"Just How Are You Libfucks Going to PAY For It?"
The question the RW fucks hang us with every time.
It all sounds Great!! Free Health Care, Free College, Free this and Free that!
Happy days here again - break out the champagne!
But how are you Libtards going to PAY for it??!
well, we're gonna tax wall street and tax the rich and tax this and tax that!
Tax! Tax! Tax!
and as soon as Wingers hear that... Game Over.
Pick up your chess board and table and go home. You Libruls lose.
Again.
Becuz candidates like Andrew Gillum don't know the answer, and mumble their way through, "well, we're gonna tax this and tax that... "
No.
The answer is, "the same way we just paid for the Repubs' $700 Billion Military Spending bill.
Congress simply creates it, authorizes it. Done." Simply an entry on a ledger page, a computer key stroke. 'We' just created and sent $700 Billion into "The Economy™." Magically. Instantly.
By pressing a computer key. No Taxpayer tax dollars required. Not one.
Becuz... rule #1... "Federal Taxes Do Not Fund Federal Spending." Our federal taxes don't pay for stuff. Period.
When 'we' are the currency creators - 'we' being Congress - and 'we' are - then 'we' don't need anyone's money to function. Not even Taxpayer dollars. 'We' simply create it. Essentially out of thin air.
As much as 'we' want, for Whatever 'we' want, Whenever 'we' want.
Period.
Steve from Real Progressives explains... Skip to 1:49 in to save the time...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82uy7Gy0sc=160s]
The point being, when Librul candidates learn this and know it, they won't get caught with their pants down trying to answer, "well, how are you Librul fucks going to PAY for it??!"
No more deer in the headlights mumbling about taxing wall street, taxing rich fucks.
Why can't we have nice things? Becuz progressives don't know how Congress spends money.
Period. {sigh}
Comments
Here's some memes for that ... from Political Memester
Well, the short and simple answer
without trying to teach anyone about MMT and money printing? END the Godamned wars and raise top marginal tax rates DUH! Sorry, but I am so sick and tired of Repukes who ask how "we" are going to pay for shit when they use myriad social programs themselves but vote those away for others - BOTH of my parents as well as my rabidly Repugnant stepmother and her sister, all on Medicaid. And for Social Security, raise the cap, how hard is that? This is NOT rocket science but then again, for a conservative it appears much, much more difficult than rocket science, doesn't it?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Except taxes don't pay
for federal spending.
But, yeah, it still doesn't hurt to Tax the Rich!
It won't help any of our social programs, but at least we would get a warm fuzzy knowing Congress shreds their tax dollars as soon as they come in. That has to piss 'em off!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
the problem is that telling
them you're just going to print money doesn't explain away the potential downsides of just printing up as much money as you want.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Unfortunately, many people haven't thought about that
as in what downsides?
Inflation?
Federal Spending essentially is "backed" by what it spends it on.
MMT calls that "productive capacity" or Real Resources.
That which is needed to produce whatever Congress is spending the money on - plus labor.
Generally they equal out = zero inflation. Give or take.
The reason MMT - printing as much money as we want, for whatever we want, whenever we want - works here in the U.S. likely better than any other country is our Productive Capacity to back up that bottomless spending. That is, our gawd given Natural Resources (Great Lakes, uranium, the list is endless) - plus a Labor Force quite capable of manufacturing whatever it is Congress is spending the money on. Money Spent = Productive Capacity = Zero Inflation. give or take. But certainly inflation is no threat to our bottomless rabbit hat full of money.
$32 Trillion for Med4All over ten years?? Print it!! Start building some hospitals, clinics! We've got an aging Boomer population to take care of!
There are no downsides. At least no serious downsides.
That's what taxes are for.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
i'm sorry, but that comment is rife with
fantasy. our productive capacity isn't infinite, and most of the things we would have the government spend money on are not going to magically increase productivity very much, or even at all.
the fascinating thing to me about MMT proponents is that none of them want to talk about what money actually is, functionally. what has allowed us to run our rather high deficits for so much of the last 40 years has been the willingness of people and institutions outside of our own economy to keep taking the surplus dollars off our hands. thus, although our extreme military fetish should be quite inflationary (from an economic perspective, most of the money spent on the military might as well just be handed directly to consumers to spend) it isn't, because we send the dollars out of the country to pay for t-shirts, iphones and cocaine.
it's a simple thought experiment: what do you think would happen if tomorrow morning every American woke up and was told the government had deposited One. Million. Dollars. into their bank account?
anyone who does not think there would be an immediate inflation of extraordinary magnitude, doesn't understand enough about what money is to be having opinions on economics, much less offering those opinions to other people.
recognizing that there will be inflation in such an instance starts the important conversation that any proponent of MMT must be able to manage and discuss coherently: how fast can we release new credit into the economy without triggering hyperinflation? and inflation or otherwise, what are the downsides of having government spending and private spending competing for what are, your somewhat weird boosterism notwithstanding, fundamentally scarce economic resources -- human labor not the least among them?
because -- and here's the important point -- from a macroeconomic perspective, there isn't much difference between the government printing million dollar bills and sending them to us all in the mail, or the government printing million dollar bills and spending them on worthwhile projects. to the extent that there is a difference, it's that the scenario of spending the money is normally more inflationary, because it simultaneously increases the money supply and decreases the available resources (labor, in particular) to be chased by all that new money.
when people have more money, prices of things go up -- especially, prices of fundamentally
scarce things, like real estate and human labor, both skilled and unskilled. the inevitability of this is made sweetly clear in that thought experiment i offered: who the hell is going to go work as a hospital orderly if they have a million dollars in the bank? the answer is nobody -- unless rent is 50 grand a month, which it shortly would be under that scenario.
clearly there is a limit to how much money the government can successfully print without taxing it out at the back end, a fact that most MMTrs will admit when you pin them down and make them squirm, and a fact that most citizens with functional cognition recognize intuitively. And because this is something the citizens already know, anyone excitedly telling the citizens, "You don't understand!! We can just print as much as we want!!" is going to be dismissed out of hand. And should be.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
‘Print as much as it wants’ is usable shortcut for describing
what has been happening and I am puzzled why you don’t go into that.
See quantitative easing, huge military related borrowing....
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I didn't go into it because I was addressing
a particular deficiency in the MMT analysis as it is presented to the general public.
The moment when an MMT'r finally told me that I didn't understand, because, yes of course, when you read the actual writing, all MMT analysis includes taking credit back out of the economy by taxation, I just rolled my eyes at my monitor. At that point, we've reduced the whole conversation to chickens and eggs -- do you tax before you spend, or spend before you tax?
And BTW, the mantra of "taxation doesn't fund spending" implies that the government's actual mechanism for spending works in a way that it actually doesn't. Believe it or not, the government runs its bank accounts pretty much the same way you and I do. Money gets deposited in those accounts by transferring balances from payors' accounts, and then gets debited from those accounts to satisfy the checks written by the Treasury or other government agencies. Yes, "new" money does go into those accounts having been created out of thin air, but contrary to what the MMT folk seem to think, the "accounting" is mostly clear and literal and works the same way as if every transaction required an actual coin or piece of serialized paper to be moved from one place to another. So, yeah, taxes do fund government spending -- and if there's a shortfall, the government arranges to print up new banknotes representing the shortfall, because otherwise the accounting collapses. I simply do not get what it is that MMT'rs think is the revolutionary insight of "taxes don't fund government spending". They do, in fact, in precisely the same process by which my monthly deposit into my bank account funds my mortgage payment and my grocery bills. That process may seem like absurdist theater to the MMT'r, but it's not at all -- it's a serious effort to make a system that is inherently abstract behave as if it were concrete, so that it is, in the jargon of systems analysis, under control. I think the weird epistemological dance MMT does over this whole issue is both bizarre and comical.
Ultimately, the point is that "money" represents a promise to provide something of value. If the federal government prints up a dollar and uses it to pay me to help an old lady across the street, the government is promising me that somehow, somewhere, someday, I'm going to get something in return: somebody is now on the hook to make good TO ME on that dollar with goods or services. And if the government prints up a quadrillion dollars and uses them to pay an army of doctors, nurses, orderlies, teachers, counselors, construction workers, forest rangers, park rangers, childcare workers, and associated administrators and clerks (and to buy the physical resources that support the work of all of those people) to provide us with services and infrastructure that we progressives believe are Good Things, somebody is going to be on the hook to make good to those service providers on that quadrillion dollars we've given them.
It is easy to perform reductio ad absurdum on the counterargument, that the government operates without limits on its production of fresh credit. Suppose I think (and remember, the key word is absurdum) that the government should pay for every household in the country to have a half-time housekeeper/cook. There are 126 million households, so that's 63 million housekeepers, which is about 40% of the entire labor force. I also think that the government should provide, instead of classroom teachers, a half-time one-on-one tutor for every school child (which incidentally is less insane than it sounds, given that we know for certain this is the most effective way to teach -- and efficient, in terms of the student's time). That's about 60 million kids, so 30 million tutors -- another 20% of the workforce. Now here's the tricky part: the remaining 63 millionish workers now must make good on all of the money being paid to those 93 million housekeepers and tutors. Those dollars must have value (or who would work for them?), and that value is real. It may not be fixed, it may not be guaranteed indefinitely, but it is real, and we've just told 40% of the population that they're responsible for making good on the just compensation that the government has paid to 60% of the population for the work they do.
Do you see the difficulty there? Do you agree that, contrary to the leger-de-main offered by Wink, the work done by the housekeepers and tutors did not automatically create the value that offsets the credit (or more properly understood, debt) represented by the money the government printed and paid to them?
Anyway, I did give a nod to the matter of printing money to fund military adventuring, in my observation that it has only worked because people in other countries have been willing to take our dollars -- a process that's not guaranteed under current circumstances, nevermind a situation in which we announce we're just gonna print money till we're all choking on it.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
And there's another safety valve
The US exports all of its inflation, potential or real, to poorer nations.
A very clear explanation. Thank you.
MMT only really works for the premier reserve trading currency of the world, of course.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
So MMT completely bogus?
Except the $22 Trillion
debt isn't anything special to be worried about,
and neither is our $1 Trillon deficit.
One, that $1 Trillion deficit is mostly the result of dRump's recent Tax Cut for the 0.1%.
But I suspect that all of the concern from anti-MMTers is Inflation. Or seems to be.
And, two, the $1 Trillion Tax Cut and $700 Billion Military Spending combined barely raised Inflation a smidgen.
But do anti-MMTers argue instead that Taxes do indeed Pay for gov't spending?
Obviously flooding "The Economy™" with $320 Trillion - giving everyone $1 Million - without first providing a place for it to be spent - Productive Capacity - obviously doesn't and won't work.
Med4All, on the other hand, at $3.26 Trillion over ten years... obviously that MMT money has a place to go. And therefore will be spent there - in the health care community. $$ = Productive Capacity. And very likely better spent than the way it is currently, as the Kochs point out, saving us $20 Billion /year or a savings of over 5% of current $$ spent on Big Insurance.
I'm not an economics professor, but you don't have to be one to know that handing out blank checks - emptying the MMT bottomless rabbit hat - isn't anyway to run an Economy™. But neither is denying basic services to citizens - Med4All, Food Stamps... - on the premise "We Can't Afford It!" when MMT magic money says we can. As they said back in Statistics 101, do the math. If 'They' can afford $1 Trillion Tax Cuts, and spend $700 Billion on the Military, then... Then I suspect the difference in thinking (or excusing) between the two is political. Imagine that! Shocker!
Are there limits to that MMT bottomless rabbit hat. Of course. But a $6 Trillion or $7 Trillion spending bill over 10 years - for things like Med4All and Free College and... and other things on our Libtard Wish List is NOT going to break America's piggy bank. Or send Inflation thru the roof. It's just not. Will it add to the "Deficit?" Likely, sure. And of zero concern. Funny, Japan doesn't seem at all concerned with their deficit. And... if Inflation is corralled, as The Fed has now done for years... who really cares how much 'we' spend? Surely anti-MMTers aren't suggesting our MMT bottomless rabbit hat indeed has a bottom?!
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
MMT isn't completely bogus.
It's only about half bogus.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Well, the only half that
matters is rule #1...
"Federal Taxes Do Not Fund Gov't Spending."
That pretty much is a game changer for The Left,
if for no other reason than it kills the RW argument,
"How are you Libfucks going to Pay for it?"
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
yes, but as i explained, IT'S NOT REALLY TRUE.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNCZHAQnfGU]
Greenspan seems to think so, and he's hardly alone.
LoL - and look at Ryan's smug mug drop as Greenspan tells him, "There is nothing to prevent the government from creating as much money as it wants."
LRTFOL.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I think you really need to listen to what
Greenspan says immediately after the bit you gleefully quote.
Not, in any case, that what he says supports the rhetorical claim that "Federal taxes do not fund government spending". In fact they do, in exactly the same way that my paycheck funds my mortgage payment. It's just that, unlike me, the federal government has access to potentially -- though not pragmatically -- unlimited additional credit above and beyond tax revenue.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
He doesn't say borrow,
doesn't mention credit,
he says "create." As in "create it's own money."
And, yes, those "Real Resources" ("productive capacity" as MMT calls it) as he calls them are a necessary half of the equation! Agree. And one of just two or three mechanisms preventing The Gov't from simply emptying the bottomless piggy bank. The other one Inflation. And likely another one or two.
But taxes aren't one of them.
Congress can indeed simply create money out of thin air - and does - simply by passing a bill and getting it signed. No tax $$ required.
It doesn't take money out of The Gov't's piggy bank where taxes are stored to pay for stuff.
Taxes don't pay for Gov't spending.
They are, however, important, in that they are used to throttle The Economy™ one way or the other, brakes or gas pedal. And... obviously, if not enough tax dollars are collected to "pay for" Gov't Spending there is a deficit. But taxes do not determine how much can be spent. If they did we'd essentially be back on the gold standard. And, I would argue - and do - that if the 1% "paid their fair share" there wouldn't be a deficit. Instead, Paul Ryan and the Repubs would rather rob the poor by stealing their S.S. and Medicare benefits. How Ayn Rand of them.
But as long as the U.S. is willing to run a deficit - and why wouldn't we be? - our bottomless piggy bank is there for the taking! Spend away! As Stephanie Kelton explains, that $22 Trillion Debt could be paid off simply by writing a check - is Not waiting for our grandchildren's children to pay off.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FYS3z45Zqc]
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
"Credit" is a general term of art referring to
having money to spend. It doesn't necessarily imply that the person having credit owes anything to anyone else -- although it may. (Either way, the point is that Greenspan says that the government can just "create" money, but then he explains why it's not necessarily a good idea to take that exhilarating realization very far in actual policy.)
What the term "credit" does imply is that somebody -- and in an economy of perfectly fungible credit like "money", everybody, collectively -- owes the person/institution/agency that holds the credit.
When the government "creates" money, it is creating a debt, such that the aggregate economy is now responsible for delivering to the government goods and services commensurate with that credit. The reason most people are intuitively dismissive of MMT is that most people intuitively comprehend this fact, while MMT advocates just wave their hands and talk as if money were nothing at all.
The magical thinking aspect of MMT isn't in imagining that government can just print money -- everybody knows the government can just print money. The magical thinking aspect of MMT is in imagining that there is no opportunity cost to be paid. To the contrary, the opportunity cost is the crux of all economic decision-making and policy-making, at every level of both private and public economy. Again, this is something everybody with any sense understands intuitively -- that money per se is not the issue, but rather the power to command and consume resources that money conveys.
So you begin your rhetorical appeal to the American public with a sweeping general assertion that even you yourself understand to be untrue -- as evidenced by the qualifications you've finally accepted regarding limits on how much money the government can print without creating a financial disaster. It doesn't matter, in the end, whether the government views the money that it prints and spends as debt that it must itself pay back some day. What matters is that most people don't like the idea of somebody -- anybody -- just announcing, "Hey, everybody now owes us 100,000,000,000,000 dollars' worth of goods and services ... but don't worry, because we promise that in return you'll collectively get at least 100,000,000,000,000 dollars' worth of something -- education, healthcare, security, whatever."
Really, what you're selling is just a looking-glass version of Reaganomics. Reagan slashed tax rates and ran huge deficits on the promise that increased GDP would result in higher tax revenues despite lower tax rates. MMT just skips the tax step. It's still deficit spending, but now the idea is that increased GDP will countervail the inflationary pressure, since there's no suggestion that the money will ever be taxed back. People recognize this for the bullshit that it is, because although the question is phrased as "How are you going to pay for this," people understand that the real question is what is the opportunity cost of this>? If everybody gets to go to university for free (something I'd advocate, for the most part), then somebody has to pay for it, in the sense of money (either by paying taxes to the government, or by paying higher prices due to the twin effects of increased money supply and reduced available resources) and in the sense of resource consumption (somebody will be required either to produce/provide the education service, or to economically serve the producers/providers of the education service).
The bland MMT assertion that we have unused surplus capacity ignores the actual macroeconomics of supply and demand -- beginning at some semi-equilibrium, any increase in demand for goods and services will cause marginal increases in prices, and any increase in supply of money will increase marginal increases in prices, regardless of whether we are at full capacity.
And WTF does "full capacity" even mean to an MMTr? Does it mean we're pumping petroleum as fast as we can, consuming fresh water as if it were limitless, planting every last arable acre with corn, cotton and tobacco, working 16 hour days, 7 days a week? Presumably not.
The problem isn't that MMT says there's an endless supply of free money, it's that advocates of MMT insist explicitly that we can have a Free Lunch -- we can get something for nothing. And we can't. And people know that. Which is why MMT advocates are doomed to shaking their fists at clouds and wondering why people are So Dum.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
It comes down to
how big a Deficit we can
run, and how big a Debt we're willing to carry.
That's pretty much the restrictions to emptying the bottomless money hat.
Well, that, and Real Resources. And Inflation.
That's pretty much it.
And, since there's really no intent to ever pay our "Debt" - Ever - and there's no real need to - we pay off "Bond Debt" every day - with interest, so... it is effectively "being paid off"...
the real issue then becomes that Repub boogeyman, "The Deficit."
And, I would argue - and do - that "paying down The Deficit" could easily be accomplished by Taxing the Rich and their Corporations. Bigly.
Done.
There's easily a $Trillion among the Rich and their corporations - they just recently received a $Trillion in Tax Breaks for christsakes, so..... The Deficit, in reality, is not a factor.
It could easily be paid.
So... if we know we're Never going to pay "The Debt" (as we do that every day when we "cash out" those Bonds every day that essentially "cover" the "Debt") - and "The Deficit" boogeyman really isn't - then MMT essentially works as advertised:
Federal Taxes Do Not Fund Gov't Spending - "we" can spend As Much as we want, For Whatever we want, Whenever we want.
With these Limitations.
1. Real Resources (including Labor) available to accomplish whatever Congress wants to accomplish (spend money on).
2. Inflation. We can't just "flood the Market" with unlimited dollar bills. duh.
The two limits I've said here from post one. This ain't something brand new to me, I've known MMT for four years. It just recently dawned on me that we Libs and Dims could use MMT to start winning elections by educating Libs and Dims on just how Congress spends money - and eliminating the Repub winger b.s., "How Are You Libfucks Going to PAY For It??"
So, yes, I'm dumbfounded when I get deer in the headlights.
"That can't POSSIBLY be right, Wink!!"
"So... you think Taxes paid for that $700 Billion Military Spending bill??"
Then Why didn't we hear from elected Dims, bellering, "how are you Repub Warmongers going to PAY for it?! huh? huh?"
Funny, Repubs didn't seem to worry about that. Why?? Becuz MMT works for $Millionaires and $Billionaires. Not so much for the rest of us. (and becuz our elected Dims are in on the scam, too).
"MMT for the Rich. Rugged Individualism for the Poor."
is this a great country, or what?!
It is for the $Millionaires and $Billionaires!
The rest of us...
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
If 'we' progressives don't
learn this quickly - and I'm on a mission from gawd to do just that here locally in my beloved NY-21 - then I fear we lose the ballgame. Becuz TPTB are hellbent on having a Con Con (Constitutional Convention) and adding a "Balanced Budget Amendment" to the Constitution.
And if they succeed they will have totally succeeded in fucking the 99%.
Royally.
Becuz, in order to pass ANY bill in Congress (especially those favoring The Left) it's going to take an "offset" somewhere to -ahem- "balance the budget." And guess where those "offsets" are going to come from? Exactly! S.S. and Medicare and any other "Librul Entitlement Program" they can slash.
But, Wink! Wink! Shouldn't we strive for a Balanced Budget??
Fuck no. Fuck to the no (as my sister likes to say)!
The country runs - operates - in the red. By running a "deficit."
A "deficit" is the difference between money spent into The Economy™ (by Congress) and what is taxed back to Congress. That difference is "the deficit." So, if Congress spends $100 into The Economy™ and taxes $90 back to Congress (where it's shredded - Congress doesn't need anybody's money - it simply 'creates' as much as it needs) - then 'we' have a "deficit" of $10. What the Repubs don't tell us is that means there is $10 out there "in The Economy™," in the real world, to spend. No "deficit" = no spending. And no taxes, becuz nobody has any money to pay taxes. No taxes = no economic system = no country. Simple as that. A "balanced budget" therefore means Congress spends $100 into The Economy™, and taxes back $100. So... riddle me this... where are more tax dollars going to come from?? People's piggy banks, that's where, becuz there are $0.00 in The Economy™ to draw from. Which is the Oligarch wet dream. No Congressional Spending beyond a "balanced budget" = no new spending at all. Wet Oligarch pants everywhere! A "deficit" on The Gov't side of the ledger, therefore, means there's an Equal Amount in The Economy™ somewhere - likely in some military contractor's pocket. But, regardless, it's out there in The Economy™ to do something with. No "deficit" = no new money in The Economy™. "The Gov't" runs in the red so that The Economy runs in the black. They're two sides of the same gov't coin. One plus the other = balance. But a Balanced Budget Amendment would totally fuck up that balance, what's left of The Economy™ soon coming to a screeching halt - unless... Unless 'we' take it from S.S. and Medicare and... and... to flood The Economy™. Becuz S.S. and Medicare about the only entities that have actual money of their own to rob. ~er "procure." Want Green Solar Power?! You bet! Well, fine, take it out of the S.S. pile. Becuz in order to spend 'we' must first and foremost 'balance the budget.' And we're right back on the Gold Standard - or might as well be - when currency - $$ - were actually tied to something of value. Our current "fiat currency" has no such limitations. Unless 'they' pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. And I fear - as does Steve in the video - that progressives will be cheering on the formation of a Con Con (Constitutional Convention) leaving this door Wide Open for TPTB /Oligarchs becuz those progressives don't know their MMT - don't know how Congress spends money. And 'they' only need a few more states whereby they'll have the leverage to call for a Con Con - and get one. At which time the 99% can fold up their table and go home. Game over. Well, prolly can't go home. Prolly in foreclosure before the ink dry on the Amendment. {sigh} Which is why we progressives are So hosed if we don't learn our MMT. And why I'm out there on the NY-21 highways doing the #EachOneTeachOne thing. carry on...
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
The capitalists have a head start
- I made a comment on another diary, where I mention that an educational reform advocate 100 years ago, John Dewey, warned that we were merely training people to be good little drones for the capitalists and not teaching critical thinking and democracy.
By the end of his life he seemed quite despondent, saying that the educational system in America couldn't be reformed because all of the administrators had been trained to be good little drones and took their orders from the capitalists and resisted reform.
Basically, I'm saying the path we are on was set in motion hundreds of years ago, with the first corporation, the East India Tea Company, and since the capitalists figured out then how to fleece the workers (by denying them any share of the profits, knowledge, representation, or democracy,) the capitalists have known that as long as the workers create the capitalists' profit (through the incentive of a whip or a wage) the capitalists should continue to use their levers of power to maintain the status quo.
So we have hundreds of years of propaganda fed to the people and things ain't gonna change. You have millions and millions of people who think, "Gee, a wage is better than a whip, and I get to buy a pick-up truck, who cares if my boss is a billionaire?"
Meanwhile, in Australia, 15-year-old kids sit on the board of directors of their own high school, are running their own high school as a democracy, and are designing video games, while their 7-year-old classmates are running the school's cafe. Those kids are learning democracy and independence, while American kids learn to be good robots and only make coffee for the authoritarian corporations (in other words no democracy, no critical thinking, no profit sharing!) And they will grow up to be teachers and principals all across America and they will make damn sure the next generation doesn't learn either about democracy, critical thinking, or an equitable distribution of profits!
Sadly true.
Is too obvious
at this point. MMT is considered by most to be "Magic Money."
Hey, Steve from the Real Progressives video said as much.
Congress 'creates' money, and Poof! Done.
And that is true. That is exactly where the $700 Billion for 'Military Spending' came from.
Snap fingers. Poof! Created. $700 Billion "in the bank." Ready to spend, cover checks.
That's how All federal spending happens. Snap fingers. Poof! Created. Simple as that.
So... yes, @GreyWolf, for people that have spent the last 40, 50, 60 years believing our Taxes pay for "Defense" and All "gov't spending," MMT is a bogus b.s. concept. Not the Economics 101 they learned in college. (a course I skipped, btw, saw no point).
We don't have enough in taxes to cover gov't spending?? Then we must "borrow from the Bank of China" to pay for stuff, as O'bummer put it. "Prez Bush is taking a credit card - from the bank of China - a debt our children's children will be paying... " Well, they won't. That $22 Trillion debt is not our children's children's debt. It's the Gov't's debt. Payable likely never. So... moot. And... why in gawd's name would a country that makes and spends its own money - from a bottomless rabbit hat - need to borrow money from anybody?? Least of all China?! It's ridiculous. But, yeah, this is going to be a tough row to hoe. But it's a row I consider Way more important than the 2018 elections, becuz if we fail to learn and embrace MMT, future elections aren't going to matter. At all. Repubs know they've got the hippies and Libtards by the balls with a simple question... "how are you Librul fucks going to pay for it? huh?? raise taxes?? Ha!! Good luck with that!" And we again tuck tail and retreat to our congress critter seat, defeated and humiliated yet again. Simply becuz 'we' don't know the answer is, "just snap our fingers."
The St. Louis Federal Reserve:
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Getting rid of dodgy money-pits like the F-35
might help.
But, hey... 'Murka!'
Or something.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Fuck yea!
[video:https://youtu.be/MGQaH3-LK54]
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
"Pay go"
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/390898-dem-leaders-embrace-pay-go
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-perils-of-pelosis-pay-go-promise/
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21206043/pelosis-pay-go-...
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/04/nancy-pelosi-2018-midterms-democrats/
Pelosi practically wets
herself talking about
'Pay Go' when she knows damn well a Balanced Budget literally fucks the country, not just progressives.
Or should know.
Which is the problem 'we' still have on the blue side of the aisle.
Most of our Dim reps still believe what they were taught in H.S. for christsakes.
But I blame Bernie and the few Dims that DO know their MMT for leaving it up to me (and many others) when they could simply invite Stephanie Kelton in for a 3-day weekend conference in Foggy Bottom.
How friggin' difficult is that?! For $5 Large and a nice hotel room I suspect she would do it in a NY minute. Alas...
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Bad for the country?
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/390898-dem-leaders-embrace-pay-go
And no one in Washington, D.C. needs to be schooled on the subject:
Id.
They are not frightened of Republicans. They are not "caving" to Republicans. They are not clueless (as in "They just don't get it.") They know everything we know and very probably more. Democratic politicians, like Republican politicians, are doing exactly what they want to do. Take that, useless eaters. https://infiniteunknown.net/2013/12/05/henry-kissinger-quotes-on-depopul...
ERMA. (Elected Representatives, My Ass.)
Which is exactly why
MMT pressure must - and
eventually will - come from the grassroots, the bottom up.
Only when the grassroots know and embrace MMT - "Our Taxes Do Not Pay For Gov't Spending, So WTF Are You Politicians Even Talking About?!" - will they then be able to tell politicians to take a flying leap - and take their 'Pay Go' with them!
Becuz without Tons of public pressure to shove her Pay Go up her ass, the Nancy Pelosis will continue to say, "sorry! (not), we understand you want this and you want that, but we simply can't afford it, becuz... Pay Go. If we didn't have that damned Pay Go, you Libtard progressive fucks could have nice things! Next question... "
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
You may have more faith than I do.
I'm not a bit worried about that.
I've posted a number of sound and painless and sometimes mindbending plans right here — that have resulted in either crickets or anger, two sides of the same coin. In my case, this pertained to Universal Basic income. And, again in my case, I chose plans produced more money than the total costs.
Too much obstructive brain pollution from too much propaganda and the loss of evolutionary priorities abounds across the land.
If ordinary Americans deserve to survive in some way other than fighting over scraps like dogs — then this is what will happen: Someone telegenic and charismatic will write a simple best-selling book explaining the financially constructive, high GDP-producing, and even personally profitable ways this funding can be easily implemented. The publisher will have a brilliant promotion and distribution arm behind it. The Forward will be written by a globally recognized group of respected economists. The Introduction will be penned by a similar group of Nobel prize winners. Then Americans can take their time and read the many extraordinary, logical, and simple plans over and over and over again until they understand them.
Or, it might not happen at all. That's certainly a real possibility.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
This is the problem isn't it?
If ordinary Americans deserve to survive in some way other than fighting over scraps like dogs
The PTB don't think that we little people do deserve to survive in a world that has decreasing resources. Countries across the globe are inputting austerity policies and gutting the safety nets. The republicans are planning to do this after the midterms if they win. If the democrats win then Nancy will not roll back their tax cuts or do anything that will help us.
That they didn't blink at the increase of the military budget over what Trump asked for tells me everything I need to know. That the democrats weren't doing everything they could to stop the tax bill from passing tells me even more.
Then there's Feinstein's game with the letter. Did she try to keep it hidden so that Kavanaugh could sail into the SC or something else? By holding on to it for as long as she did gives me the impression that she wants him on the court. Especially when she said that she "isn't sure if Ford is telling the truth." Silly woman needs to retire.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
^^^This!^^^
This is exactly why I refuse to play the Democrat versus Republican game any more. There is no real difference between the parties when it comes to the real impacts upon the lives of every day people. The Democrats lie when they say they care and the Republicans simply don't care. It is all a matter of style because in the end, neither party cares about we the people.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Heh.
...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
too many of us seem to ENJOY fighting for
scraps like dogs.
Neighbor: It's a dog-eat-dog world out there.
My Dad: Yes, but I'm not a dog.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
It's more about control than it's about money
If you let the peasants get something that they need, they will probably want something else, and they may not settle for less next time.
Is exactly right.
And why TPTB
are scared $h!tless of the rise of DSA and other groups, that that yahoo on the Tucker video got right - are really more the Left of the '60s than any new brand of "Socialism," but hey, whatever works! So here come The Right screaming {gasp} Communism!!
It's totally about power, and TPTB keeping theirs while fucking the 99% lest we get a whiff.
Simple as that - and why they're scared right to death of Bernie's Med4All !!
Imagine killing their Insurance profits! A yuuuge part of their portfolio!
And why "we can't afford it!" despite KochBros claims to the contrary.
It's MMT, baby, vs. TPTB. A cage match where only one walks out.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Cheney and Trump get it
Actually, Donald Trump knows all this:
Donald Trump on the debt: "You never have to default because you print the money”
Donald Trump Is Right: Deficits Don’t Matter
Exactly.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pex89N9Oqog]
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Space Force elements
Air Force secretary: Space Force will cost $13B in new expenses
paygo our disability checks why not
die harder granny
Modernization or death: Heed history’s lessons on the F-35
feel the undermine
death merchants supreme
I doubt "TPTB" are afraid of the DSA, or anything with D in the name. good luck
'They' can fart $13 Billion.
A pimple on our GDP's ass.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Well, since taxes don't fund
Well, since taxes don't fund the fed gov, why do they take my money? If they don't need my tax dollars, I say I should be able to keep them! Having extra to spend locally should only help the economy right??
I have long said the reason we can't have nice things is because we spend entirely too much on bombs and other war toys. Infuriating.
If it was easy, everyone would do it.
There is a way to make all of this affordable
...of course. Money theory aside.
Do what the wealthy socialist countries do.
Nationalize.
Nationalize the oil and other natural resources. Nationalize the banks and stop charging interest. Profit share, instead. Nationalize enough universities to give all Americans a top-notch education in any field. Nationalize the Internet. Nationalize transportation. Nationalize everything is, in fact, a public utility to American life. Keep the same employees and account it as a non-profit. And negotiate drugs and other price-gouging necessities at the federal level.
Now, you run a surplus.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Uh oh.
You said the "N" word.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
A couple of "N" words.
Nationalize and Negotiate.
$12k ubi for all citizens, plus everyone gets the first $50k they earn tax-free. Everyone pays the same flat tax over that, including corporations because they're people, too. Phase out social programs and war spending. Use the surplus to pay down the debt, to build all the missing public transportation, and to make public spaces beautiful. A robust marketplace where everyone has the "liberty" to become an entrepreneur.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
during the '80 primary campaign, a friend of mine
attended a Ted Kennedy rally at the Auditorium on the UIUC campus. Per my friend, Kennedy was railing about the massive profits that Mobil was raking in due to deregulation and the rise of OPEC -- notwithstanding the "windfall profits tax" that Congress passed to try to claw some of it back. The scene went something like this:
"Mobil's profit last year was 4 billion dollars. They say they need that money for exploration, to find new oil reserves." (Crowd boos.) "You know what they did with all their profits? They bought Montgomery Ward!" (Crowd boos.) "I think we all know how much oil they're going to find in the aisles at Montgomery Ward!" (Crowd laughs, roars.) "Do you know what we need to do with the oil companies?" CROWD SCREAMS: "NATIONALIZE THEM!"
At which point Kennedy smiled gratefully while the crowd raged for a bit, then quieted them down and went on to the next part of his speech.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I must admit I get a certain amount of satisfaction
...listening to the President rail about $100 oil and OPEC's arbitrary pumping reductions to profit gouge. "It cannot stand," he barks.
He knows that Americans will be forced to pay the top global spot price, even though the US is completely self sufficient in its own oil. Not only that, their labor will be taxed to cover the costs of exploration subsidies, a profit enhancement paid to US oil corporations to induce them to make America oil rich by more aggressively exploiting the people's natural resources. So will the American people benefit? Not one bit. They will be charged the highest global spot price for their own domestic oil, and the oil companies will pocket the excessive windfall profits. What's more, the people will pay substantially higher taxes on the gas they need to drive themselves to their daily labor. At the end of the day, US oil self-sufficiency will make them poorer. (Didn't the 2008 crash begin with $5 gas?)
This is as it should be for the isolated Americans and their beloved robber barons. Meanwhile, more than ninety percent of the world's oil is nationalized, and is extracted by NOCs. Citizens of oil producing nations don't pay retail prices at the pump, and are rarely impoverished at the gas station. Only the oil-importing nations pay those higher spot price — and the poor Americans, who pay even more after they pick up the exploration costs of their wealthy oil overlords.
You were a witness to it. This is the American way, bless their hearts.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
But not the Alaskan way!
That separatist sociamalist governor, Sarah Palin, did love writin' them big ole oil entitlement checks to her rugged individualist citizens.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.