Basic Citizens' Income

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 19 Dec 2017, 14:39

The rich get richer by printing money and giving it to themselves. They run the central banks which dole out new money and guess where that ends up! They run the banks which engineer increasing house prices and guess where all those extra interest payments go. They run all the CEO remuneration committees and guess who gets the pay rise while the grunts get virtually nothing. Haven't you noticed, VT, that real incomes haven't risen for the ordinary man since the 1970s while CEO incomes have soared?

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 19 Dec 2017, 14:45

Believe it or not - I don't have an in principle problem with capitalism - in an infinite physical system. Under such an environment, capitalism is unarguably the most efficient allocator of resources.

All of which is why, for all of it's inequities, until we hit the limits to physical growth, capitalism won the economic and political game hands down.

But, all of which is also why, in a finite world that has now hit the limits to physical growth, capitalism is just about the worst system imaginable to deal with what is to come.

I am a socialist by inclination. But, I am not tied to it so much I cannot countenance an alternative to it. But, capitalism is off the table.

It is irretrievably unsuited to what comes next.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 19 Dec 2017, 15:14

I believe that the 0.1% know that we're hitting the buffers which is why they are grabbing all they can, while they can.

It might ensure that we hit the buffers but I don't think that they care. I don't think that they are that intelligent, just obsessive!

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 19 Dec 2017, 15:27

I've noticed a lot of bad things in the years sense the 70's. Especially in years when the Democrat party controlled Congress and the White house.
But no they did not just print money and pay it to themselves. They invented new products and services like this computer I'm tapping away at and Netflix or DODGY TAX AVOIDERS and millions of us happily bought these new things and just a dollar profit times 300,000,000 units sold adds up to big money to the stockholders. That the CEOs hold a lot of the stock so control the payout is just good business decisions by them and didn't steal anything from me our you.
There are the Bernie Madoffs of course that need to be controlled but that is a rather small part of the economy.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 19 Dec 2017, 17:11

And I suppose that you think that your government governs for the benefit of the people as well, VT?

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 19 Dec 2017, 18:11

kenneal - lagger wrote:And I suppose that you think that your government governs for the benefit of the people as well, VT?

Of course they do, as long as those people have $billions governance will be for their benefit.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 19 Dec 2017, 18:55

Considering that the median income in the USA puts you in the top one percent of world wealth holders yes I do think it governs for the peoples benefit.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 20 Dec 2017, 10:38

All this talk of the 1% is designed to put you off the scent. Governance is for the top 0.1% or less. We're governed for the benefit of a few thousand billionaires and their lackeys who pull all the strings. That's who the latest Republican tax cuts are really going to help and who they are aimed at. Anyone else who gets a benefit is just window dressing to put people like VT, Republican stalwarts who believe in the American Dream, off the scent. It's another con job!

Yes, VT, I know I'm in the top 1% which is why I know that nothing is ever done for my benefit.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 02 Mar 2018, 17:20

Modern Monetary Theory: it's not 'tax-and-spend' so much as 'issue money, build, then tax if not doing so would cause inflation'...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a34n ... -explained

Tax and bond sales *do* come after spending; their purpose is not to fund the government but rather to take money out the system to keep it from overheating...

They go on to advocate Â£12 p.h. jobs doing something locally-needed, for everyone who wants one.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 02 Mar 2018, 18:03

RE that article, the government doesn't have unlimited money as that would most definitely cause inflation but it shouldn't borrow money for capital investments from the banking sector. The government printing its own money for capital investment is no more inflationary than the government borrowing that same money. It is the same amount of money coming into existence in either case.

What is different is the cost of the capital investment as the government doesn't have to pay the banks interest on the money that the *ankers just invented. The taxpayer has to pay extra just to keep *ankers happy. The current system is corrupt and evil (VT take note) as a few already mega rich *ankers get even richer at our expense.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 02 Mar 2018, 18:06

Fair point.

I think that by 'unlimited' they just mean, no hard limit.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 02 Mar 2018, 18:38

Having just read that article it goes a lot further than the Positive Money campaign goes. Mosler seems to have made an awful lot of money from his understanding of how things work with government economics so perhaps he has it right.

I thought is was interesting when one of the economists quoted said that Mosler's theories were just bringing back to memeory much of what has been accepted in economics in the past but then forgotten. That shows just how far from modern science modern economics is. All our modern science is built incrementally on the science of the past. Past science is intrinsic to current science. Seems that economics is just made up as you go along!!

The article and the theories behind it make rubbish of what VT and all Republicans and most Conservatives over here are saying about economies.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 02 Mar 2018, 20:22

Quite. They've all internalised the "Household model of money" the one that Reagan and Thatcher pushed. I think it destroyed, or at least back-burnered, a LOT of knowledge about how economics works. We're only just beginning to recover.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 02 Mar 2018, 22:40

I can say without fear that the MMT model is just as bogus as the ETP model is.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 03 Mar 2018, 11:56

vtsnowedin wrote:I can say without fear that the MMT model is just as bogus as the ETP model is.

I'm going to do a John Hemming here and ask you to give chapter and verse on that before I will accept such a bold statement.