, left & right with a national religion pyramid scheme of economic manipulations for an Islamidiotocracy all seem to be as the Federal Lynching churchstate of hate in it's worshipping reverence of Islam with it's second coming thru 9/11 & subsequent resulting jihad opioid crisis; obviously both.

 

I thought so but just wanted to check.

I take it that you have a problem with the fact that it is now our "Patriotic Duty" to give up individual liberty over a risk of harm that is 400 times less than the risk of harm from "walking" ? Far cry from "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" I suppose.

 

I don't think a guaranteed minimum income is the way to go, because the experience of actual formal participation in the economy is important in an individual's life, ie the experience of contributing usefully to the community, and being rewarded at above poverty level for that participation. This engenders a sense belonging to the community, as well as a sense of personal control, financial security, and the ability to plan and experience the freedom (from financial stress) to indulge one's (hopefully creative) interests.

Also, an automatic "population control" mechanism comes into play, under a scenario of universal above poverty level participation, because individuals can actually perceive the negative effects of unaffordable procreation, on their own standard of living.
(I'm actually considering that welfare safety nets - always inadequate, because no-one 'likes' paying taxes! - could be eliminated entirely, except for the most disabled).

(Btw, a quick look at experiments with GMI's shows none of them have gained traction, for various reasons, which is not to say the idea should be rejected entirely).

We obviously have a systems problem - one sees economic dysfunction everywhere at both the national levels (eg manifested by political gridlock and hyper-partisanship) and international level (trade wars, currency wars); meanwhile poverty remains the most intractable problem in the world today.

Hence I'm exploring the basis of the current economic orthodoxy around money creation, as described by Ndividual in his post #1162 above.

I see many problems with that orthodoxy, given that economics is not some fixed natural law (though some ideologies would like to present it as such).

 

I haven't seen a GMI work yet, either. I would point out that that level of income would certainly be low enough that nobody would want to stay there. But, in a nation our size there are huge differences in cost of living, making it difficult to propose a GMI scheme.

We're seeing a continued reduction in our nation's concern for wage earners. We're seeing poor to zero vocational education improvement, we're seeing huge increases in costs (and reductions in support for) academic education, we're seeing continued elimination of collective bargaining, we're seeing little concern for the tax load paid by low income wage earners (where payroll tax is the issue, not income tax), etc.

We should have a cabinet level position focused on labor.

 

All true.

But are the desired positive changes in the areas you outline above, possible in the context of the present neoliberal competitive market system?

You have seen that Ndividual is satisfied that individuals will sink or swim, prosper or languish in poverty, depending on the 'value' (as he sees it) they can engender, by their own talents, in this economic competition. For my part, I think this competition can be re-designed to allow a basic prosperity for all the participants, regardless of the difference and variety of individuals' talents.

Poverty is related to the un/under-employment rate, and involves about 40 million people in the US, and similar numbers elsewhere ( at best). Improving conditions for working people is only part of the issue, since there will still be a sizable number of involuntarily underemployed people in the economy, unless universal participation is guaranteed.

You mention taxation (payroll and income etc.). It's clear that libertarians and other like-minded RW anti-government 'freedom fighters' are against raising sufficient taxes to address your legitimate concerns.

Would these libertarians agree to taxing all wealth above, say, $1 billion at 95%? I doubt it.

[In the US, there are c.500 billionaires with combined worth of c. $2.5 trillion. That means an average of c. $5 billion each... so if c. $4 billion from each were handed back to the community (which enabled the acquisition of this wealth in the first place), the community could raise c.$2 trillion to help implement the policies you outline above, and yet we would still have 500 billionaires!]

So are we condemned to this interminable, futile, 'hate-fest' between Dems and Repubs? (All the while of course the 'rich are doing very well, thank you very much').

 

Thanks for this succinct description of money creation, from an orthodox viewpoint.

First point: you say "Banks are not creating money, only debts", but this statement from the Bank of England's website has a different take:

"Where does money come from? In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood. The principal way in which they are created is through commercial banks making loans: whenever a bank makes a loan, it creates a deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money".

positivemoney.org/2014/03/bank-england-money-money-creation-modern-economy/

However, moving to your next point, ie:

"Money enters the economy by being spent".

This implies there is a fixed amount of money in the community, (a) that only enters the economy when someone who has money spends (some of) it, and more importantly (b) those who don't have money must borrow it, at least initially, in order to be able to participate in the economy….sounds like it would be smart to choose rich parents, to facilitate an unburdened (debt-free) start in life....a situation obviously incompatible with the concept of equality of opportunity.

Moving to your next point, ie

"A small quantity of money would require a higher velocity of exchange between persons while a large quantity of money would reduce the velocity by which money is exchanged."

Again things are not so straightforward:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/velocity.asp

"There are differing views among economists as to whether the velocity of money is a useful indicator of the health of an economy or, more specifically, inflationary pressures. The "monetarists" who subscribe to the quantity theory of money argue that money velocity should be stable absent changing expectations, but a change in money supply can alter expectations and therefore money velocity and inflation. For example, an increase in the money supply should theoretically lead to a commensurate increase in prices because there is more money chasing the same level of goods and services in the economy. The opposite should happen with a decrease in money supply. Critics, on the other hand, argue that in the short term, the velocity of money is highly variable, and prices are resistant to change, resulting in a weak and indirect link between money supply and inflation".

which also leads us to your next statement

" "New" money ONLY enters the economy as a result of being printed by the BEP, allowing banks to borrow from the Central source and maintain their fractional reserve requirements if savers need to withdraw large sums due to a recession, or borrowers default on their loans. The "NEW" money, effectively devalues the currency which will inevitably provide the means for inflation to occur in the future, ad infinitum".

Again, this statement implies there is a certain amount of money in the economy, and therefore any "NEW" money will result in a devaluation of the currency, associated with (in your view) continual inflation.

But obviously if the population doubles over time, then the money supply would also need to double, to simply maintain the standard of living of the community. (I already made this point, in a previous post).

So...how do you double the supply of money, without devaluing the currency?

Or does it even matter, if the currency is worth only half the value it was at the beginning of the period, during which the population doubled? (and your house is really only worth about the same, adjusted for inflation; you still have your house).

 

A bank opens and acquires $10 million in deposits from members of the community to receive 1.5% interest per year.
Over the year, no one borrows from the bank and the depositors decide to withdraw their savings, the amount now $10.15 million. Where does the "new money" come from?

When I use the term 'money', I'm speaking about that which you can hold in your hand, not what is simply a number on a ledger which no bank is capable of paying out fully even if no loans are in default.

Have you ever tried going into a bank and claim "I have no money, I'd like to apply for a loan"?

 

No one borrows from the bank?
Well...... according to the quote from the B of E website, your bank is a failed business, and would be wound up - obviously without the bank's founders getting their expected 1.5% interest!

(Does this side-step your question? OTOH, consider the limited nature of your reply to the points - and questions - I raised in my post #1170).

"Money you can hold in your hand" is almost irrelevant in this debate about how money is created, and more importantly, the implications for inflation, and the significance of this inflation: (note the following gleaned from the internet)

"People are earning and spending money without ever touching it. In fact, economists estimate that only 8 percent of the world's currency exists as physical cash. The rest exists only on a computer hard drive, in electronic bank accounts around the world".

This trend to a cashless society is only increasing, enabling the possibility of public funding of education, not by taxation, but by "printing money" ie, by govt. managed electronic payments to teachers' bank accounts,
(Remember, none of the community's scarce physical resources are involved in this scenario).

No. That's one of the reasons why the scourge of poverty is so entrenched and pervasive in the community, operating as it does under a neoliberal competitive economic system. without a guarantee of 'living wage' participation by all.

 

So bank deposits by themselves do NOT create new money.
If the bank is claiming to pay a 1.5% APR on all savings, you would not call that a debt owed by the bank to its depositors?
Then if the bank provides loans to borrowers charging a 3.5% interest, would you not call that a debt owed the bank by the borrowers?
If a builder came to town and built 40 homes, and deposited $1,000,000 into the bank which borrowers came and created loans to buy the houses for $150,000 each and the builder deposited the full amount each time into his account, his account would then grow to about $7 million, $6 million for the house sales and the $1 million initial deposit. Suppose he then wanted to close his account and move elsewhere using the cash to purchase a new property and build more houses to sell. The bank would not have the cash and would have to borrow it at interest.
If you wish to call ledger entries 'new money' then we're simply describing money from differing orthodox viewpoints, but regardless an increase of the perceived amount of money in existence will result in inflation. Is there something you can show to have grown in value as a result of its quantity increasing?

 

So being liberal & Christian at the same time means money talks & BS walks after an economic purge out of existence......

 

People have to learn that in a democracy one has to vote.

Also, education is part of this. We need quality education for all. High tuition is one example of putting up a pay-wall against those families without wealth.