Trump Brings Back Keynesian Economics

So you don't like the morals of the Sheriff....we agree on that then...but I see you prefer not to comment on Robin's morality...

so lets look at the Sheriff.

In his time, there was virtually no public sector; indeed, that is the world to which you would have us return - with the mass of the people existing in an entirely private subsistence economy, and despite their poverty, forced to hand over their meagre possessions to fund the King's (or nation's) wars. (Hence Robin Hood).

Get it? History is moving away from a private subsistence economy, with rightly-hated taxation for virtually military purposes only, to a complex post automation economy in which the public sector must play a significant role so that all can participate (at least above poverty levels) in the potentially unlimited productivity of this new economy (a Keynesian concept).

On taxation and it's morality (or otherwise); due to the circumstances of the state finances in France in 1788, one of Louis' more enlightened economists advised the king to raise taxes on the wealthy aristocracy. The king listened to the wrong people - a mistake for which he paid with his life.

Still want to talk about morality?

 

Interestingly his position is most un-Australian; for example, the Australians defend their publicly-funded universal Medicare system with a passion, which frustrates his minority position no end.

 

That's how it goes.

I'm glad to see you know better than to agree with the presumption of the latimes article, that Keynesianism was ever not welcome at the White House.

 

Show me some "evidence" - otherwise you are just blathering-in-a-blog

Moving right along ...

 

"Small government" conservatives always go on a spending spree when they have control. They did it under Bush II. This is why I laugh in the face of any Republican who claims he wants smaller government and then supports these buffoons.

 

Robin Hood attacked the state. You exalt it. The Sheriff is your friend, so long as the people you like are in power.

 

Isn't it interesting that the industries in which costs are "wildly out of control" are the most heavily regulated, subsidized, and/or monpolized by the state. The industries in which costs are continuously going down and productivity going up are the ones that are least regulated.

Nobody "generates" GDP any more than your height contributes to the generation of inches. GDP is just a measure, just as a ruler can be used to measure height.

Why do you believe that your government provides "free" education in order to ensure that people receive an education? Do you actually have any knowledge of the history of government-run education in the UK and the US? The US had the highest rates of literacy in the world prior to government-run compulsory education, and Britain was not far behind. No one said "We need schools because middle-class and poor people aren't learning." Government-run schools were created in order to develop a more obedient population (to industry in particular and better government citizens. In the US, there was also a drive to reduce the influence of Catholic schools which were providing education to all comers. The Protestants didn't like that.

 

So, you are all for subsidizing mega-corporations like Walmart, thus feeding American consumer materialism and impoverishing local economies by making foreign goods far cheaper than what locals can produce.

Or is that your government has told you that the interstate highways are an unqualified good and, since governemnt is infallible, it must be true!

 

Bias affecting comprehensive skills.

Robin (good) stole from the rich to give to the poor: His interest in the 'state' (like most at that time) was minimal. In your analysis, the rich are the state (close to the truth in a modern state, actually).

As for the Sheriff (bad): he was a proxy for the king, and certainly not a friend to the mass of the people, whose relationship to power was constant and beyond their control, in an entirely private economy (no public sector).

Can you try again on the morality issue?

 

The two that are most "wildly out of control" are Health Care and Education. These two have been historically high in the US, particularly when compared against countries which has deprivatized both operations into Public Services:
*HealthCare is not "managed" by the Federal Government because it depends upon private companies to determine its costs of hospitalization and medical care given. All ObamaCare could do is to mitigate some very grave errors in the mechanism.
*As for Education, it is indeed run by the state, as it should be in order to assure that all students from all walks of life have the ability to attend. Unfortunately, the Tertiary Education costs are still exceedingly high - which is why of all the high-school students graduating, only 44% earn a postsecondary degree.

(Just ask me for the infographics underlying the above facts that - comparatively - both HealthCare and Tertiary Education are abnormally higher in the US than in the EU.)

So far too many of our fellow citizens remain in a class with either a lower-paying job or keep skipping from one job to another intermittently. A job cannot be guaranteed for life, but any work should be paid at a decent salary.

And we Yanks just shot down Hillary who had taken into her platform Bernie's idea to offer free Tertiary Education to all families earning $100K per year. (As I have repeated a thousand times on this forum, Education is the only "real solution" for better jobs at better salaries for the larger part of American workers.)

Moreover, ObamaCare was intended to diminish the hallucinatory rise of Health Care in the US, which, again, statistical comparison amongst developed nations show to be twice the average cost. Why? Because the market for HealthCare is also very largely determined by private-insurance company prices, which is a complete aberration.

HealthCare, like Tertiary Education, should be universal and at the lowest cost possible - meaning run by the Federal Government. As is the case in most "modern countries" on this earth.

Literacy rates are key to the functioning of any nation, but somewhat irrelevant to the present discussion. What is important is Tertiary Education. You are missing the point with your exaggerations. The Dept. of Education, if you go looking for the statistics say that American secondary education is not adequate. As does the international study by the OECD called PISA, here (scroll down to page 5 to see the list of countries and the very mediocre performance of the US).

As for the "obedience" comments, they is mindless irrelevancy. You've gone overboard.

Get back on track and maybe we can have a cogent exchange. You're infographic shows what I have been depicting on this forum for half a year - HealthCare and Educational costs in the US have been, are still, and will continue to be out-of-control because of an Electoral College that has mindlessly made a candidate who lost the popular vote PotUS.

Anyone who calls that a "democracy" is a perfect ass and is "being had" royally by plying into the hands of America's plutocrats.

You believed all the BS during the election campaign on TV? So now you continue paying the high cost.

Stoopid is as stoopid does. (Forrest Gump) ...

 

Pathetic response, tantamount to sarcasm and nothing more ...

 

Do you always just make stuff up?
Care to elaborate on how you came up with your garbage?

 

Evidence of what?

 

Sure. I consider it immoral to take what is owned by others. How about you?

 

Look, when making an argument regarding any subject, but particularly economics, you should substantiate it with data or other solid information. That data/information you must "reference".

Moreso, however, for whatever its purpose, you should relate it to the argument that you are making. Which is why I post statistical data to underscore what I am arguing.

The stats are most often there somewhere - one just needs to know how to go looking for it, understand it, and employ it in a given contextual debate or exchange-of-opinion.

Unfortunately, many posters on this forum simply reduce their argumentation to useless sarcasm ...

 

If the information is there to substantiate your argument, then link it for example.

Otherwise you are just pissing into the wind ...

 

You've posted statistical data that demonstrates that it's morally acceptable to take what is owned by others?

 

Define what is "owned by others".

Taxable Income is not "owned by others". It is on deposit until the tax is taken by the government. You are the citizen of a country that offers you certain "services". Foremost of which, many people think, is "defense of the nation". It is the most costly of services performed by a government.

Your taxes pay for that "service" and the income from which the taxes are paid is NOT WHOLLY YOURS until the tax is deducted.

Why is that such a difficult lesson in citizenry for you?

Why all this mindless blather of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too" ... ?

 

Asks for "evidence" to the effect that robbing others is wrong,

then pats himself on the back for his "clever", "on-point" retort.

 

I'm somewhat surprised you don't understand the legal concept of ownership. Ownership is the legal title to a thing coupled with the exclusive legal right to possession. For example, if I were to give you $20, you would become the owner of that money, which is to say you would have legal title to it. Were someone to come along and take it from you against your will, you would have a legal claim against them.

This statement is false. If I give you money, that money legally becomes yours. This is evidenced by the fact that were a third party to steal that money from you, he would be committing the crime of theft precisely because he is taking your property.

Haha, now you're just making stuff up. "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too"???? Really? You're saying that this is my position? My position is this: What's yours is yours and I have no moral right to take it from you against your will. Do you understand now?

 

Blah, blah, blah ...

 

You are talking about "ownership", which is the possession of objects or value.

I am talking about Net Income after Taxation.

We are on two different worlds in economic terms, and frankly, I don't see where your beef is. Unless you think that Gross Income is, ipso facto, the ownership of capital prior to taxation - and, furthermore, it should not be taxed.

It isn't. It is just taxable income, with possession of the net income only after taxation.

(At what level of taxation. That is where our bone of contention worsens.)

 

"We are on two different worlds in economic terms, and frankly, I don't see where your beef is"

Here is my beef: When a worker gets paid $1000 at the end of the week, that $1000 becomes his property. Since I don't think it's morally acceptable to take what is owned by others, I don't think that I or anyone else has a right to take that $1000 or any portion of it from him by force or the threat of force. I hope that's clear enough.

 

Yep, sounds good to me, ie, it is immoral for an individual to take some or all the possessions of one or more individuals whom he is able to accost for said purpose (stealing).

[Even so, the Robin Hood story shows that morality is apparently not absolute, ie, most people see the Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, as the moral agent in that situation (apparently the means must be compared with the necessities of the respective parties, and both are factors in determining morality).

But your proposition has exactly nothing to do with the morality of taxation, which is the topic at hand.

You falsely conflate the state with the individual, ie, You as an individual have your own interests as paramount, whereas the Commonwealth exists to promote the common welfare, a highly moral endevour in itself, through an agreed level of taxation.

 

Which is what I thought.

And there you are dead wrong. The income is taxable by law.

End of a long and boring story. You don't like it - go live elsewhere ...