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National debts of countries.

Moderate Right said:
Yeah. We can just keep on adding to the debt forever and forever and we never have to pay any of it back, not to mention we can print all of the money we want until there is no paper left in the country to print it. I guess that's why imports and bitcoin were invented for when there is no more paper left in the country. No need to stop at 20 trillion dollars in debt because we can just keep on adding to it until it reaches 50 trillion, 100 trillion, 200 trillion, a trillion trillion, heck, this must be why they invented the word infinite. Think how much the economy can grow! Now I am finally beginning to understand.
Click to expand...

New bitcoins are being created every day. Now if demand for bitcoins outstrips the creation of bitcoins, then bitcoins are going to skyrocket in value. Which of course isn't what we want to happen to our currency, because if our currency was skyrocketing in value, then no one would ever want to borrow it (forcing the banks out of business) and no one would ever invest that money into a productive asset (why take the risk when you can make a larger profit just by holding the currency), and our economy would come to a near standstill.

At some point things like food and ammo would become more valuable for use in trade than the bitcoin, effectively making the bitcoin useless in trade and it's value would plummet faster than it went up.

There is actually a reason (or a set of reasons) why the fed sets the target inflation rate north of 0%.
 
Moderate Right said:
But we could get to a debt of 50 trillion dollars next year and 100 trillion the year after that and 200 trillion the year after that, etc. Think of all that massive growth. There would be no need for a job guarantee. Everyone would have a job! Why should we wait to double our debt when we can grow our economy 100% from year to year? And, as many of us have said, we could give every citizen a million dollars and charge it to the national debt and everyone could be rich. There would be no poverty and there would be no need to go after the one percent. Prosperity to all!
Click to expand...

Our economy can't grow that fast, so obviously we don't want to double our debt each year.

But other than the scale of growth, your remarks are actually correct, despite the fact that you were trying to be sarcastic.
 
Moderate Right said:
But you don't understand. If we don't have to worry about debt then we can accelerate the process. What's the point of waiting? And why not just make everyone a millionaire? You want government programs to help the poor and you want everyone to have a job. We can do it all. Why think on such a small scale?
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We can't accelerate the process faster than our economy can grow.

MMT isn't about extremes, it clearly puts limits on everything. You just haven't bothered to learn enough about MMT to realize that. Maybe you should read up on it a little before you try to participate at the adult table.
 
Moderate Right said:
You guys are the ones who post garbage. And you can't even respond to me challenging you on your very own ideas. I have posted much before in the past but when you are confronted with facts you can't answer you say you don't take reading assignments while at the same time posting your own reading assignments. Let me ask you a simple question though. With Trump as president and a republican House and Senate, how far are your liberal economic policies going to get? The people have rejected your liberal economic ideas that clearly don't work. Hillary didn't even have a plan to bring back jobs to blue states. That's why she lost.
Click to expand...

When I read your posts MR, you remind me of the unfortunate individuals suffering from masochism, those that derive pleasure from being smacked about, and generally made the fool. Why else would you post this stuff?

"The people" have rejected nothing, but voted for Clinton by a modest margin, and Trump has proposed no plans to return jobs, but just tested the water of the intellectual outback, found some (nonsensical) talking points that he judged would sell, and then dived into his carnival barker routine. One would have guessed that carnival barkers would find little traction in our information age, but in this Trump was correct- there are still a whole lot of crackers out there that are an easy sell.

It will be interesting to see how far Trump's policies get, as they are mostly about exploding the economy for the benefit of those at the apex of the economic heap. Wall Street wise guys, sharp traders, shills and dodgy promoters of various species, the rich and famous, insiders and bagmen, alt-right blackshirts, and old style racists...all these stand at the front of the line with a Trump presidency, and your "blue state" unemployed are sadly not on the agenda, although it will take some time for most of those to register the reality.

Under policies announced so far, the national debt is sure to skyrocket, beyond what we have seen to date. But that fits with Trump policy...it's all swampland anyway......
 
Moderate Right said:
Which is no different than you serving up nothing but biased liberal partisan BS. That's the point.
Click to expand...

Actually, MMT isn't liberal or conservative. It's an accurate description of how our monetary system actually works.

I have had this debate with a few facebook friends of mine, and by the time that we get to this point, where I'm pointing out that what I am saying is based upon the system that we actually currently have, they almost always have said "well, it shouldn't be like that". Maybe it shouldn't be like that, I dunno, all I know is that it is what it is.

Your understanding of economics is based upon a gold standard currency. We have not been on the gold standard in decades, the gold standard has failed in every single country in the world. Monetary policy doesn't work like it did when we were on the gold standard.

but maybe I shouldn't blame you for your ignorance of this subject - many college economic textbooks to this day still fail to recognize that we are no longer on the gold standard.
 
Moderate Right said:
You guys are the ones who post garbage. And you can't even respond to me challenging you on your very own ideas. I have posted much before in the past but when you are confronted with facts you can't answer you say you don't take reading assignments while at the same time posting your own reading assignments. Let me ask you a simple question though. With Trump as president and a republican House and Senate, how far are your liberal economic policies going to get? The people have rejected your liberal economic ideas that clearly don't work. Hillary didn't even have a plan to bring back jobs to blue states. That's why she lost.
Click to expand...

A few months ago Trump let it slip out that the federal debt makes no difference and that the government can print all the money it needs. His trillion dollar infrastructure spending plan is either going to piss off a lot of far righties or it's going to force them to understand MMT. As much as I dislike Trump, he seems to understand MMT much better than you do.
https://newrepublic.com/article/133431/donald-trump-right-deficits-dont-matter
 
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Moderate Right said:
Which is no different than you serving up nothing but biased liberal partisan BS. That's the point.
Click to expand...

I made a factual statement in an ill-fated attempt to enlighten you. Nothing I said was bias or partisan. We get it... you have nothing of value to offer.
 
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imagep said:
New bitcoins are being created every day. Now if demand for bitcoins outstrips the creation of bitcoins, then bitcoins are going to skyrocket in value. Which of course isn't what we want to happen to our currency, because if our currency was skyrocketing in value, then no one would ever want to borrow it (forcing the banks out of business) and no one would ever invest that money into a productive asset (why take the risk when you can make a larger profit just by holding the currency), and our economy would come to a near standstill.

At some point things like food and ammo would become more valuable for use in trade than the bitcoin, effectively making the bitcoin useless in trade and it's value would plummet faster than it went up.

There is actually a reason (or a set of reasons) why the fed sets the target inflation rate north of 0%.
Click to expand...

The fed only influences inflation and interest rates. It cannot control them. Once a fire has started it can keep on growing no matter how much you try to fight it. Just as you can influence mother nature to some extent (such as attempts to control global warming, or fires), in the end mother nature will do what it wants.
 
imagep said:
Our economy can't grow that fast, so obviously we don't want to double our debt each year.

But other than the scale of growth, your remarks are actually correct, despite the fact that you were trying to be sarcastic.
Click to expand...

If you want to talk cerebrally then how about this: If you followed MMT to the letter then (according to you guys) there would be great growth and everyone would have a job, so, why incorporate a job guarantee into MMT when it wouldn't even be needed?
 
imagep said:
We can't accelerate the process faster than our economy can grow.

MMT isn't about extremes, it clearly puts limits on everything. You just haven't bothered to learn enough about MMT to realize that. Maybe you should read up on it a little before you try to participate at the adult table.
Click to expand...


You guys are always saying that MMT puts limits on everything but then when we press you, you guys fail miserably in saying what those limits are. You dodge the question with meaningless gobbledygook and rambling on, trying to deflect the question with answers that don't even approach the level of being vague.
 
Ganesh said:
When I read your posts MR, you remind me of the unfortunate individuals suffering from masochism, those that derive pleasure from being smacked about, and generally made the fool. Why else would you post this stuff?

"The people" have rejected nothing, but voted for Clinton by a modest margin, and Trump has proposed no plans to return jobs, but just tested the water of the intellectual outback, found some (nonsensical) talking points that he judged would sell, and then dived into his carnival barker routine. One would have guessed that carnival barkers would find little traction in our information age, but in this Trump was correct- there are still a whole lot of crackers out there that are an easy sell.

It will be interesting to see how far Trump's policies get, as they are mostly about exploding the economy for the benefit of those at the apex of the economic heap. Wall Street wise guys, sharp traders, shills and dodgy promoters of various species, the rich and famous, insiders and bagmen, alt-right blackshirts, and old style racists...all these stand at the front of the line with a Trump presidency, and your "blue state" unemployed are sadly not on the agenda, although it will take some time for most of those to register the reality.

Under policies announced so far, the national debt is sure to skyrocket, beyond what we have seen to date. But that fits with Trump policy...it's all swampland anyway......
Click to expand...

Here is an excellent piece written by a Bernie Sanders supporter as to why Hillary, Democrats, and liberals lost the election. I think you need a dose of reality:

A message to liberals and the Democratic Party
 
imagep said:
Actually, MMT isn't liberal or conservative. It's an accurate description of how our monetary system actually works.

I have had this debate with a few facebook friends of mine, and by the time that we get to this point, where I'm pointing out that what I am saying is based upon the system that we actually currently have, they almost always have said "well, it shouldn't be like that". Maybe it shouldn't be like that, I dunno, all I know is that it is what it is.

Your understanding of economics is based upon a gold standard currency. We have not been on the gold standard in decades, the gold standard has failed in every single country in the world. Monetary policy doesn't work like it did when we were on the gold standard.

but maybe I shouldn't blame you for your ignorance of this subject - many college economic textbooks to this day still fail to recognize that we are no longer on the gold standard.
Click to expand...

That's just hogwash. Your mind is so closed that all you can see are two versions of ecnomics, MMT and the gold standard. Amazingly, two versions of economics that aren't even used by anyone anymore.
 
Moderate Right said:
The fed only influences inflation and interest rates. It cannot control them. Once a fire has started it can keep on growing no matter how much you try to fight it. Just as you can influence mother nature to some extent (such as attempts to control global warming, or fires), in the end mother nature will do what it wants.
Click to expand...

Of course. That's why it's rare that we hit the target. But the fed is getting better and better.
 
imagep said:
A few months ago Trump let it slip out that the federal debt makes no difference and that the government can print all the money it needs. His trillion dollar infrastructure spending plan is either going to piss off a lot of far righties or it's going to force them to understand MMT. As much as I dislike Trump, he seems to understand MMT much better than you do.
https://newrepublic.com/article/133431/donald-trump-right-deficits-dont-matter
Click to expand...

This is one reason why I didn't vote for either, even though Hillary was a total and complete liar when she stated many times that she was not going to add a penny to the debt. Yeah, and there are elves and leprachans too. At least Trump was honest in saying what he was going to do. I'm hoping that Congress can weigh in on not letting Trump accomplish this. I suspect some hard fights on this issue with his own congress. Now, I am a realist and I am very well aware that the economy will be hurt if we try to bite off more than we can chew in the deficit and debt area. We are teetering on the edge of recession right now and we don't need to teeter it over the cliff, but, that does not mean we need any kind of stimulus or increased additions to the deficit. We can bring the deficit and the debt down gradually and grow the economy at the same time.
 
Kushinator said:
I made a factual statement in an ill-fated attempt to enlighten you. Nothing I said was bias or partisan. We get it... you have nothing of value to offer.
Click to expand...

Funny how you liberals always want to enlighten others (because they think they know it all) and yet refuse to be enlightened on anything themselves.
 
imagep said:
Of course. That's why it's rare that we hit the target. But the fed is getting better and better.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that economics is global. One country can fight global warming as much as it wants but if it gets out of control around the entire world then that one country will fry no matter how much it does. Just ask dinosaurs around the world. So to is the economy. That's what liberals don't understand about playing with matches in a forest. They forget that there are no more dinosaurs.
 
Moderate Right said:
Funny how you liberals always want to enlighten others (because they think they know it all) and yet refuse to be enlightened on anything themselves.
Click to expand...

More partisan nonsense. Why don't you just delete your account... you don't bring anything of value to this forum (we are all stocked up on blind-partisanship).
 
Moderate Right said:
You guys are always saying that MMT puts limits on everything but then when we press you, you guys fail miserably in saying what those limits are. You dodge the question with meaningless gobbledygook and rambling on, trying to deflect the question with answers that don't even approach the level of being vague.
Click to expand...

Specifically what limits is that you need explained to you? the limit to money creation is our tolerance to demand-pull type inflation, but creating a larger money supply in itself typically doesn't create that type of inflation because our private sector generally does a pretty darned good job of making production match demand. Most inflation is caused not by a larger money supply, but by a restriction the availability of goods. A great example of that is the high inflation rate that we had during the 1970s and early '80s - this was created by an artificial restriction in the production of oil (OPEC embargo), and of course since the cost of fuel is a component of virtually everything we purchase, the higher oil prices spread into virtually every segment of our economy.

Even in extreme examples such as Weirmar in the 1920s, the excess printing of money was a response to higher prices, not the cause. The cause was a military invasion of Weimar by France and Belgium which resulted in a partial shutdown of production, particularly in the industrial areas of Weimar.
 
Moderate Right said:
This is one reason why I didn't vote for either, even though Hillary was a total and complete liar when she stated many times that she was not going to add a penny to the debt. Yeah, and there are elves and leprachans too. At least Trump was honest in saying what he was going to do. I'm hoping that Congress can weigh in on not letting Trump accomplish this. I suspect some hard fights on this issue with his own congress. Now, I am a realist and I am very well aware that the economy will be hurt if we try to bite off more than we can chew in the deficit and debt area. We are teetering on the edge of recession right now and we don't need to teeter it over the cliff, but, that does not mean we need any kind of stimulus or increased additions to the deficit. We can bring the deficit and the debt down gradually and grow the economy at the same time.
Click to expand...

We have one thing in common then - I didn't vote for either also, and pretty much for the same reason that you didn't. I also expect (hope?) that Trump may possibly be a better potus that Shillary.

I also agree that there are going to be some "bigly" fights in congress, and fights between different factions of the republican party and Trump. If nothing else, the Trump presidency is going to make for much better entertainment than a Shillary presidency would have.
 
Moderate Right said:
Don't forget that economics is global. One country can fight global warming as much as it wants but if it gets out of control around the entire world then that one country will fry no matter how much it does. Just ask dinosaurs around the world. So to is the economy. That's what liberals don't understand about playing with matches in a forest. They forget that there are no more dinosaurs.
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Absolutely. I totally agree!
 
Kushinator said:
More partisan nonsense. Why don't you just delete your account... you don't bring anything of value to this forum (we are all stocked up on blind-partisanship).
Click to expand...

Well, you certainly are and you refuse to be enlightened because you think you know it all. I can tell whenever you can't back up your facts because that's when the insults start flying.
 
imagep said:
Specifically what limits is that you need explained to you? the limit to money creation is our tolerance to demand-pull type inflation, but creating a larger money supply in itself typically doesn't create that type of inflation because our private sector generally does a pretty darned good job of making production match demand. Most inflation is caused not by a larger money supply, but by a restriction the availability of goods. A great example of that is the high inflation rate that we had during the 1970s and early '80s - this was created by an artificial restriction in the production of oil (OPEC embargo), and of course since the cost of fuel is a component of virtually everything we purchase, the higher oil prices spread into virtually every segment of our economy.

Even in extreme examples such as Weirmar in the 1920s, the excess printing of money was a response to higher prices, not the cause. The cause was a military invasion of Weimar by France and Belgium which resulted in a partial shutdown of production, particularly in the industrial areas of Weimar.
Click to expand...

The trouble with you guys is you want to put us in a hole so deep that when something like the oil thing from the late 70's and early 80's happens, we will face Catastrophy. None of your MMT nonsense takes into account that bad things do happen.
 
Moderate Right said:
Well, you certainly are and you refuse to be enlightened because you think you know it all. I can tell whenever you can't back up your facts because that's when the insults start flying.
Click to expand...

I haven't had an opportunity to respond to anything of substance. Sniveling partisanship blended with with a complete disregard to economic logic doesn't spur serious discussion. I have made a point regarding national debt, and you've gone through a half dozen posts that fail to even address my statement.
 
Kushinator said:
I haven't had an opportunity to respond to anything of substance. Sniveling partisanship blended with with a complete disregard to economic logic doesn't spur serious discussion. I have made a point regarding national debt, and you've gone through a half dozen posts that fail to even address my statement.
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This crap has all been debated before. Your "point" is nothing new. You bring up this same crap every so often, hoping you will have a new audience to hopefully brainwash into believing we can continue adding unlimited debt without any consequences. While you might find a new liberal you can brainwash, anyone who actually has brains will realize this is nothing more than liberal claptrap. Even Hillary Clinton campaigned, promising to not add a penny to the national debt.
 
Moderate Right said:
This crap has all been debated before. Your "point" is nothing new. You bring up this same crap every so often, hoping you will have a new audience to hopefully brainwash into believing we can continue adding unlimited debt without any consequences. While you might find a new liberal you can brainwash, anyone who actually has brains will realize this is nothing more than liberal claptrap. Even Hillary Clinton campaigned, promising to not add a penny to the national debt.
Click to expand...

I stated a set of facts. Public debt was once $260 billion, and was over 100% of GDP. We have never paid a penny of it down, it just keeps getting rolled over and over and over and over. You cannot deny this reality. Currently, public debt is over $18 trillion. Someone in 1945 was saying the same bull**** you were: how about $1 trillion? $5 trillion? $10 trillion? $20 trillion? Sorry to burst your bubble, but i was entirely accurate with my statement. You are not in any position to make judgement statements... you're far too ignorant regarding the subject.

But once again, we get more partisan nonsense that lacks any and all economic substance. I am not shocked.
 
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