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No, Taking Away Unemployment Benefits Doesn’t Make People Get Jobs

So do you not think the nation is $17 trillion in debt then?

I don't think it, I know it. I understand you want people to believe that because a nation can put some ink on paper that 'debt' does not exist. That isn't the case.
 
I don't think it, I know it. I understand you want people to believe that because a nation can put some ink on paper that 'debt' does not exist. That isn't the case.

So if a sovereign nation can issue currency without borrowing anything, how/why are we in debt? If Uncle Sam prints up another $1000 in the next five minutes, will we be another $1000 in debt?
 
Its not an assertion, its fact. The Fed currently now has about $4 trillion on its balance sheet- this money isnt in circulation. And sooner or later it will have to unwind that balance sheet. And when that happens expect a deduction of at least 24% of the US GDP.

The Fed's Balance At The End Of 2013: $4 Trillion | Zero Hedge
Fed


Do yourself a favor and stop butting into the middle of a debate and take one thing out of context and treat it as another, thats just trolling because I was talking about chartalism and how it affects hyperinflation. Keep it up and I'll ignore you from now on.

On second thought you are just trolling. Goodbye.

Wise decision IMO...I started ignoring him a few days ago.

All he does is spew forth his own ideas (whether they make sense or not) and seems to NEVER back them up with facts.

I think you are right...he is trolling.
 
Wise decision IMO...I started ignoring him a few days ago.

All he does is spew forth his own ideas (whether they make sense or not) and seems to NEVER back them up with facts.

I think you are right...he is trolling.

More like you're dropping a class that's beyond your ability to understand.
 
Production Capacity =/ GDP. You took his argument and changed it to something that fit yours.

Oh come on now.

Production in 1922 Germany is going to drop a 'ton' but the GDP is going to continue to go up substantially...suuuuuure it will.

Okay then...prove to me using ONLY links to unbiased data that production dropped a 'ton' in Germany in 1922 (even when GDP was going up) when hyperinflation was going on?

And he did not say 'production capacity'...he said 'production'.


Funny you did not mention the above in your last post when you thought your buddy was right.
:rolleyes:
 
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Wise decision IMO...I started ignoring him a few days ago.

All he does is spew forth his own ideas (whether they make sense or not) and seems to NEVER back them up with facts.

I think you are right...he is trolling.
Exactly. Like a noob I fell for his bait. I need to start ignoring people on the internet who think they are economics experts and yet dont know anything about inflation or balance sheets.
 
And all you have to do is understand what happened first.... Printing money? Or was it drop in production. If you are honest with your history you have to say a drop in production, here are the historical facts:

"Hyperinflation and Weimar Germany
Weimar Germany had greeted with total horror the financial punishment of Versailles. If Germany had paid off the sum of £6,600,000,000, she would have remained in debt to the Allies until 1987 !! However, by signing the Treaty of Versailles, she had agreed in principle to the issue of reparations and in 1921, Germany just about managed to pay its first installment of 2 billion gold marks. Weimar Germany was allowed to pay in kind (actual materials) as opposed to just cash. Most of this 2 billion was paid in coal, iron and wood.

In 1922, Weimar Germany simply could not manage to pay another installment. This the Allies did not believe - especially France where anger towards Germany still ran deep - and the German government was accused of trying to get out of her reparations responsibilities. This apparent refusal was only four years after the end of the war, and the attitude of the public towards Germany was still very hostile - and not just in France.

In 1922, French and Belgium troops invaded the Ruhr; Germany’s most valuable industrial area. The French and Belgium troops took over the iron and steel factories, coal mines and railways. Those Germans who lived in the Ruhr and were considered not to be co-operating with the Germans were imprisoned. Food was taken. That this action by the French and Belgium broke the rules of the League of Nations - which both belonged to - was ignored by both countries. France was considered one of the League's most powerful members and here she was violating its own code of conduct.

This is where production stopped
Weimar’s government responded by ordering the workers in the Ruhr to go on strike and it ordered all people in the Ruhr to passively resist the French and Belgium soldiers. This meant that they were not to openly confront the French and Belgium soldiers, simply that they were not to help them in any way whatsoever. This lead to violence and over the next 8 months of the occupation, 132 people were killed and over 150,000 Ruhr Germans expelled from their homes.

The order for workers to go on a general strike may have been patriotic but it had disastrous consequences for Germany as a whole. The Ruhr was Germany’s richest economic area and produced a great deal of wealth for the country as a whole. The huge Krupps steelworks was there. By not producing any goods whatsoever, Germany’s economy started to suffer.

This is when printing started. Which was after the strike!
The striking workers had to be paid and the people expelled from their homes had to be looked after. To do this, the government did the worst thing possible - it printed money to cover the cost. This signalled to the outside world that Germany did not have enough money to pay for her day-to-day needs and whatever money may have been invested in Germany was removed by foreign investors.

Such a drop in confidence also caused a crisis in Weimar Germany itself when prices started to rise to match inflation. Very quickly, things got out of control and what is known as hyperinflation set in. Prices went up quicker than people could spend their money."

Hyperinflation and Weimar Germany
If we go by your reasoning JP, hyperinflation only occurred in 1922 after production stopped- yet Germany was already experiencing over 100% inflation by September 1919 while production in the Ruhr was still ongoing and even when Germany was paying their first treaty installments. So loss in production alone doesnt account for it.

efH13W4.png
 
Let me ask you this question:

What is inflation?

A Finite amount of dinero (adjustable) chases a Finite amount of Goods.

"Weimar Germany was allowed to pay in kind (actual materials) as opposed to just cash. Most of this 2 billion was paid in coal, iron and wood."

So the Finite amount of Goods (Coal/Iron/Wood/etc[other 'kinds']) were being funneled out of Germany.

Where were Germans goods going? Not Germany. But the supply of GERMANY remained Finite.

But the German demand for these goods stayed *roughly* the same.

What happens when there's a Shortage...

Wait...

No.

Prices CANT go up when there's a shortage of goods.

-------

Post 1918 (Armistic)

We can look at the strength of the currency, as the Euro Debt Crisis, as a preference of investors/money consumers to have a Fiat currency versus a Specie currency.

So, would a weak Confidence IN A GOVERNMENT JUST DEFEATED IN A GLOBAL WAR!? have that odd affect of making Investors skirmish?

Investors don't play any part in deriving the Demand for Currencies.

Thus, they CLEARLY have no affect on the exchange rates and relative currency power (read: Devaluation, read: Inflation)

And seriously, who gives a flipping F*** about investor confidence?

And let's ignore the fact of Investors worrying about Germany paying reparations in the first place.

----

But Seriously.

The Allies won both World Wars.

Victors write the History.

Therefore, Allies were Knights in Shining Armor, glorious Peoples of God, Country and even Defenders of the Globe!
 
If we go by your reasoning JP, hyperinflation only occurred in 1922 after production stopped- yet Germany was already experiencing over 100% inflation by September 1919 while production in the Ruhr was still ongoing and even when Germany was paying their first treaty installments. So loss in production alone doesnt account for it.

efH13W4.png
I don't care what the price of gold was, only gold bugs do. Inflation is measured by the cost of living, and that didn't start to take off until production faltered. So stop trying to change the argument, no one cares about gold prices:

Weimar
 
I don't care what the price of gold was, only gold bugs do. Inflation is measured by the cost of living, and that didn't start to take off until production faltered. So stop trying to change the argument, no one cares about gold prices:

Weimar
So ignore anything that contradicts your theory? OK. :roll:

Here is the WPI of Germany at that time, notice it coincides with the last chart I put up:

260rair.jpg


And from your own link:
33u3414.png

Notice how it already hits the ceiling of 100 Marks per Dollar sometime after Jan. 1920.

Hyperinflation was already there, prior to drop in production.
 
Let me ask you this question:

What is inflation?

A Finite amount of dinero (adjustable) chases a Finite amount of Goods.

"Weimar Germany was allowed to pay in kind (actual materials) as opposed to just cash. Most of this 2 billion was paid in coal, iron and wood."

So the Finite amount of Goods (Coal/Iron/Wood/etc[other 'kinds']) were being funneled out of Germany.

Where were Germans goods going? Not Germany. But the supply of GERMANY remained Finite.

But the German demand for these goods stayed *roughly* the same.

What happens when there's a Shortage...

Wait...

No.

Prices CANT go up when there's a shortage of goods.

-------

Post 1918 (Armistic)

We can look at the strength of the currency, as the Euro Debt Crisis, as a preference of investors/money consumers to have a Fiat currency versus a Specie currency.

So, would a weak Confidence IN A GOVERNMENT JUST DEFEATED IN A GLOBAL WAR!? have that odd affect of making Investors skirmish?

Investors don't play any part in deriving the Demand for Currencies.

Thus, they CLEARLY have no affect on the exchange rates and relative currency power (read: Devaluation, read: Inflation)

And seriously, who gives a flipping F*** about investor confidence?

And let's ignore the fact of Investors worrying about Germany paying reparations in the first place.

----

But Seriously.

The Allies won both World Wars.

Victors write the History.

Therefore, Allies were Knights in Shining Armor, glorious Peoples of God, Country and even Defenders of the Globe!

@POS, repost*
 
Hyperinflation was already there, prior to drop in production.

Too much postwar production was going to the victors for reparations. That left shortages in Germany. The later drop in production was, I believe, the product of large-scale strikes, which exacerbated the situation.

If your goal here is to understand what was actually happening in Weimar Germany, try not to get too stuck on one point. Look at the big picture and make a real attempt to put the pieces together. (And there were a lot of pieces to consider.)

But to bring it all back home to the subject of the thread, there are good ways to spend government money, and there are bad ways. If, as we proposed, the government either supplied guaranteed jobs or stipends to keep the lower end fed and sheltered, that money would be spent on goods and services. (Mostly domestic goods and services, too - food, housing, utilities, etc.) We know this because the savings rate among the poor is extremely low, basically zero. So the dollars created by the government for these programs is going to be spent and elicit new production. And unless that new demand creates shortages of food, housing, utilities, or some other product, there is no reason to expect prices to rise. It would mean a relatively small increase in aggregate demand, one our economy could easily meet. It's not like we have a damaged, postwar economy and other countries are demanding a large share of our production and raw materials without regard to our domestic needs.
 
Let me ask you this question:

What is inflation?

A Finite amount of dinero (adjustable) chases a Finite amount of Goods....

Inflation is caused by an inadequate supply of goods to fill demand.

Or maybe I am just not understanding your point.
 
Inflation is caused by an inadequate supply of goods to fill demand.

Or maybe I am just not understanding your point.

This is my point:

If the Supply of Goods remained unchanged, but the velocity of money and/or the supply of money increases this will inherently cause inflation.

What you said is basically what I meant, the problem is that I have to be technical in order to convince conservatives.

First I must:

Drag them into an argument where I know they Will Go On and On about Inflation.

Then I carefully analyze what they've said for my point of attack (debate) (and it's much easier on here than in real life, since I have abhorrent working memory and thus what people have said falls out of my head easily)

Generally I used a Conservative's words against them, because of their stubborness in order to uproot and extricate the Issue at their most base (usually limited) breathe of information on the subject. Which is, generally, how egregious and deleterious inflation 'is'.

---

I'm trying to argue with Conservatives here on the basis of this:

Because inflation does not lead to Productive growth it is always bad. Therefore since Monetary Policy [expansionary] is synonymous with money growth (read as a conservative: super evil inflation) everything that the Fed or its ilk do is inherently inflationary [in regards to expansionary policy. Though I could argue contractionary policy is more dangerous, that's a debate for another time].

I must first break down why this is, because to be fair Casually the association, and historically [*looks at DA60*] this is true.

However, we have a far greater understanding of how Money Supply, its velocity and the fiscal structure of where the monetary policy leads have all been revolutionized in a very, very recent time horizon.

I blame this on the Cold War. Information was selected to be beneficial for the economic system we were under (Capitalism, read: Could not be Socialism but was actually Socialism but we were at war with Socialism and its Communist kind therefore despite being Socialist in practice ideological we were its greatest enemy. I know. The headaches.) and on top of that due to the natural constricted nature of Information diffusion AT THE TIME PERIOD the grip Lobbyists had over the (and currently as well) 'Scholarly' Publications pretty much dictated for us what made sense and what didn't.

I know I'm getting to the point of being Tangential but I have to say this:

Our Perception and Depth of Economic Information has been greatly altered by the end of the Cold War and preponderance of easy access Internet.

So I cannot 'hate on' people for being Conservative, merely that the views they were taught In an Epoch of Pure Crisis (and it was indeed real) can no longer apply to *this* Epoch. The Epoch of Us and Our Children.

Verbose way of saying you understood my point so well you were baffled that I had to explain it because of how intrinsic it seemed.
 
there are good ways to spend government money, and there are bad ways.

Yes, we get it, for over 100 messages, we get it. If government spending is the idea of the left, it is good, if it is the idea of the right, it is bad. You can use a lot less words and just say that.
 
I just had the most odd thought.

Since Velocity of Money is Basically Demand.

How does one Increase Velocity of Money, without increasing the Supply of It?

I just had this thought:

If "Inflation is caused by an inadequate supply of goods to fill demand."

And the Supply of Goods or Money doesn't increase.

That means that people are spending more of their money faster, that's more demand. That's just the speed of their money. How do we increase that?

In A Monetary History of the United States 1865-1967 M. Friedman said that in times of Recession Banks inherently decrease their velocity of money in order to shore up against losses. But that *historically* [looks at DA60, looks at the Monetarists/Friedmanist] MV was constant. Thus, pumping more money assured growth.

He was wrong.

Increasing the Velocity of money either indicates demand heavily (in my RANDOM ass thought) or it just goddamn IS Demand. Somehow. Somehow, I think.

Somehow...
 
Yes, we get it, for over 100 messages, we get it. If government spending is the idea of the left, it is good, if it is the idea of the right, it is bad. You can use a lot less words and just say that.

That's not it at all. There is nothing partisan about this. For instance, I think the Dubya administration was better for the economy than the Clinton administration. That doesn't mean that I agreed with everything Dubya spent money on. But Clinton ran a surplus (which probably led to the 2001 recession), and Dubya turned that back into a deficit, and he spent a bunch of money on wars. I would have preferred that money was spent on infrastructure, but defense spending is better than no spending at all.
 
That's not it at all. There is nothing partisan about this. For instance, I think the Dubya administration was better for the economy than the Clinton administration. That doesn't mean that I agreed with everything Dubya spent money on. But Clinton ran a surplus (which probably led to the 2001 recession), and Dubya turned that back into a deficit, and he spent a bunch of money on wars. I would have preferred that money was spent on infrastructure, but defense spending is better than no spending at all.

I hate to nit-pick.

I don't even know why I feel compelled to do it.

But I would rather have had the military's increased budget in a tax surplus or education. I know if it was a tax surplus it would probably just lead to an unnoticeable deflationary pressure and no multiplier growth but I sincerely believe the government would have found *some* way to spend it (lol) if not just to buy votes. I do believe some recessions are necessary, corrective, measures for an economy and the dotcom bubble was just that. We got too feisty.

Again, sorry for the nit-pick XP
 
That's not it at all.

Yeah it does. The mere fact that you put forth the whole 'clinton surplus' thing shows it. That was nothing other than moving money around to show a false result. Nothing was paid off or even down. It was governmental BS and gaming.
 
Yeah it does. The mere fact that you put forth the whole 'clinton surplus' thing shows it. That was nothing other than moving money around to show a false result. Nothing was paid off or even down. It was governmental BS and gaming.

This is interesting.

I would like a Link, Please.

I Love Clinton and this would affect my view of his Administration. It would make me sad, but it would be necessary.

Deferred payments you seem to imply at some level?
 
This is interesting.

I would like a Link, Please.

I Love Clinton and this would affect my view of his Administration. It would make me sad, but it would be necessary.

Deferred payments you seem to imply at some level?

I have previously heard the Conservative argument that the Clinton surplus wasn't a true surplus, but just some accounting tricks. Strange to see it come out in this context, though, when I am making the argument that surpluses are bad for the economy. I guess it's better to remain a True Republican than to advance a coherent argument.

I really liked (still like) Clinton myself, outside of his surpluses (or near surpluses, whatever they turn out to be). But right now, he's a highly-paid shill for the Pete Peterson Foundation, whose (self-serving?) goal is to lower deficits and the debt. And as such, I believe he is doing real harm.
 
I hate to nit-pick.

I don't even know why I feel compelled to do it.

But I would rather have had the military's increased budget in a tax surplus or education. I know if it was a tax surplus it would probably just lead to an unnoticeable deflationary pressure and no multiplier growth but I sincerely believe the government would have found *some* way to spend it (lol) if not just to buy votes. I do believe some recessions are necessary, corrective, measures for an economy and the dotcom bubble was just that. We got too feisty.

Again, sorry for the nit-pick XP

I don't mind nit-picks at all. If my point is wrong, then it should be exposed as wrong. I don't want to promote something that turns out to be incorrect.

In my view, the military budget is still dollars spent that end up in the hands of people that will spend them - the defense industry, soldiers, etc. I don't think that foreign aid in the form of dollars helps anybody too much, but that's a tangent.

Education? Absolutely. What better investment is there than that? But a tax surplus is just more dollars leaving our pockets than the government has spent into them. Taxed away from people who wouldn't have spent them (the Rich), no big deal, but taxed away from anybody else, and that's just less exercised demand.

I guess I don't believe in the idea that some recessions are really necessary. More focused price corrections, sure, but not an overall recession. For instance, I don't think we have ever experienced an economy so "hot" that it called for a Keynesian federal surplus to cool it off.
 
This is interesting.

I would like a Link, Please.

I Love Clinton and this would affect my view of his Administration. It would make me sad, but it would be necessary.

Deferred payments you seem to imply at some level?

As to total debt, here are US Treasury numbers:

FiscalYear- Year Ending - National Debt - Deficit
FY1993 09/30/1993 $4.411488 trillion
FY1994 09/30/1994 $4.692749 trillion $281.26 billion
FY1995 09/29/1995 $4.973982 trillion $281.23 billion
FY1996 09/30/1996 $5.224810 trillion $250.83 billion
FY1997 09/30/1997 $5.413146 trillion $188.34 billion
FY1998 09/30/1998 $5.526193 trillion $113.05 billion
FY1999 09/30/1999 $5.656270 trillion $130.08 billion
FY2000 09/29/2000 $5.674178 trillion $17.91 billion
FY2001 09/28/2001 $5.807463 trillion $133.29 billion

Total debt rises each and every year.

But many that think there was a surplus will respond saying it was budgetary. What it was was shifting money between public debt held and intergovernmental debt held.

From 1998 to 2001, public held debt did go down. At the same time intergovernmental debt went up more than public went down, thus the yearly increase in overall debt. Here are the treasury numbers:

cdebt.jpg

He did have some budget surpluses, but not enough to actually override the increase in government spending, so in a way he was headed the right way, but a lot of it was probably due to increased revenue due to how good the economy was doing, not due to reducing or restraining government spending. But that's a different discussion.
 
Norway's total tax burden is 45% of gdp. That's the amount of GDP to give away all those 'free' things. The VAT is 25%, personal income tax is in the high 40's. All that on top of corporate taxes and a direct wealth tax.

Gee, this sounds kinda familiar: "The Norwegian tax system is based on the principle that everybody should pay tax according to their means and receive services according to their needs." Where might I have heard such a thing before?

Do the citizens believe in/follow the laws of Jante?

Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer our system, imperfections and all, as I believe people should strive to improve themselves and their situation, and have the ability to do so.

Ok, now this has what to do With higher baseline wages?
 
LOL, this is hilarious, you keep saying that a welfare state that guarantees a living wage works yet all you can come up with as an example is Norway. Yet Norway a) doesnt have a minimum wage and b) has oil revenues to pay for its government spending. All the other welfare states like Denmark, Sweden, France, etc. are all just hanging on, most are in the red. So its apparent that the only way a welfare state can have a surplus is if it has a massive oil industry like Norway. Pretty obvious.

1. Yes norway DOES have a minimum wage, i'ts negotiated by the unions rather than mandated by the state ... but no one is being paid lower than around 120 nok.

2. What do the oil Revenues have to do With private Companies paying higher wages? AT all? High wages =/= welfare.
 
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