Job Losses Spike, 1/3 Can't Pay Rent, Depression Imminent

Step 1: Guarantee everyone above poverty employment, as a replacement for the poverty level 'welfare' cop-out.

Poverty reduction is associated with a decrease in population growth, as women are able to take control of their own lives; and the true costs of bearing children are faced by everyone....

Step 2. Governments can gain extra fiscal space by discouraging junk consumerism; the grog, gambling, tobacco, junk processed foods, military spending, poverty industry, ill-health industry, prison industry (with incarceration related to poverty and unemployment) etc etc, including the massive advertising and transportation industries associated with all of this, all adding up to many $trillions of "wealth" expenditure.

Look at MMT.

 

Not sure how smoking, gambling and "the grog" got on your list but rest I agree with.

 

You can't explain what you don't understand.

Hmmm. Nothing about inflation.

It doesn't work because it ignores the laws of demand and supply.

Markets exist whether you like it or not. We don't have very free markets except on a small scale. Big business talks about "free markets," then tries to undermine them in their favor.

How? Why can't you explain it?

I asked about inflation, not wages. You do realize wages are only part of income, no?

Still nothing about inflation. As I said, you can't explain what you don't understand.

I made no such claim.

And you still haven't said how you would control inflation.

 

Obviously, the alternative is ownership.

But you could live in a tent if you really wanted to, I guess. An increasing number are very determined to do just that!

 

Yes, crank does understand that.

What crank doesn't understand is why cleaners who work in expensive cities, choose to live independently in those cities. One person or family per residence is insanity anywhere, but it's particularly insane in an overpriced city. Any poverty ensuing from this bad choice is self-inflicted. No sympathy.

Every cleaner I've known who worked in a big city (and I've known quite a few, having married into a migrant community) lived as far outside the city as possible, AND shared their cheap rental with a considerable number of others. Choices.

 

That's pretty naive. Low income individuals share crappy lodgings with others.

 

Fact: sovereign currency-issuing government is constrained by the nation's available resources and productive capacity, NOT money.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/mmt-overcoming-the-political-divide.569365/

On the contrary: inflation only ever results from violation of the resource constraint mentioned above.

Nah...that's just obsolete classical theory which doesn't even recognize a role for government.

And we don't have wealth creation in the public sector AT ALL, so long as government has to tax or borrow from the private sector in order to spend into the economy. That's just your evil neoliberal system,

I did explain in the following paragraph, and now again in this post ...it's the resource constraint.

You are still blinded by your obsolete classical 'scarcity' doctrine. Robots have eliminated 'scarcity' in relation to cost of wages.

And private sector markets are only part of production, no?

As I said, your obsolete classical - neoliberal school conflates money with inflation. The cause of inflation is violation of the resource constraint.

Yet you can't explain how government subsidization of rents for public housing - without taxation or borrowing from the private sector - will cause inflation,

You have to abandon your obsolete classical-neoliberal school, to begin to understand inflation.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Not buying it. If three or more generations share a crappy house or apartment (in a crappy part of town), even if they're all on welfare they'll come out ahead.

Something else is going wrong. My guess is lifestyle choices. Would love to see how often they buy fast food, and if they have iphones, or buy new clothes, or buy meat, or visit the hairstylist, or buy convenience foods (processed, packaged, frozen, canned, etc etc - all of which make them more expensive than the raw materials that went into them), or go to restaurants, or smoke, or drink, or gamble, or do drugs, or own cars, or run airconditioners or clothes dryers, etc etc. The cleaners I've known did pretty much none of those things.

 

I hear ya, i voted for Bernie, but Biden is all we got. Maybe in 2024 we'll get a real democrat, a progressive.

 

Oh yeah .. a Progressive would be such a win for America

 

Yes, poor financial decisions and lifestyle choices certainly factor in.

But I doubt that expensive single family housing is a primary contributor.

 

And, if it remains unfettered, will drive them right back to poverty. 40% of the nation are struggling to pay basic needs, this was before the virus, while the top 1% own 40% of the nation's wealth. American billionaires got $434 billion richer during the pandemic, and that wasn't for 'working for a living'.

I'm not against capitalism, but it must be kept in check from it's worst proclivities, exploitation of workers is the main one, and what we don't need is more unfettered capitalism, we need less, we need people like Elizabeth Warren who says, 'I"m a capitalist, but we need a cop on the beat". No better words spoken that than, in my view.

Capitalism for wants, socialism for needs ( noting there are grey areas, so this is just a 'principle' a guideline )

Socialism without capitalism with collapse under it's weight.
Capitalism without socialism will devour itself.

Where does the pendulum rest?

It rests at only the center. Dead center.

 

You claimed schools and hospitals and social services are so much better in Oz than the US.

(That's BS, by the way.)

So...are you claiming the conservative Right will fix things in the US?

 

I don't claim either party is better. I champion capitalist democracy, as it allows us to live according to our principals. EG, if you're interested in the greater good (socialists, for example), you can live collectively and see that as reality. Or if you like your individualist, capitalist lifestyle (Progressive Leftists, for example) and don't give a damn about the greater good if costs you your personal comforts and freedoms, you get to live accordingly. It's fantastic, really.

 

I don't think a real progressive can win the White House without a depression.

 

It's just that they claim $trillions in resources. (inc. transport advertising etc. )

eg the government could just about buy the fossil fuel industry and fund the transition to green (without taxing or borrowing the money), given the freed-up resources, without requiring a carbon tax which would have to be imposed to drive the private sector to invest in the transition.

(You may recall the BIS said central banks may have to buy the fossil industry, if climate related catastrophes become frequent).

 

~ Many people are already depressed ...

 

You are way off track - smoking - gambling and grog pay for things like healthcare - roads and so on... it is a huge revenue source in taxes.

In any case .. we can't go off carbon in a short period of time - battery technology is getting there but even when it does it is not so easy.
The metals for those batteries are rare earth ... and you have to get the power from somewhere - and nuclear is the only non carbon intensive source at the moment - and they don't want to go that way.

This is not as easy as I think you envision .. I am talking about today - we will use 20 million barrels per day next year - and we must address how to do this in the cleanest way possible. Blue is not doing this - which is why my vote goes to Red this round - despite severe dislike of Trump and no love of Red in general.

 

~ If one ever does win the big house we will all be depressed ...

 

Your wish is granted. Biden is coming. Enjoy your depression.

Expect to see red-hatted grown men blubbering and whining when Biden becomes POTUS.

Donald Trump will leave the US economy as a smoking ruin for his blubbering red-hatted devotees. Donald Trump will have accumulated more debt in one term than Obama in two terms and unemployment will be ruinous and far higher than it ever was during Obama's tenure.

 

Let's hope we don't have another depression like the 1930s. Keep in mind the Republicans caused it.

 

The Trump economy was rocking and rolling what we have now is Nancy's waltz off the cliff.

 

Uh.......the organized left is putting pressure on the 'states" to close businesses, tank the economy, in an attempt to oust Trump.

 

~ And yet home sales remain strong ...