Tag Archives: the Fed

Peterson/CBO Beat for Austerity Goes On!

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 13 comments

Recently, I’ve been writing about oligarchs advocating for entitlement cuts and austerity. I’ve discussed attacks on entitlement benefits for the elderly from Abby Huntsman (of MSNBC’s The Cycle) and Catherine Rampell (a Washington Post columnist), both the children of well-off individuals. These posts have come in the context of the English language release of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and the more recent pre-publication release of a study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page using quantitative methods and empirical data to explore the question of whether the US is an oligarchy or a majoritarian democracy. They conclude:

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, austerity, CBO projections, congress, consols, deficit spending, deficit terrorism, Gilens and Page, Michael A. Peterson, net interest, oligarchy, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, platinum coin seigniorage, Sector Financial Balances, the Fed, Treasury

More Misdirection from Rampell in the Service of Generational War

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 6 comments

By Joe Firestone

In my last post, I took issue with a recent column by Catherine Rampell, who tries to make the case that seniors haven’t paid for their Social Security and Medicare because they “generally receive” more in benefits out of these programs than they pay into them. Rampell relies on an Urban Institute study to make her case. Since that post, she’s offered another that replies to some of the questions raised by commenters on her earlier effort. I’ll reply to that new post shortly, but first I want to present key points emerging from my analysis of Federal monetary operations in my reply to her earlier post. See that post for the full argument.

First, once Congress mandates spending, there is no way that the Treasury can be forced into insolvency or an inability to pay its obligations as long as it is willing to make use of all the ways it can cause the Fed to create reserve credits in Treasury spending accounts which can then be used for its reserve keystroking into private sector account activities that today represent most of the reality of Federal spending.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, baby boomers, Catherine Rampell, coin seigniorage, congress, deficit spending, Economic Bill of Rights, entitlement benefits, entitlement solvency, entitlement spending, FDR, generational cohorts, generational warfare, medicare, millennial, neoliberalism, seniors, Social Security, SS, the Fed, the Treasury, Treasury

Misdirection: Rampell Views Entitlements Through the Generational War Lens

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 2 comments

Some of the favored children of the economic elite who have a public presence, work hard in their writing and speaking to divert attention from inequality and oligarchy issues by raising the issue of competition between seniors and millennials for “scarce” Federal funds. That’s understandable. If millennials develop full consciousness of who, exactly, has been flushing their prospects for a decent life down the toilet, their anger and activism might bring down the system of wealth and economic and social privilege that benefits both their families and the favored themselves in the new America of oligarchy and plutocracy.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, Abby Hunstman, baby boomers, Catherine Rampell, congress, consols, deficit spending, entitlement spending, FDR, generational war, medicare, millennial, platinum coin seigniorage, Randy Wray, seniors, Social Security, SS, SS solvency, the Fed, Treasury

The Village Still Ignores the Most Important Point

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 2 comments

By Joe Firestone

In recent posts I reviewed two commentaries by Abby Huntsman on Social Security and other entitlements, also noting points made in other critiques of her narratives. Abby’s commentaries are here, and here, and my critiques are here and here. The most important point I emphasized in my two rebuttals is that there are no fiscal solvency or sustainability issues related to Social Security, or other parts of the safety net, but that the issues involve only the willingness of Congress to appropriate entitlement spending, and either the removal of current constraints on Treasury to spend appropriations such as the debt limit, or the willingness of the Executive Branch to use its current legislative authority either to a) generate sufficient seigniorage from platinum coins to spend such appropriations; or b) use a type of debt instrument, such as consols, which aren’t counted toward the debt limit.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, Abby Hunstman, congress, consols, DC village progressives, deficit spending, platinum coin seigniorage, Richard Eskow, Social Security, SS, SS solvency, the Fed, Treasury

When You Really Look, Financial Quicksand Turns Into Oligarchical BS

Posted on March 30, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 3 comments

By Joe Firestone

Abby Huntsman’s first rant about entitlements soliciting generational warfare got a lot of pushback from defenders. I reviewed the main points made in defense of entitlements, and then added “the most important point of all” as well. Abby made a second try, however, this time singling out Michael Hiltzik’s reply to her to respond to and adding a few more points, while withdrawing a bit from her claim that life expectancy has changed very much for seniors since the New Deal period. Hiltzik took issue with that one too. Let’s review Huntsman’s reply to Hiltzik by analyzing the MSNBC transcript of her second rant against entitlements.

Abby Huntsman:

. . . the need for entitlement reform. there was a firestorm of reaction. an article in the ” l.a. times” went as far as to say i want to lead my generation into poverty. come on, man. this isn’t about me. it’s about the major problem.

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, Abby Hunstman, deficit spending, economic opportunity, inequality, Michael Hiltzik, platinum coin seigniorage, Social Security, SS, SS solvency, the Fed, Treasury

The Most Important Point of All Was Ignored

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 11 comments

By Joe Firestone

MSNBC’s right wing representative on The Cycle, Abby Huntsman, got a lot of pushback from Social Security defenders after her rant last week. They made points similar to the following in countering Huntsman:

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, Abby Hunstman, deficit spending, economic opportunity, inequality, platinum coin seigniorage, Social Security, SS, SS solvency, the Fed, Treasury

Will We Be The Lamest Generation?

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Dan Kervick | 33 comments

By Dan Kervick

Matt Yglesias is now hawking an initial White House budget proposal that is apparently being negotiated by Tim Geithner. Predictably, the two-stage proposal involves entitlement “savings” and cuts in both stage one and stage two, and backs off a bit on higher tax rates on the rich. In exchange, the White House gets some more stimulus spending. Yglesias advises Republicans to tell Obama:

… he can have his stimulus and he can even have higher tax revenue if he really wants it, but that the price is giving up his obsession with higher rates. Is he more interested in soaking the rich or in creating jobs? I don’t think Obama says no to a deal like that, and if he does lots of sensible liberals (like this guy) will call him out on it. Then we can put this sorry episode behind us, proclaim the Grand Bargaining Era done for, and hopefully move on to other things.

It seems strange to endorse a grand bargain in order to move on and proclaim the Grand Bargaining Era over. Maybe next week Democrats should propose the elimination of the minimum wage so we can then declare an end to the Era of the Fight Over the Minimum Wage?

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