Debt Rattle May 25 2016
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May 25, 2016 at 9:10 am #28338Raúl Ilargi MeijerKeymaster
Alfred Palmer Conversion. Beverage containers to aviation oxygen cylinders 1942 • Hillary Clinton Loves To Trumpet Bill’s Budget Surplus. She Shouldn’
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 25 2016]May 25, 2016 at 11:50 am #28339Dr. DiabloParticipantUgh, Keen. I’m going to have to skip him if this keeps up.
1st, there was no surplus. Clinton just re-categorized Social Security funds, but never mind that, we have to argue on the (false) official reality all the time. 2nd, Greenspan just printed money. That always creates a phony boom, especially early in the cycle and 1994-1999 was no different. This boom translated into real tax receipts based on false valuations of say Lucent and Pets.com which were ultimately valued at zero.
But to the point: GDP itself is largely a false mental construct, so yes, you can take white paper, which is all paper, and draw the lines anywhere you like. If the Government pays people to spit in a hole, that’s GDP. If they take over the whole economy and drive the people into North Korean misery, that would be GDP. GDP is not a measure of good or of smarts. As presently measured, it’s arguably an outstanding measure of dumb. But considering they measure self-renting houses, free checking accounts, and 1/3 of the economy is financial check-kiting, it’s now hard to argue it measures anything at all.
The government is generally paid from the production of its citizens, so it will on balance run in deficit. In the modern era, they can issue currency with its inherent inflation. But again with Keen, he implies there are no consequences either to debt or to spending, but that government spending on spit-holes are a net good. How implied? Because he argues reducing government debt is a net bad–the most common academic or left-leaning view.
Instead, any debt the government takes on is stolen from the private sector and people (or in our case a blend including US$ and deficit holders). This starves out a lot of production that might have happened, because generally we all agree that government wastes a lot of money on war or corporate welfare that could be better spent by the people themselves. If government spending is anything but an absolute good, then it should be minimized because it’s a direct load on the people, generally the poorest (see the effects of inflation, above, but add tax-dodging of GE and GM paying zero taxes).
Keen argues that you can never reduce the debt without harm, but didn’t we just say that increasing government spending is generally also harmful? And he argues that while you can’t reduce it, you CAN increase it. So we have a one-way ratchet that ever-increases government debt. Elsewhere he’s argued that this can go on infinitely and never cause problems. Although inflation is bad enough, double that up with paying to borrow your own money, as we do under our present system, and you can’t argue that higher debts can do anything but tax the people (especially the poor) to pay wealthy bondholders–the pinnacle of government-backed wealth extraction from the poor to the rich. And the more we do it, the worse the economy and the wealth disparity become. And they have.
So if that way things get worse, wouldn’t REDUCING the debt therefore make it better, even if it’s a present hardship? Or if you want to default and say you won’t pay an odious, illegal debt, I’m good with that too. But the one thing you can’t argue is that ever increasing government debt is good, and reducing it is bad. Besides, once deeper in debt, then who is the government then beholden to, unable to represent the needs of the people? Nice wonking to bamboozle the people or himself, but the economic principles are just too simple. You can’t borrow and print your way to prosperity.
And too hard-felt as we’re being economically crushed here at home.
May 25, 2016 at 1:50 pm #28348GreenpaParticipant“The minister does not understand that this insect is a frequent and natural visitor…”
The minister, I guarantee, is being paid off by whoever is profiting from the logging. Find the payoff; which will be well hidden, and expose it immediately.
RE: “The brain is not a computer” – wow. I am unreservedly impressed by this guy; excellent science (very rare).
May 25, 2016 at 9:03 pm #28351rapierParticipantRussia invade Latvia? Why would anyone invade Latvia? Our strategic thinkers just as well study the movie Mars Attacks. Come to think of it maybe they do. Russia has your 6.6 million square miles much of it empty and it’s going to invade
Latvia? Is there something in the water in the end corridor? Maybe the John Birch Society was right about floride in the water.May 26, 2016 at 2:32 am #28352John DayParticipantSaudi press says US government did 9/11 attacks to justify the perpetual war which is necessary to sustain it’s existence. Yes, really, precisely.
“September 11 is one of winning cards in the American archives, because all the wise people in the world who are experts on American policy and who analyze the images and the videos [of 9/11] agree unanimously that what happened in the [Twin] Towers was a purely American action, planned and carried out within the U.S. Proof of this is the sequence of continuous explosions that dramatically ripped through both buildings… Expert structural engineers demolished them with explosives, while the planes crashing [into them] only gave the green light for the detonation – they were not the reason for the collapse. But the U.S. still spreads blame in all directions. [This policy] can be dubbed ‘victory by means of archives.”May 26, 2016 at 8:47 am #28360NassimParticipantJohn Day,
Thank you for that link. It looks like the criminals are turning on one another. I cannot wait for Israel to get dragged kicking into the equation:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it#Truck_Bomb_Destined_for_George_Washington_Bridge
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