Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Hey Aimless, you're the one who said it was Keynesian. That's why I asked for the clarification. I'm not trying to talk down to you.

Also, I'm sorry that my comments aren't useful to you. And if it makes you feel better to put me down about it, I'm glad this forum allows that.

Yikes.

And I will read stuff I don't agree with in the NY Times or elsewhere, sometimes Don.

you're the one who said it was Keynesian

No, I merely assumed you had at least the minimal acquaintance with Keynesian ideas required to understand what I did say.

Do you expect me to believe you are that ignorant?

I went to Krugman's blog expecting a takedown of the Stockman thing, but mostly he just shakes his head:

Actually, I was disappointed in Stockman’s piece. I thought there would be some kind of real argument, some presentation, however tendentious, of evidence. Instead it’s just a series of gee-whiz, context- and model-free numbers embedded in a rant — and not even an interesting rant. It’s cranky old man stuff, the kind of thing you get from people who read Investors Business Daily, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and maybe, if they’re unusually teched up, get investment advice from Zero Hedge.

Sad.

No, I merely assumed you had at least the minimal acquaintance with Keynesian ideas required to understand what I did say.

I do. Your post was not clear. Seems like you usually present your opinions on economic stuff better than than you did.

Do you expect me to believe you are that ignorant?

I assume that you believe I am ignorant, given your dismissive nature towards me. That's ok.

So kind of you to forgive me for what you assume I believe.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/c2ac124e748cbbfa800c4350f9bc3e44/tumblr_mkjnb4mP8g1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/c2ac124e748cbbfa800c4350f9bc3e44/tumblr_mkjnb4mP8g1qdmmiqo1_500.gif
http://24.media.tumblr.com/c2ac124e748cbbfa800c4350f9bc3e44/tumblr_mkjnb4mP8g1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/01/1198391/-Krugman-Stockman-Piece-Pathetic-and-Embarrassing

Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills.

the gains in productivity over the next 30 years will dwarf the "soaring debt burden" of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even of whatever taxes might need to be raised to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. The issue is whether most workers will share in those productivity gains, or whether the gains will continue to get funnelled to a tiny elite

like, this elite runs our economy over a cliff and now we're expected to believe that the big problem is poor people, and their bizarre expectation that they should receive the pension fund they've been paying into their entire lives? like, QU'EST-CE QUE TU RACONTES, MANGGGGG

like sorry, the whole thing is just tl;dr after a sentence like that

This is the introductory paragraph of my 4 page op-ed on Star Wars for the New York Times. Star Wars, directed in 1983 by Steven Spielberg, is a black and white documentary set in the fields of Avalon in a post-industrial...

So Tracer, you're pretty convinced that we can grow our way out of any sovereign debt levels that were to become problematic?

if we can't we're screwed regardless

fuck the rich

As far as I'm concerned the US can be infinity dollars in debt and everything will be fine.

We could mint a platinum infinity dollars coin!

Sadly even if we paid our creditors our infinite debt with our infinity dollar coin we'd still have infinite debt. The good news is that if we keep the infinity dollar coin we can write infinite infinity dollar checks.

the only thing that can break this terrible cycle? infinite love.

//easter 2013
//praise

Somewhat more prosaically, debt is the other side of credit and credit is a form of trust. Dollars, in which our country's debts are measured, are largely composed of trust. The loud gnashing of teeth by the deficit doomsayers is a reflection of their own personal loss of trust, which they project upon the markets, thinking that if their trust is so radically compromised, the markets must surely be feeling the same way because markets are rational and must see how reasonable it is to mistrust the dollar.

As Krugman never tires of pointing out, this projection has proved to be a total delusion and the markets feel entirely different than the deficit doomsayers. This fact does not penetrate the doomsayers' minds, because the strength of their projection requires that the markets feel as they feel. If the markets do not now, then they soon must. There is no alternative scenario that the doomsayers can accept as true. Stockman is true to his type and his tribe in that.

The disaster is always in the imminent future, no matter how many imminent futures have come and gone without its arrival.

chicken little bullshit about the debt is just a way for the rich to make sure the cards stay stacked against everyone but their own kids, who they deal royal flushes generation after generation. same as it ever was

Political life without the doomsayers would be tragically boring and nothing would "get done".

I think there's a tendency to conflate "we won't default on our debt" with "everything will be fine." Obviously we can monetize our debt forever, but at SOME hypothetical point that would have SOME consequences.

not before jellyfish take over the earth I would think

How do we prevent the rich from stacking the cards?

big, powerful blower fans, iirc

if the debt rises at a rate that is less than wealth creation that is financed with such debt, why couldn't debt be monetized forever?

Political life without the doomsayers would be tragically boring and nothing would "get done".

― The Great Forgiver (dandydonweiner), Monday, April 1, 2013 3:08 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what exactly is "getting done" right now iyo

not much

Oh wait, it looks like there might be some federal gun control coming.

if the debt rises at a rate that is less than wealth creation that is financed with such debt, why couldn't debt be monetized forever?

― Philip Nunez, Monday, April 1, 2013 3:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not really sure what you are asking. Monetizing debt = increasing money supply to pay for debt. If "wealth" is rising faster than debt, you wouldn't really be monetizing debt, you'd be paying it off with the new "wealth" in your scenario, as I understand it. So far, what you're describing is not happening though.

x-post to dandy don
Nah, Republicans are blocking background checks now

i don't mean necessarily wealth in govt coffers, but wealth creation as a whole.

So Tracer, you're pretty convinced that we can grow our way out of any sovereign debt levels that were to become problematic?

i'm not an expert obv but I find Dean Baker convincing on the debt. Here's what he wrote a couple of weeks ago in response to a Steve Rattner column about the demographic "threat" to the federal balance sheet. He beats the same drum pretty regularly so apologies if you've read similar before:

We have seen an enormous upward redistribution of income over the last three decades. As a result most workers have seen little of the benefits of economic growth. If this upward redistribution continues, then our children are unlikely to see much of the gains of growth in the future.

Rather than have people focus on the policies that have led to this upward redistribution (trade policy, too big to fail banks, patent policy etc.), wealthy people like Rattner use their money and power to try to divert attention to the cost of Social Security and Medicare. They have thrown enormous resources into trying to scare people with the prospective burdens posed by these programs. For example, Rattner today tells us that with Social Security:

"The present value of the unfunded liability is 'only' $9 trillion."

Are you scared yet? After all, it's "only" $9 trillion. Didn't you love that sarcasm? Yes, $9 trillion is a lot of money, none of us will ever see that much money, even Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. But if we are having a serious discussion, we would talk about this as a share of future income. It's about 0.7 percent of future GDP. Does that scare you?

That's a bit less than half of the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade, that's hardly trivial, but that expense would not impoverish our kids. Medicare and Medicaid are projected to cost more but that has nothing to do with the old stealing from the young, their higher costs are the result of doctors, drug companies, medical supply companies and other providers in the industry charging us two to three times as much as their counterparts in other wealthy countries. If we paid the same amount per person for our health care as people in other wealthy countries then we would be looking at long-term budget surpluses rather than deficits.

The reality is that the hit to future living standards from demographics is relatively modest. It is easily dwarfed by the gains from projected productivity growth even under very pessimistic assumptions. Even if productivity just grows at the same rate as it did in the slowdown era from 1973-1995 the gains from productivity growth through 2035 would be more than three times the potential hit that our children would face from supporting a larger population of retirees. And after 2035 productivity continues to grow, even as the demographics barely change.

But this story depends on our children being able to capture the gains of productivity growth rather than seeing them all go to the top. That requires a reversal of the policies of the last three decades. But rather than having people talk about the policies that are causing this massive upward redistribution, Rattner is trying to set children against their parents and grandparents. And the NYT is apparently happy to give him the space to do so.

good book

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism

The debt is mostly owed TO OURSELVES. China owns 8 percent of the debt total. It's mostly owned by rich Americans that have been fucking the country over from the beginning and will continue fucking it over until the end.

But yeah, poor people want money and it's an ENTITLEMENT. This poor person feels ENTITLED to money. They don't really deserve it but they think they do.

If the poor deserved money, they would be rich. They are not rich, therefore they do not deserve money.

The debt is mostly owed TO OURSELVES. China owns 8 percent of the debt total. It's mostly owned by rich Americans that have been fucking the country over from the beginning and will continue fucking it over until the end.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, April 2, 2013 12:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the second sentence of this is not correct, the largest holders are (1) the Social Security Trust Fund, (2) the Fed, (3) China, and the rest of the list includes pensions, federal, governmental institutions, banks, insurance companies, and various other foreign governments besides China. But the fact that a lot of it is "owed to ourselves" doesn't really matter. The question is at what point the debt becomes unsustainable, i.e. people begin to doubt it will be repaid, demand higher interest rates, the government has trouble financing its activities, etc. Or alternatively, if we go the monetization route, at what point that requires so much expansion of the money supply that it creates dangerous inflation. Either of these things can happen, the debate is more about when, and when is the appropriate time to deal with it. Krugman et al say better to focus on getting the economy on track, and that greater economic activity will ultimately help reduce the debt.

inequality is the ultimate source of the debt. this extreme it's unsustainable in a market economy where we are our number one customers. it would be one thing if the oligarchs were competent and the *job creators* created a reasonable sufficiency of decent paying jobs. but they don't, and here we are. everyone should refuse to pay their bills at once and see how the kochs and coors and mellon-scaifes and waltons etc and their trust managers like it

The game’s been heavily stacked in favor of the wealthy ideologues, who seek to extract the most resources from this country while paying the least back. Only by challenging supply-side assumptions at their core can we hope to have politicians who will enact meaningful, strong reforms that might serve to prevent — or at least mitigate — another economic disaster like the last.

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/do_americans_still_not_get_reaganomics/

on that npr piece: https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/unfit-to-report/1fccea431e8d291b31731f8c86cf32a80b06c78c/

that looks like its a share from a paywall that'll go away soon, so here are some links from inside:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lennard-davis/npr-reporter-chana-joffew_b_2971443.html
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/planet-money-misses-the-boat-on-social-security-disability
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/03/22/this-american-life-features-error-riddled-story/193215

http://observer.com/2012/08/adam-davidson-planet-money-media-ethics-08092012/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/08/17/at-npr-you-can-take-money-from-banks-just-dont-protest-them/
http://mediamatters.org/authors/hannah-groch-begley/188

piece had problems but the idea that it was due to NPR being paid off by banks is lol

the present is full of doom if the elites have turned your life to shit

yeah I've been following the kerfuffle over that piece. I had missed some of the more problematic statements in the planet money version that I think were absent from the TAL version (stuff along the lines of "SSI Disability is not achieving its mission and is failing" or whatever. That's bullshit. But I also think the reaction is missing a lot of the insights of the piece and reading stuff in that's not there (e.g. I didn't actually hear anything that suggested "moral turpitude" of the beneficiaries). I thought the point of the piece was largely that the economy has fucked these people and left them with little option other than to seek SSI disability, which seems to be exactly the point that people taking issue with the piece are also making. So IDGI.

i think the open question the piece left (tho it had a heavy bias) is if most ppl going on SSI were in fact disabled. It left itself open to the 'freeloaders off the guvment' interpretation, although there was obviously more interesting stuff going on.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com

?

well the bigger picture is 'in fact disabled' is not really a y/n thing

a constantly evolving interpretation of the word disabled is a very good thing in a country w/ no other long-term safety net for people under 62. it seems like it could evolve into a min guaranteed income over time. that's what I got out of the piece but you can very easily read the gd-freeloaders stuff in there. it was kinda all over the place, but def not a conspiracy by npr-funding banks.

i think heard all of the pm version, my thought at the time was that it did a not terrible job of pointing to a big structural problem, with a predictable, misleading side portion of disablility fraud. i wished it pointed out more explicitly that if all people had reliable healthcare coverage, much of the conflict between employment and disability qualification would be resolved.

the nsfw thing is interesting to know. i'm so used to finance's capture of journamalism everything, i just kind of -_- right by that shit.