Daily Archives: April 6, 2015

A Push-Pull Model for Cooperative Markets Financed by Sovereign Spending

Posted on April 6, 2015 by J.D. Alt | Comments Off

By J.D. Alt

I recently outlined a sovereign spending structure for making “free” pre-school care and instruction available to every American child (Opportunities of a Millennium, Part 1). After further consideration, I realize the proposal glosses over a fundamental issue posed by sovereign spending itself: Should it “push” or should it “pull” at resources to achieve a given goal?

Here is what I mean: In the case of pre-school care and instruction, it would be possible to direct the sovereign spending in basically three ways. The first way is the classic “government program” model where the federal government establishes and staffs a public bureaucracy to provide the pre-school care. This model was ruled out in deference to the Boomer-GenX generation’s legitimate objections to “big government”—and especially big government programs which waste money and fail to accomplish their goals. This leaves two options for directing the sovereign spending.

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Posted in J. D. Alt

Tagged cooperative markets, markets, millennials, sovereign spending

When Will the Congressional Progressive Caucus Ever Learn About Sector Financial Balances?

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Joe Firestone | Comments Off

In addition to the House Budget Committee and OMB budget plans and 2016 – 2025 projections fiscal policy followers have also recently been graced with the effort of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) proposing their budget plan and 2016 – 2025 projections. The CPC budget proposal is interesting because it is definitely not intended to be an austerity budget. Instead, its authors consciously try both to achieve the goals of “fiscally responsible” low deficit budgets while turning away from austerity and towards achieving full employment, renewed economic growth, economic stability, a strengthened social safety net, greater economic equality, an improved infrastructure, and transportation system, improving the health insurance system beyond the Affordable Care Act, a greener economy, improved education and other progressive goals.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged budget plans, budget projections, Congressional Progressive Caucus, debt and deficits, Economic Policy Institute, EPI, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, OMB budget projections, Republican House budget. House Budget Committee

Whining about Indiana’s Retreat from Bigotry

Posted on April 6, 2015 by William Black | Comments Off

By William K. Black
Quito: April 4, 2015

I’m dealing with the temporary expiration of our subscription to the Wall Street Journal and my resultant inability to read columns behind its paywall. This caused me to search whether others had made the full text of the WSJ editorial “Liberal Intolerance, Round II” available on line. I put the first sentence of the editorial in my search engine.

“The political delirium over Indiana’s law protecting minority religious beliefs doesn’t seem to be abating, and the irony is that it may be illustrating why such statutes are necessary.”

It spit out the exact same sentence – but in what appears to be (the world’s worst) web site of U.S. News and World Report in a (maybe) news article attributed to “us,” but starting with an AP credit. The only change is that the first sentence in the WSJ has become the second sentence in the USNWR. As the third sentence in the quotation below shows, it is in some ways a personal take on a straight news story sourced to AP, but the USNWR’s web site refers to as being authored by “us.” I trust you are as confused as I am. The two pieces differ, but seem clearly to have been written by the same person about the same subject.

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