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Listen to Our Podcast- Randy Wray on Krugman and the Frustration of the Heterodox April 28, 2014
- Fred Lee Talks About his Contributions to Heterodox Economics April 18, 2014
- Feb. 27 Podcast with Randy Wray February 27, 2014
- Bill Black and Randy Wray October 21, 2013
- Political Theatre and the Government Shutdown October 2, 2013
- Randy Wray: The Taper, the Debt Ceiling and the Prospects for Growth September 23, 2013
- Stephanie Kelton Talks with Warren Mosler September 4, 2013
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i will second that nomination…we dont have a viable choice now…
jared bernstein left the administration to become a blogger,/b>; tells you a lot about how much attention this white house pays to economists…
if you can, fix my b tag error above before posting my comment…
Wow, Biden must be much smarter than I thought.
The important thing about alternative candidates is getting the message out. Stephanie would be a great spokesperson for dispelling the many myths we have been taught about economics and for sane economic policy. Actually getting elected is obviously not on the table and couldn’t possibly be.
Did I just write the obvious?
It’s hard for alternative candidates to get the message out. Look at Jill Stein. How many people know she’s running and what she stands for. She works hard. She’s been saying good things. But the media won’t cover her. In 2010, Warren Mosler ran for the Senate in CT as an independent. He was by far the best candidate; but was totally drowned out by Blumenthal and McMahon. He also had very little success in getting the message out.
I think the way to go is to take back the Democratic Party and bring our message with us.
That might be the only way to do it. The message is drowned out by the deficit hawks. They instill fear, fear of inflatiion, fear of high interest rates, higher taxes, more borrowing from China. We need a few nationally recognized spokespersons to help carry the message. Paul Krugman, while not an MMT proponent, helps with the need for stimulus. But it has to be more than that. It has to address the deficit hawks forcefully. The best way is to have a political movement behind it. Jill Stein just won’t cut it. So the democratic party is the best way.
much of the political problem is with the nomenclature used in discussing these issues…we talk of borrowing and debt, which have negative connotations, and the right talks of balancing the budget, which is a clever use of the language, as everyone thinks “balance” is something we should strive for, as if it were a virtue…
we really need new words to describe government note, bill, & bond issuance, because the nature of a government issue is closer to creating needed money than it is to what the public & the airheaded congresscritters think of as “debt”…obviously, obama suffers from the same delusion, saying that the government is like a household and should also tighten its belt when times are tough…& the mistake they’re all making is what’s costing us this prolonged & deep recession…
Jill Stein does not include as one of her issues that the Federal Government ITSELF should provide a risk-free fiat storage and transaction service and that government deeposit insurance should be abolished. That’s a serious oversight and is fundamental to monetary reform.
We need a pure “Anti-Banking Party”. Dragging in Green stuff will only turn off many people and there’s enough that a pure “Anti-Banking Party” could propose to drag in 99% of the population including those the banks usually divide against each other such as debtors and non-debtors – a universal bailout of the population is a prime example.
Stephanie , the US is not a national economy.
It holds the $ – oil is priced in $sss
No problem producing money to reduce bank leverage in a national economy but the US ain’t a national economy baby.
If you really print fiscal money at any old thing you will extract energy units from the rest of the globe.
What gives yee guys that right ?
What are you talking about? Try it again for those of us a little slow.
I watched this discussion. It was wonderful. Jared did actually say that Stephanie should run for President. An idea worth considering, although I am sure that Stephanie has a higher and better use. Like doing what she is doing, as a powerful advocate of MMT. The discussion proved enlightening in many ways, but not to me. Stephanie was able to make the necessary arguments in favor of MMT very clearly and cogently, and this is no suprise. I only hope that people will begin to listen. The main problem we have is that the two major branches of the Plutocracy Party, the Democrats and Republicans, as stuck in their own economic mud and spinning their wheels. The Dems are predominently Keynsian, and the Reps are primarily Friedman/Chicago School (trickle down etc.) The theories have no valid meaning in today’s economy. They are outdated and dysfunctional to the max. Time to rally our people of faith, and demand a meaningful change. As was pointed out in the discussion, Bernanke knows about MMT, after all the QE is a misplaced part of MMT theory. The problem with QE is that the dollar seems to unavoidably stop at the big banks where the QE credits go, and no further.
This is something serious to consider. I tried working the Ohio Greens to do some free fiscal/monetary/economic literacy. They didn’t really much recognition even about the economics part of the US Green Party Platform, which actually has a major entre to MMT/FF/EM economics. In my opinion the Greens preferred to pursue the celebrity model of politics, rather than at least debates comparing function macro-and meso economics to the corporate lap-dog version. If the RNC does poorly or even just well enough to sound like a choice, there is a major opening for perhaps the Justice Party to coalesce as a clear choice in contrast to the current duopoly. It is very likely going to be difficult for academics to further break out of the current default mode. IMO, Stephanie’s speaking skill is much more toward more general audiences than most the economists that I’ve watched/listened to. A this point a national initiative defining a functional reform package would provide a common platform. It will be important imo to weld into the reform package the commons centered economics of Henry George (Not H. Daly! nor the Georgist archivist campfire. IMO). to address more immediate commons related and meso level dynamics.`
as we go, Tadit
PS, Even though the US Green Party doesn’t have a chance in this election it might be useful to contact Stein and her VP directly and frame MMT/FF in the context of the US Green Party platform. Stein is there obviously to raise issues more that any expectation of being elected. At this moment is is less about getting Stein getting elected. Unfortunately my contacts through the GP here are quite useless regarding real issues preferring to be be the non-alternative “alternative.” Twisting the US GP”s candidate arms a bit toward furthering an integrated economic/monetary/fiscal reform package may not have an immediate impact.but now is a moment when their attentions might be engaged to attach a package of reforms to the US GP economics platform. Tadit
Greens are idiots from a scientific/technical standpoint. They have turned into Luddites that are not interested in ‘growth’ or an improvement in world standards of living. Of course they all live comfortable lives in developed countries. MMT ideas of constant growth and progress are anathema to most of these people now. Seeing comments on various MMT sites by ‘Greens’ has convinced me … they spend all their time talking about limits, and living with less (not to the point of being a peasant in India of course). It’s all pessimistic nonsense. Humans can live better and better and not destroy the planet.
Interesting that you use the “Luddite” epithet incorrectly as most do. You might benefit from reading up on who the Luddites were and what they were about.
That’s the problem with history being written by the victors. Words are twisted to mean something else.
Jareed should get her, Warren and Randall invited to the WH for a little talk. Could do a world of good, especially the part about households not being like the federal governement.
Thanks for stepping up to the plate, Dr. Kelton.
Stephanie, you rock. They should give some kind of turbo-Nobel for high octane economic debate efficiency: for the quantity of myths buried in in the shortest amount of time.
Poor graduate student from Houston didn’t know what hit him.
On the issue of why – given the circumstances we are in – the “Keynesian” approach is back on its heels these days, I think the problem is that the modern Bastard Keynesians have thrown away everything but the “stimulus” parts of Keynes. Keynes wasn’t just an economist. He was a progressive social and political philosopher who wasn’t afraid to rock the capitalist boat and take on the sacred cows. Contemporary Keynesians are working within a fundamentally conservative socio-economic framework. So they constantly undermine their own case. If you tell people that we need to spend more, but then you make it sound like the spending is like taking an emergency blood transfusion from your own kids, and that you then must replenish the blood later at the earliest possible opportunity, you just scare people away from your own proposals.
What Keynesians need to tell everybody is that what we are ultimately deciding to “spend” more of is not our kids’ stuff, but our own unemployed material and human resources. We can leave those resources sitting around going to waste, or we can employ them to create value and wealth. The money we might need to create from scratch in the process is a mere resource manipulation tool, and putting more of that tool into existence doesn’t blow up prices, because it is matched by the additional goods and services that are summoned into existence by the new employment of resources.
And what they also need to tell people is that the public needs to do this because the private sector won’t and can’t. The private sector doesn’t have the combined capability to employ all resources effectively. The last four years are proof positive of that fact.
Poor graduate student from Houston didn’t know what hit him.
No kidding.
@Steve K 9
I have looked at sov UK floating in the euro soup and its not pretty…..
They ran North sea oil through the Pigs to get a yield and now its gone.
They must now destroy the countries that burned the oil (and previously gave them a interest yield) so that they can continue to consume the remaining resourse.
Capital formation ,especially fixed capital formation requires diesel and a lot of it , workers have not been part of the energy balance since the slave days.
There is a huge difference between a fiat system withen confined national bounderies and the world of trade today.
Each country is not a simple energy hinterland trading with other energy hinterlands…..as during the agri or indeed king coal days.
If you want Kings with pure fiat trading with other Kings with pure fiat bring it on – I am all for it , but thats not what we have now.
And what the hell is a “Green” by the way – I really have no idea what it means.
MMT will not fix this.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade
It will try to sustain it.
The US is not the country of 1914.
It is not the China & Saudi Arabia all in one Monster package that created a run on the BoE that caused the Great war to kick off this Kenysian stuff via HMT producing 10 shilling notes….with interest.
MMT does not produce Base Goverment money.
Dork,
I don’t think you understand MMT.
Better yet make her the President’s economic advisor.
Dork of Cork:Stephanie , the US is not a national economy.
Of course it is. (My apologies to SBK for replying here in lieu)
It holds the $ – oil is priced in $sss
So what? This doesn’t mean saving in dollars, which is what counts. Could price it in rials; wouldn’t imply (much more) saving in rials.
What gives yee guys that right ? The fact that other people want dollars. The US can’t have any semblance of free trade and not exercise this universal right that everyone else has. And considering the severe mental retardation of modern economics and economists, this is a mixed benefit to the USA.
If you want Kings with pure fiat trading with other Kings with pure fiat bring it on – I am all for it , but thats not what we have now. No, it essentially is what we have now. Pure fiat vs. bond shell games – a distinction without a real difference.
MMT does not produce Base Goverment money. No, Uncle Sam (or John Bull) or whoever produces it. MMT describes what he does, and the silly legerdemain he does to amuse himself, which enraptures so many into thinking it has real meaning, that someone else is running the show.
I say, make Warren Treasury Secretary
That’s what I want to see – more of you in the media. By the end of the year, I hope to see one of you on MSNBC. They would love to have you on, and I would love to watch
First likely MSNBC show? I’ll bet it’s Rachel Maddow!
or Up With Chris Hayes. They’d proably test Stephanie out on there before giving her primetime spotlight on Maddow.
Glad to see this media activity.
Let’s hope for lots more, because it does expand the dialogue.
But Stephanie’s point on modern fiat money uses a bit of governmental -sector slight of hand.
Where MMT calls for ‘fiscal’ stimulus – which can only be defined as government(Treasury) spending – to actually increase the demand in a consumer-based economy, her model for explanation – as always with MMT – is central-banker Bernanke s saying that the CB can create ‘money’ (which he doesn’t) by computer strokes.
None of those computer-generated assets are equivalent to the ‘government’ stimulus that drives the demand in the economy that Stephanie advocates. None of the CB machinations produce more fiat money. Rather, it merely trades more reserves for bank-corporate liabilities.
The proof that demand stimulus is achievable in a modern monetary economy needs a different vehicle – one that includes direct, non-debt based government spending, authorized by the Congress, for all of those things that Stephanie says we need to restore the economy.
And, y’all know where that vehicle resides.
For the Money System Common.
Hi Joe, I think you’re missing this sequence. When the Treasury deficit spends no net new money is created because Treasury adds dollars to the private economy and also subtracts the same number of dollars by selling securities, while leaving the securities a net financial assets added to the economy. But down the road when the CB decides the money supply is too tight and makes those trades of new money for old securities; that’s when the net financial assets previously added in the form of new securities get transformed back into new money. So, in this roundabout way the combination of Treasury and B activity does result in new money being added to the economy.
Actually, it depends on how you define “money.” Is it M0, M1, M2, M3, L, or the broadest measure, “Debt Outstanding Domestic Nonfinancial Sectors.”
When the federal government pays a bill, it marks up a creditor’s checking account, which by most measures, increases the money supply. Simultaneously, the government creates and sells a T-security. When you buy a T-security, your dollars are transferred from your checking account, at your local bank, to your T-security account at the Federal Reserve Bank.
A T-security account is essentially identical with a bank savings account, so the question becomes, do you consider dollars held in a T-security account at the FRB and/or dollars held in a saving account at a bank to be “money”? Personally, I view all dollars held in bank accounts, whether at the FRB or a local bank, to be part of the broad money supply.
Bottom line: Federal deficit spending directly creates dollars.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
“When the federal government pays a bill, it marks up a creditor’s checking account, which by most measures, increases the money supply.”
Just to be clear, the government is not legally empowered to make that creditor-payment unless it ALREADY has the credit balance in its own account at the Fed to debit.
So Treasury had to have ALREADY (either taxed or) issued a security – thus having previously reduced the M1 money supply.
Finally, if “A T-security account is essentially identical with a bank savings account”, and since the only real source for funding a bank savings account is the M1 money supply(“from your checking account”), then how can “moving” the M1 money into M2 create any new money?
Bottom line: Federal deficit spending – if funded by debt – neither directly nor indirectly creates any new ($USD) money.
It merely creates new monetary assets FROM the money.
joehbed,
Not sure what you’re trying to prove but . . .
In the past five years, the U.S. has had a negative balance of payments totaling about $3 trillion. That’s 3 trillion dollars that have left the U.S. economy. But today, the U.S. economy has 40 trillion dollars.
In the past 12 months alone, about 500 billion more dollars left the U.S. than came back, yet the U.S. economy added about $2 trillion.
So where did all those additional dollars come from?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
If it’s OK, the point I am proving is that government deficit spending does not create any new money when funded by debt; that is, the debt-issuance merely accumulates existing, saved money for government use in paying its bills.
And, that was in reply to RMM:
“Bottom line: Federal deficit spending directly creates dollars.”
If you think I have not understood something about how that works, and why government payments do not create new (dollar) money, then please explain.
I’m not interested in pursuing the changes in the current account and national economy “balances”.
There is plenty of relevance to discuss in the content of this posting.
“I’m not interested in pursuing the changes in the current account and national economy “balances”.
Understood. You don’t want to face the absolute proof your hypothesis is wrong.
Anyway, you said, “the point I am proving is that government deficit spending does not create any new money when funded by debt.”
But federal deficit spending is not funded by federal debt. So called, “federal debt” is the total of outstanding Treasury securities, which are nothing more than a bunch of bank accounts. To buy a T-security, you instruct the Federal Reserve Bank to debit your bank checking account and credit your T-security account at the FRB. Since a T-security account is virtually identical with a bank savings account, all you have done is debit your checking account and credit your savings account — in short, you have transferred dollars from your checking account to your savings account.
The biggest owners of T-securities are foreign nations (which already have checking accounts at the FRB) and the FRB itself. So the sale of T-securities largely consists of debits and credits within the FRB.
Do account transfers within a bank create dollars? No. Do account transfers within a bank destroy dollars? No. The purchase and redemption of T-securities neither creates nor destroys dollars. The entire process is nothing more than an inter- or intra-bank transfer of your own dollars.
There are two, and only two, ways dollars are created and destroyed:
1. Lending creates dollars; paying off a loan destroys dollars
2. Federal spending creates dollars; federal taxing destroys dollars
The federal government creates dollars by instructing creditor’s banks to mark up the creditors’ bank checking accounts. The fact that the government also allows you to transfer dollars from your checking account to your T-security account, neither creates nor destroys dollars.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Well, that was progress.
I asked for any explanation of whether what I had written – that government deficits funded by government debt- issuance does not create new money – was either not understood, or was in error . Please explain.
The reply says that I don’t want proof that what I said was wrong.
Fortunately, some proof was offered.
A claim is made first that government debt does not fund the deficit spending.
I didn’t hear that said in the video.
The people at Treasury think they need to issue the debt in order to fund the government’s expenses.
Please tell those responsible for government finance that there is no need to do so.
If they believe you, and stop issuing public debt, then I will believe it too.
As of now, today, Treasury issues debt to fund government expenses.
Your move.
It is later stated rather cavalierly that the federal debt, in the form of Treasury Securities, were ‘nothing more than a bunch of bank accounts.
That these balances of the public debt are expressed in some bank’s account is of little consequence to the reality of what they are : dollar-denominated obligations of the federal government to pay to private holders fixed sums of money on a date certain, payable through tax revenues.
.
They are a securitized obligation of the taxpayers of the country to make the payment.
That’s why it’s important about who creates the money.
And whether it is done by issuing debt.
To see the public debt – under the present private, debt-based money system, in terms of accounting seems a little myopic.
The non-taxed budget can either be funded through issuing debt or by printing money.
They have completely opposite monetary and political-economic effects.
Issuing debt enriches the private sector and obligates the public sector.
Printing money, that is via debt-free issuance by Treasury – as advocated by Lerner – enriches the public by producing permanent ‘equity’ on the government balance sheet.
It results in a comparable reduction of the private wealth that would have been gained had the government issued the debt.
Thanks.
You say federal deficit spending does not create new dollars. What does create new dollars?
You also say the Treasury says federal debt funds federal spending. Actually, the entire political establishment says the same thing. But it makes no sense mathematically.
If the government needs to borrow dollars in order to spend dollars, where do the dollars they “borrow,” come from? Depending on your definition of “money,” (M1, M2, etc.) there are somewhere between $10 trillion and $38 trillion in the American economy — and growing. Who created them, and how?
You say that T-securities are “dollar-denominated obligations of the federal government to pay to private holders fixed sums of money.” That is true. Similarly your savings account is a “dollar-denominated obligations of your bank to pay to you, the private holder, a fixed sum of money.”
Neither the bank nor the Federal Reserve Bank relies on its own income to pay that “debt.” In fact, bank money and your money are kept separate. To pay the obligation, your bank merely transfers dollars from your savings account to your checking account. Similarly, to pay off your T-security, the Federal Reserve Bank transfers dollars from your T-security account to your checking account.
In neither case is any new money needed. In both cases, it’s a simple transfer of your money, from one of your bank accounts to another of your bank accounts.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Rodger, thanks.
Amazing how much we agree on here.
I hope it informs the discussion.
So, yes the Treasury (also the entire political and academic structure – MMT notwithstanding) says that the government debts are issued in order to fund deficit (non-tax) spending.
Under those circumstances, it seems it would be up to somebody who disagrees with this government-debt-finances-spending construct to prove the opposite – that government debt does NOT fund government spending.
In reality. Not, in theory.
Having said that, if there is a problem with some math, what math is this? Spanning $10 to $38 Trillion covers a lot of math.
Are we asking where the Primary Dealers get their balances from which to make original GUV-debt purchases? That’s a good question, and something worth making public.
But that is really a separate issue.
.
You appear to agree with my statement that government debt (accounts) is akin to my savings account, both funded from M1 money – by definition, already in existence. My point was that no new money is created by issuing the GUV-debt to fund government expenses. So I think we agree on that also.
Rodger, I answer again, as always, your question of: “…, then where does the money come from to buy those GUVdebts?””
At present in this country, under the private debt-based system of money, all money is created by the private banking system. Except coins.
And Greenbacks.
Which are money and remained in circulation, paying bills, for over a hundred years. Think of the compounding interest saved.
Of course, besides creating all the money, private bankers also create all forms of near-monies and non-money monies and other money substitutes, which co-mingle with real money in forming the aggregate of monetary assets, beyond anything in M3.
And while it is possible to re-engineer forensically the creation of all of those monetary assets, the question to me is not ‘how?’, but ‘why?’.
Why would a sovereign people allow a private privilege of issuing $US-denominated obligations on future taxpayer-citizens?
Even beyond all that near-money, shadow-banking toxic crap, why do we sovereigns allow the private commercial banks to create the nation’s currency as a debt?
For MMT, it is the engagement with ‘endogenous money’.
So, it’s not political-economy, it’s merely the Status-Quo.
Thanks.
Joe, thanks a lot. : )
But actually I tried to be specific and spell out the option where Treasury did NOT sell securities.
“direct, non-debt based government spending, authorized by the Congress,”
This is what Lerner called ‘printing money’ in his Functional Finance construct.
It is in this Lerner-money-printing scenario that there is no ‘subtracting of the same number of dollars’.
I don’t understand the lack of appreciation of the benefits of permanent, non-debt based money.
Every ‘computer-generated’ Greenback dollar, which was what Lerner advocated for indirectly, remains in existence forever.
That monetary transmission mechanism provides permanent stability to the economy by breaking the deep, so-called business-cyclicality, which is caused by what Friedman describes as ‘the creation and destruction of capital’ – a.k.a. debt-based, fractional-reserve banking.
And, yes, you are correct that no new money is created when deficits are debt-funded, but at the same time, neither is it possible to EVER create any new money in that way, no matter who controls those debt-based financial assets, no matter how many times they are sold, to whom and by whom.
Those government securities merely transform the structure and ownership of ‘old’ money among various public and private players. While the M1 money supply may decrease and increase with changes in form and ownership, it will never provide a net increase in new money.
Finally, to be clear, when we’re talking ‘money’, we’re talking real money, and not ‘reserves’, which are not money in the real economy where we all live and work.
Thanks.
@All MMT Guys
Yee guys are so naive or maybe autistic……..
The US is a Imperium.
Why do yee need primary dealers for anything – they extract a rent from waste production.
Central banks were created to wage war on external nations not to finance internal Kings business , any old King can do that.
The King can just make the money and tax it.
Banks have got nothing to do with or at least should have got nothing to do with goverment money , they do credit.
Yee are drunk on living beyond your means. (extracting other peoples real resourses)
Get over it.
This modern Keynesian stuff started in 1914 when HMT produced 10 shilling notes at interest to bail out the BoEs edwardian malinvestments.
This MMT meme of little old ladies clutching their savings is priceless stuff.
The banks buy the bulk of the sov money.
Back then the bulk of the interest on the sov money supply went to bailing out the banks malinvestment and now the bulk of the interest will go to bailing out the banks malinvestment.
No difference in the great scheme of things.
Real goods consumption will flow to the connected people / bankers as always as yee guys waste the worlds oil supply on grot stuff and call it “growth”
The Great war to end all wars…….yeah right lads.
MMT is another fairytale
Its a neverending story now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1feCThY2Eis
The MMT meme is being used to peserve the present power structure , not to change it.
“Because people who have no hopes are easy to control and whoever has the control has the power”
Yee Adult grown up sort of people have forgotten the power of purity.
D of C,
US balance of trade deficit is not so much with the oil exporters as it is
with Asian goods exporters. This is based on labor exploitation not so much resources (oil) no?
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0001.html
Looks like about $125B with the OPEC people but US runs around $600B overall
currently… looks like there is much more to this than oil, based on the data/facts.
rsp,
Stephanie, I thought you did a terrific job. It’s clear you have the respect of Jared, which may be a very good thing to have in the coming years. Do you think Jared is acquiring an appreciation for MMT and even beginning to read a bit? I thought I heard a few hints of a change coming during the interview.
Looked him up at wikipedia – was surprised to see that “he does not have a degree or any formal training in economics.” (of course may not be entirely true). His not having formally learned ignorance explains how he can have such an attitude, can still think !
Poor Phd Stephanie!! 😀 He received a lesson he will never forget! BTW your argument about why progressives fail in supporting bad deficits vs good deficits is excelent. More material in our arsenal, thank you!
D of C, I see your point about energy and dolars. That is something to consider and I’ve been thinking about it since I first discovered both MMT and the global peak of resources we are facing right now. How to reconcile the accurate description that MMT makes about how our economy operates, and how this knowledge could be applied to address the enviromental agenda, is an important thing to do.
IMHO, the key point here is how we define growth. In my view, growth is not only about producing material things but also about services. For instance, caring of the elderly people, should not be as resource intensive as producing more cars. Even more, it should give jobs to more workers, since human presence in this type of works is crucial, whereas, in manufacturing mechanization always tend to employ less and less workers.
How to make the transition to a resources intensive economy to a human intensive economy would be complicated but without MMT it will make it much more painful.
global peak of resources we are facing right now
If you’re talking about peak oil, that’s a 200 year-old tale. Global oil resources have been increasing since 1990. In fact, the increase in 2011 equaled what was anticipated for 2025, according to the DOE.
@Matt
The global labour and Euro labour arbitrage is enabled by oil at low prices.
You need Bunker Fuel to transmit these Goods to market and you need a huge amount of the stuff to transfer it across the Pacific or Indian / med route.
This arbitrage subtracts from domestic demand but the banks make their cut from the gap , that gap has narrowed as oil prices have risen so they need to subtract consumption from people so as to remain on top of the game , but this is sort of self defeating.
(In the uk for instance their income from the rest of the world is now negative as they strip Ireland , Spain etc but to sustain real goods coming into the UK they must destroy their income – a catch 22 )
They have played this game before , agricultural goods is a form of energy and during the age of sail the european banks made their cut from the slave plantations of the west indies and Americas.
Lets say transporting Cork Mules to Cuba and returning with a cargo full of Sugar.
This is no different other then its scaled up to a massive degree.
When Kissenger and the lads went over to China they set up a global system of trade as they had the coal and cheap labour locked withen a sort of prison.
To complete the circle they needed to produce credit and use the so called western Dash for Gas as a cheap low capital intensive method of sustaining western credit consumption without putting up too much capital as that was needed in the east ………. then the circle was complete ( the Euro / big bang thing of 1986 ~ was at the heart of this , more so then America even.)
But this time its as if the Wind speeds are declining each year……. a major problem for the banks / slave owners.
The supply chains are simply too long – we are obviously witnessing a breakdown of this Anglo arbitrage model as the UK needs to strip its Jewel of the crown, the EU so as to sustain itself.
PS> I don’t know about the above figures but The IEA subtracts bunker and aviation fuel from country energy balances so watch out for that stuff.
PS
Came across a excellent video of what I think is Europort Rotterdam.
It plays like a Maritime Blade Runner.
We are dealing with such immense energy densities now – especially withen China and its enormous coal consumption but its exports also depends on cheap oil……….
They have built these ports to channel and contain this new energy flow but if the flow stops then what then ?
i.e. if something goes wrong at these leverage ratios………
I think the global supply chains are just too long with no internal redundancy built withen local systems.
This reduction in redundancey appears to increase banks profitability via what they call efficiency but the systems are so fragile because of these manic efforts.
Somethings got to give.
I doubt Jared even begins to understand that federal taxes and federal (so called) “borrowing,” do not pay for federal spending. If taxes and borrowing fell to $0, or tripled, neither event would affect by even $1 the federal government’s ability to spend.
Jared’s brain still is stuck in the monetary non-sovereignty of pre-1971, and has not yet understood Monetary Sovereignty.
All the discussion about “deficits now, but not later” was ludicrous. We need deficits now AND deficits later.
And as for cutting deficits to fight inflation — fundamentally impossible. How would you fight stagflation? There is one way to fight inflation, and it is not by cutting the dollar supply. The Fed fights inflation by increasing the demand for dollars, i.e. by increasing interest rates.
The Fed successfully has kept inflation near its target rate, year after year, by interest rate control. Might someone be willing to learn from history?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Nice entry, Roger. Keep it up, short and to the point.
for anyone interested:
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/
he typically puts up a dozen topical posts a week, ie, covers & opines on the employment report, et al
A example of the insane almost mindless stripping of Spain
Southern Euroland is a extreme bank colony but it is but a shadow of sov countries (UK ? ) as they made money from the waste production in Europe
They build highly intensive capital stuff and yet now have no money to use it.
They or their German subcontracters prefer them to waste real diesel rather then metaphysical debt……………why
So that the French & Germans can have the capital for exactly the same investments – crazy is it not ?
This tram ran for 2 weeks in 2011 and then stopped for lack of symbolic tokens because of the debt build up.
Only 2.2 million euros !!!!!
Can you imagine the wastage in PIig land ?
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranvía_de_Jaén
http://www.vialibre-ffe.com/noticias.asp?not=9164
I am afraid Europe is a absurdly corrupt entity.
It cannot be saved.
Both Hayak and Keynes were hacks for the banks…….you just produce debt free money baby.
It looked very busy in this video from spring 2011. (although it was probally free)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZmPh3b6yfM
The problem with Europe me thinks is that it ain’t using its existing capital stock too well
The Euro can only grow outwards through waste production as it is not really a currency , its a yield vehicle for the Anglo boys.
The central question of our times is why or to be more precise – who benefits ?
Me thinks its the Anglo countries as real goods flowing into their home countries is now important then its previous claims on Euro investments.
Excellent job, Stephanie! That was a lot of fun to watch, particularly because it was such a productive thirty minutes.
Direct job creation, anyone?: http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/daddy-where-do-jobs-come-from/
Good, though he unjustly and incorrectly says “Even Keynes had relatively little to say about implementation and the relative effectiveness of different types of stimulus.” Keynes, as opposed to the “Keynesians” wanted targeted demand mangaement like the JG, like the direct job creation Bernstein too likes. So why not use a useful argument from authority?
Pavlina Tcherneva has written several papers with this point, like Keynes’s Approach to Full Employment: Aggregate or Targeted Demand? and blogged on it several times here, from the beginning: A Message to President Obama: Stop Priming the Pump, Hire the Unemployed .