Top income brackets should be taxed at 99%.

Oh my. The same guys who created and enable the problem are now going to use those powers for good, stripping the bankers of their power, letting their quadrillion dollar pile of derivatives implode. ,.............not

 

Of course. Everyone knows this.

Oh, so it is owned after all. Earlier, you said no one owns it. You're hard to keep up with.

You said no one owned it, so I figured it was up for grabs. But now you say everyone owns it. Okay.

No. Not meaning that.

You don't have to show me. Banks create money out of thin air when they issue a loan. Everyone knows this.

 

So its OK for private sector banks to create money ex nihilo, but not for a central bank promoting public policy to do so....

Blind classical economics....you are lucky Trump is currently ignoring mainstream economists and cheerfully deficit spending - Trump knows the US government can always pay its bills (unlike private sector players who can and do go broke).

If only.....

http://www.gerojenner.com/wpe/positive-money-a-theory-built-on-sand-and-faulty-logic-2/

The complexities noted in that presentation are seriously mind bending...

That's why I prefer the MMT 'consolidated government sector' approach (which includes central bank and treasury), to realise the goal of continuous sustainable utilisation of all available resources including labour, in an economy, for public amenity as well as private profit.

 

It's legal for both private banks and the central bank.

Yep, the government can always print as much money as it wishes. It is, after all, the government.

Turn the printing presses up to 11.

 

Nope. Institute continuous sustainable utilisation of all available resources including labour....spot the difference?

 

Yep, by turning the printing presses up to 11. Sustainable utilization means the government purchases these available resources, right? With money it creates out of thin air?

 

You said that.
Do you always make up other people's positions so you can argue against them?

 

It has no ability to discern those things

 

Yes, they seem to imagine there is a special breed of evil-free bureaucrat, who is immune to the siren song of power. No amount of 'control of all the lands' will corrupt them, apparently. Apparently, these mystery people are are incorruptible despite effectively owning all the land - but individuals who don't own all the land, are straight from hell.

 

Well that settles it then

 

Well.... what does that statement mean?

Yes. As long as the resources (including labour and knowhow) are available, the government can utilise them for the purposes voted by congress.

ie, in contrast to these above-mentioned resources, money is not a constraint for a currency-issuing government - whereas it most certainly is for you and me (users of the currency). That's the difference you need to understand.

 

"It"?

1.The goal of the community, represented by government, is universal above poverty participation in the economy.

(I will assume your goal is NOT poverty-level exclusion from the economy (as represented by involuntary un/underemployment, measured by the U6 rate in the US), for some people of working age).

2. The goal of the private sector is personal profit.

An economy that delivers for all requires both 1 and 2.

Private sector discerns how to make a profit*; government (congress) discerns how to achieve universal above poverty participation in the economy, by utilising labour and resources not employed in the private sector.

* and if they fail, an above poverty JG wage will tide them over till the next 'visionary' profit-making idea appears...

 

The same government that facilitates the big gov corporatism currently, for power and wealth? Are you inventing a new brand of human to work in government?

 

It means that currency-issuing governments, such as, say, the governments of Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic, can print as much money as they wish. Money is not a constraint for them, whereas money is a constraint for you and me.

What makes you think that I don't understand? I just told you. A currency-issuing government can issue all the money it wants. You and I can't. That's the difference.

 

The problem with Zimbabwe was the loss of food production capacity (due to farm confiscation and loss of skilled white farmers), and in the Weimar case, loss of productive capacity due to war reparations:

" On the 9 January 1923, in response to the lack of payment of reparations, France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr. The Ruhr was a region of Germany which contained resources such as factories".


That's why MMT's revelation that currency-issuing governments do not face purely financial constraints is correct - provided a nation's productive capacity is maintained going forward. Trump himself has acknowledged this - and so he cheerfully adds $1.5 trillion to a govt. debt already greater than GDP (c. $20 trillion), via tax cuts to the wealthy, plus another $300 billion to DoD spending, bringing that to $1 trillion in 2019 alone.

As for Venezuela:

"When world oil prices collapsed in the 1980s, the economy contracted, and inflation levels (consumer price inflation) rose, remaining between 6 and 12% from 1982 to 1986.[17][18] In 1989, the inflation rate peaked at 84%.[18] The same year, following the cut of government spending and the opening of markets by President Carlos Andrés Pérez, the capital city of Caracas suffered from looting and rioting.[19] After Pérez initiated liberal economic policies and made Venezuelan markets more free, Venezuela's GDP increased from a -8.3% decline in 1989 to 4.4% in 1990 and 9.2% in 1991, though wages remained low and unemployment remained high among Venezuelans.[19]

While some claim that neoliberalism* was the cause of Venezuelan economic difficulties, an over-reliance on oil prices and a fractured political system have been identified to have caused many of the problems.[20] By the mid-1990s under President Rafael Caldera, Venezuela saw annual inflation rates of 50 to 60% from 1993 to 1997, with an exceptional peak of 100% in 1996.[18] The percentage of people living in poverty rose from 36% in 1984 to 66% in 1995,[21] with the country suffering a severe banking crisis in 1994. In 1998, the economic crisis had worsened, with GDP per capita at the same level as it was in 1963 (after adjusting 1963 dollars to 1998 value), down a third from its peak in 1978; the purchasing power of the average salary was a third of its 1978 level.[22]"


etc.... ie the productive capacity of Venezuela fell owing to political and external forces (inc. falling world oil prices, foreign denominated debt, and US sanctions).

* notice the confusion in the above article too...in fact neoliberalism - with unmanaged free markets, is itself a fundamental cause political instability ...look at the US and Britain and other democracies re political hyper-partisanship and political dysfunction....

The fact you cited Weimar and Zimbabwe as counter arguments to MMT proves you don't understand the real resource constraints of currency sovereignty.

 

The connections of Wall St. and private banks on the one hand, with political parties on the other, is a corruption caused by lack of public sector oversight; indeed all funding of political parties should be by public, not private funding.

 

Counter-arguments? I made no counter-arguments. Not sure what you're talking about. MMT is unassailable. Government can issue as much money as it wishes. Nobody can dispute this.

 

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

 

No I just proved otherwise.

Again:
Internal causes:
1.Zimbabwe: loss of food production
2.Weimer, loss of factory production.

External causes:
3. Venezuela, loss of access to basic vital imports eg food and medicines.

The Venezuelan government should have instituted food import substitution, and/or a barter scheme, eg, swapping oil for food and medicine, with a willing counterparty.

Meanwhile, most of the globe is facing a deflation crises.....

 

You are opposing the (slight) change in Fed rules that would be required to allow the US government to create deposits in the Fed (for specific funding purposes), and hence spend directly into the economy, without having to raise taxes, or borrow (sell bonds to people with money), from the private sector.

MMT sees taxes as a method of inflation control, if necessary; not a method of funding programs approved by congress, such as a JG.

Note:
"In 1945, Beardsley Ruml made a famous speech to the ABA, asserting that since the end of the gold standard, "Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete". The real purposes of taxes were: to "stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar", to "express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income", "in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups" and to "isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security".

 

Oh, so now we will have special humans, that can't be corrupted, giving oversight. Let me guess, you and all your professors will derive your income providing this special service.

 

You can't determine this

 

Inflation can't exist in a non-monetary economy. Inflation is exclusively a monetary phenomenon.

 

Am I? Fascinating.

 

Wrong.
Your mistake arises because you are locked into a monetary paradigm.
Eg, in a production/distribution system operating without money at all, excess demand on resources will still need to be managed.

Disproved above.