'How dare you': Greta Thunberg tears into world leaders over inaction at U.N. climate summit

And how will you enforce this nation-wide productivity?

Oh that's right .. you're one of these believers in people as robots - everyone is exactly the same, and all just waiting for that lucky break. No one is lazy, or 'too special' to take crappy jobs, or quits every job they ever get, or gambles/drinks/smokes/eats all that productivity away, or ever does anything in the arena of human failure.

 

The problem is that he cannot enforce global productivity.

 

He can't enforce it ANYWHERE, but in a totalitarian regime. Even then, it would be a very very destructive and unhappy arrangement. The NK example doesn't really need to be given.

The great mystery is why these kids (old or young) are so painfully intolerant of human diversity and human agency.

 

But that's the thing; neoliberal capitalism NEVER creates full employment, and neoliberal economists even have a term to describe that reality ie NAIRU (google it), an entirely fictitious number that is used to justify the erroneous foundations on which their entire macroeconomic world view is based, ie, they say there is no other way than that individuals must compete in free "invisible hand" markets, and that a certain level of unemployment is necessary to maintain stable prices.

And to try and get away with that nonsense, they claim a person who is employed for at least 1 hour in a week is regarded as 'employed' in that period, thereby producing unemployment statistics that are nothing less than one giant fraud.

It's the old problem, based in ideological blindness.... you have your world view ie primacy of individual liberty over collective well being, and then construct an economic system that confirms and justifies your world view.

The fact the Bernie is actually capable of outpolling Trump proves the long suffering electorate, 60% of whom can't find $1000 from savings in a emergency, in an economy where mean wages are stagnant while at the same time inequality is soaring, shows the gig is up for neoliberalism.

Meanwhile crank and AFM are displaying irrationality on a grand scale, claiming a government job guarantee for anyone who wants to work is "fascism"...

 

1) There is zero 'collective well being' when half the populace works to support the other half. Collective well being only happens when EVERYONE works.

2) You cannot make EVERYONE work. Not in the 21stC, after years of wilful destruction of the survival level work ethic.

3) "Long suffering" being code for made terrible choices, didn't take education seriously, lived beyond their means, had too many kids, didn't stay married, indulged bad habits. See above re: destruction of survival ethics.

 

Exactly. The only way to enforce anything is with a strong leader. What could go wrong ??? Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Madura, Pol Pot, ...,

 

See my post #354 above; blind ideologues always end up spouting irrational nonsense such as in the above quote.

 

Ah yes... the old "there is no other way" routine from the classical liberal ideologues

 

Blind ideologues? You mean like those in favour of compelled participation, Stalin style?

Dude, we're the ones in favour of capitalist democracies remember. We're not trying to overthrow democracy and impose a completely unfair and unethical arrangement in which the slaves work to support the 'masters'.

 

There is another way - totalitarianism. You want it, we don't.

 

What other ways ???

 

Gosh are you suffering from short-term memory loss?
……..
In short, if the resources are available, we (the public) 'can have it' … a reversal of the fallacy pushed by orthodox neoliberal economists, namely, "how can we pay for it?".

In fact: sovereign currency-issuing governments do not need to tax (or borrow from) the private sector before they can spend...a revelation that turns conventional neoliberal economics on its head.

The constraint for the government is the productive capacity of the economy (and ultimately the resources - including labour and know how - available to the nation).

The mainstream would have us believe the government - monopoly issuer of the currency - must 'earn an income' before it can spend (by taxing or borrowing), just as households in the private sector (ie, you and me) - users of the currency - must earn an income, before we can spend.
-----

That's your 'free' lesson in the basics of MMT.

Note: the Fed - who employed me to educate you in MMT - can reimburse me by directly crediting an account at the central bank, since none of the nation's scarce resources were consumed by me, in this process of educating you. .

But more importantly, given the nation's private sector never employs all the nation's available resources including labour, then government can always create funds directly for specific purposes as long as such unused resources are available.

Now, the GND will no doubt require some diversion of presently engaged resources, but nevertheless we can begin building solar/wind farms backed by pumped-hydro storage, while we empirically discover the real limits, or capacity constraints, on the nation's resources and productive capacity

At the same time, we can eliminate all involuntary un/underemployment (as part of implementing the GND) without causing inflation, because we have purposefully (ie, by design, and R&D) avoided excess demand on the productive capacity of the nation.

 

Politically impossible. ^^^^

 

Yet AOC understands it, and she's on Bernie's team (who polls better than Trump....)

Meanwhile, I see you can't address any of the of the substantive issues revealed by MMT. .

 

AOC is a moron.

 

Hydrogen burns at a lower temperature than hydrocarbons.

 

But note the high temperatures in an internal combustion engine.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-ca...hy-dont-we-burn-hydrogen-instead-of-gasoline/

There are two major problems with a hydrogen internal combustion engine. First, hydrogen is not as energy-dense as other fuels...…..

The second problem? When you combust hydrogen, you get other emissions besides water vapor. Mainly, you get NOx, the toxic emission at the heart of the Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating scandal. If you're looking for a clean alternative to gasoline, hydrogen's NOx emissions take it out of the running.

The answer? Use hydrogen in a fuel cell to generate electricity. Fuel cells are far more efficient than internal combustion engines, and a hydrogen fuel cell has cleaner emissions than an internal-combustion hydrogen engine. To learn more, check out Fenske's full video below.

 

Such is the standard of debate from the Right.

 

There is no debate. AOC is a moron.

 

All previously covered; we agree real pollution from burning fossil fuels exists, while "CO2 pollution" (get it?...it's a shorthand term used by scientists as well as the general public who believe CO2 is responsible for climate change...oh, never mind...) is considered to be a problem by many climate scientists.

My argument all along….except for the bit about " these lies about Carbon Dioxide pull attention, funding, resources and efforts from real pollutants"....: we can walk and chew gum at the same time...

btw, re your ICE cars with exhausts that are "cleaner than the smog (!) entering the intake":

From the link in my post above:
you get NOx, the toxic emission at the heart of the Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating scandal. If you're looking for a clean alternative to gasoline, hydrogen's NOx emissions take it out of the running (as a fuel for ICE cars).

Note: any exhaust pollution management technology will result in loss of the engine's efficiency, and is expensive (which is why VW tried to 'pull the wool over everyone's eyes').

The purpose of the economy is shared prosperity through continuous sustainable development of available resources.

The US has had a 200 year head start on China. with a population a fraction that of China, and now China is the world's factory...see the unusual difficulties for China vis a vis the US today?

Addressed above.

All addressed above; I'm glad you found your long excursion to be fun, for me it was a waste of your time since I agree with most of it (though we draw different conclusions of course).

Adressed above, you are drawing your own mistaken conclusions from what I have said.

* eg, the right to above poverty participation in the economy (see UNUDHR art. 25) even when the private sector does not create enough jobs to employ everyone?

Now we are getting to the gist of the matter: there is certainly something wrong with the <classical liberal> world view that places individual liberty above community well-being.

Addressed above; your's is the inadequate world view, if sustainable advancement of the species, not just some individuals, is the goal.

Agreed....

False and addressed near the beginning of this post. That's why Boris Johnson now agrees with VW; the ICE era is drawing to a close.

Certainly development of a total recycling industry is required, as part of the new green world running on sunshine. As for money; the public sector should fund the research, and own the solar/wind plus pumped hydro strorage, within an economy in which everything is recycled, with no waste going to the environment.

btw, the BIS said (recently at Davos): "central banks might have to buy the coal industry"...now THAT'S something Conservative "small government" types will have trouble getting their heads around......no wonder the CO2 debate is freaking you out, and causing you to shout "totalitarianism" at every turn.

Private sector, profit-driven competition should be confined to the role of subcontracting for the governement as required to build the infrastructure.

See how a different world view to the erroneous <primacy of individual over community> mythology allows for better policy choices, to achieve universal sustainable prosperity?

​

 

The purpose of the US Economy is simply for us to exchange goods, labor and services.

Actually Chinese society is quite a bit older than the US, by many magnitudes. And China has all the problems one would expect from a country where a small minority controls a massive majority, by force. At some point, these all end the same way, the massive majority erupts and slaughters the controlling minority. That is why our system is so stable, in our system the power always resides In The People. No one in our system rules, aside from the assent of The People, and they remain accountable to the People, they govern, they do not rule.

China has massive pollution problems and they are in demographic suicide. You admire them because you admire authoritarianism and they are an authoritarian society. Japan was once the toast of those who loved to denigrate our system, and they were quite prosperous, because of US. Then we shifted our 3rd world manufacturing needs from Japan to China, and Japan has never recovered. China has had a run, they treat us very unfairly. We have tired of their theft, and now we are moving our 3rd world manufacturing needs away from China and they will similarly flounder.

Right now they are struggling with their mismanagement of the Cornavirus. They arrested the folks that tried to tell them what was happening, when it would have been much easier to contain, for "Rumor-Mongering". That's a crime in China, they do not recognize inherent human rights, nor is their government founded on the principle that the reason for the government's existence is to secure those rights. They will pay a price at some point, the same price dictatorial governments always pay at some point.

No there isn't. We fought the civil war to end the practice of some States who determined that the broader State Community was better off with an enslaved minority. Our system is dedicated to securing INDIVIDUAL rights, even against the majority. In a group rape, the overwhelming majority of the participants want to have sex, but the inherent rights of the single victim are horribly violated. In our system we collectively secure INDIVIDUAL rights, even against majorities, or "communities" as you style them.

You're wish-casting, that is NOT the current state of affairs.

Yes, you have mentioned that piffle a few times now. Our Central Bank will NEVER buy up the means of production. If other nations want to do that, I suppose they will.

Yes, have fun trying to exercise Top Down Control of the entire private sector, with We The People submitting to central government domination. I take it you are not a Citizen of The United States.

Erroneous mythology? Yes. We love our system and we will keep our system, if other nations wish to make other choices, that's up to them.

Sure, that's always the sales pitch by the Utopians before they consolidate power. Once they consolidate power why the society finds that "better policy choices" are those that benefit the group that has consolidated power.

But, back to the Environment, Testable Science and the Carbon Doomsday Cult, your thoughts on this:

Settled science.

Tom Nelson@tan123


Trust them, they're scientists! Just seven years after "experts" blamed CO2 for record low Great Lakes water levels, they're blaming CO2 for record high Great Lakes water levels. http://www.startribune.com/high-water-wreaks-havoc-on-great-lakes-swamping-communities/567647942/ …


High water wreaks havoc on Great Lakes, swamping communities
Rita Alton has an unusual morning routine these days: Wake up. Get dressed. Go outside to see if her house is closer to tumbling down an 80-foot (24.4-meter) cliff into Lake Michigan.

startribune.com
1:45 PM - Feb 7, 2020

 

And poverty be damned.....

The point is: the industrial revolution powered by coal began in the Britain and later the US 2 centuries ago. China is a very late entrant to the club.

[I'll ignore your ideological rant about managed economies]

Yes I already said China with its huge population has massive problems to overcome, as a result of having to reduce to a period of decades its own industrial revolution based on coal, cf 2 centuries. in the US.

Nonsense. I want a society that can guarantee above poverty participation, as per UNUDHR article 25. (See, I'm not hung up on ideology the way you are).

Self-aggrandising and wrong analysis. Japan rose after WW2 with a strong communitarian ethos and low wages, and building cars the world wanted, displacing Detroit in world vehicle manufacture. But Japan fell prey to internal capitalist dysfunction and market failure, when land in Tokyo was 'worth' more than the entire US, leading to the crash from which Japan has never recovered.

Of course US capitalist corporations chased low wages without concern for their own workers at home. Now you have to deal with China being the world's factory.

False, as explained above; and slanderous as well - Xi has just recently commented on pompous Pompeo's similar accusations of theft against China, warning that no-one can stop China's rise.

I looked up some statistics about flu yesterday; I still can't believe the US figures...are they true?

In total, the CDC estimates that up to 42.9 million people got sick during the 2018-2019 flu season, 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died. That's fairly on par with a typical season, and well below the CDC's 2017-2018 estimates of 48.8 million illnesses, 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths.

(in Australia, about 150 for similar period).

Amazing, in comparison corona virus deaths in China so far are <1000. Is it just another type of flu?

Meanwhile I will ignore your continuing diatribe against authoritarian government; I acknowledge Beijing has to free up social discourse.

"even against the majority"....which is an unbalanced approach to human affairs, because some individuals are more competitive than others, requiring government to promote the Common Welfare...

Yes well the progressive view is indeed concerned with change for the better, NOT to maintain the status quo, or "the current state of affairs".

The BIS said it (I'm merely the messenger…)!

Let's see if Bernie can win the presidency and choose Stephanie Kelton as the Treasury Secretary.

[You continue with your <every man for himself> ideology, dressed up as classical liberalism].

Why do you want my thoughts? You already know I'm agnostic on CO2. You are the one freaking out about CO2 ( because it requires a global solution).
I'm looking forward to running the globe on free sunshine - achievable within 3 decades if we put our minds to it - because the resources and know-how exist.

 

I described Pompeo as 'pompous" which I retract; but I can say he is enthralled by a dangerous, deluded worldview (combining classical liberalism with a particular religious belief):

from the Wikipedia article

"In 2014, Pompeo told a church group that Christians needed to "know that Jesus Christ as our savior is truly the only solution for our world".[162] In 2015 in a talk at a church, Pompeo said that "politics is a never-ending struggle ... until the Rapture."

Hence the Chinese nation is automatically the enemy "until the 'Rapture'".... what great news for the military industrial complex in the US....

In fact Jesus himself said that we should "love God and love one-another" and also " blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God".

Pompeo doesn't qualify....

 

You think the US has no social safety networks? Where do you get posting something like that and pretending it's my view?

As you wish, but the voter won't. You have no answer and it's the key objection.

We can do that now. By replacing ALL social safety network assistance, except Social Security, with a check at one dollar above the poverty level, we can fully eliminate poverty in this country and with no additional spending.

That's the question, isn't it.

Be my guest, but the voters won't. Authoritarianism is a key objection to your scheme.

Yeah, because right now they are struggling with the fact that face-masks interfere with their ubiquitous facial recognition.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/medical-face-masks-thwart-china-facial-recognition

This makes life difficult for people who rely on facial recognition to do simple things like access their bank accounts, open automatic doors, or even use toilet paper in public restrooms!

Yeah, I guess China needs to free up social discourse a tad!

No it isn't. We secure INDIVIDUAL rights against both Majorities and Minorities (such as Authoritarians)

So what? When Socialists remove the incentive of personal betterment, everyone starts doing the minimum, which leaves the ruling minority insecure because productivity drops, and they resort to coercion. Utopians promise more in exchange for surrendering your rights, but what you get when you surrender your rights, isn't more, what you get in place of your ability to choose is the Whip.

Sure. They is nothing mutually exclusive about Free Will and Common Welfare.

These folks like to virtue signal, it's quite common. They signal their status through luxury beliefs, which if actually implemented would be quite destructive to folks not as well off as them. We see this kind of meaningless blather all the time and in all corners of this nonsense.

Take Harrison Ford, For Example, He Hails Greta Thunberg, Condemns Denying ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Discipline’ of Science.

And Then The Planet-healer/Climate Activist Harrison Ford: ‘I often fly up the coast for a cheeseburger.’

He won't.

Stephanie:

If you think of the government deficit as the difference between what the government spends into the economy and what it taxes back out, then imagine a government that spends $100 into the U.S. economy but it only taxes $90 back out.​

She's wrong. The government first took the $100 OUT of the economy. It has no secret money tree.

But what we forget to do, is pay attention to the fact that there’s now $10 somewhere in the economy that wouldn’t have been there otherwise, that is put there by the government’s deficit.
​

No it isn't. Because the original $100 came from the economy.

She Continues:

Evidence of a deficit that’s too big would be inflation.​

But the deficit can also be too small. It can be too small to support demand in the economy and evidence of a deficit that is too small is unemployment.
​

Apparently she is unaware of Stagflation. How old is she? What the hell is up with these folks? How can they graduate with Economics degrees and be completely ignorant of Economic Fundamentals?

Many countries, including us, have experienced high levels of both inflation and unemployment, stagflation. The Phillips curve assured us that this could not happen, and yet, it did.

So, it was initially believed that unemployment and inflation were in a long term relationship, not enough inflation and unemployment would rise, but, by raising the inflation rate, you could lower the unemployment rate, well, all the "smart folks said it was so!" so off the developed world went with this and short term, it seemed to work, BUT, both workers and employers quickly caught on, they took inflation into account, resulting in employment contracts that increased pay at rates near anticipated inflation. Unemployment then begin to rise back to its previous level, but now with higher inflation rates. And soon we ended up with the worst of both worlds, High Inflation AND High Unemployment, that was fun.

Over the longer-run there is no trade-off between inflation and unemployment. The apparent initial success is only due to miscalculation when the situation changes, and once folks catch on, it doesn't work at all.

She continues:

The kinds of things that you can do to boost longer-term growth are investments in things like education, infrastructure, R&D. Those are the sorts of things that tend to accelerate productivity growth so that longer-term real GDP growth can be higher. So there are ways in which the government can make investments today — that increase deficits today — that produce higher growth tomorrow and build in the extra capacity to absorb those higher deficits.
​

She's right about that, but not government directed spending, that devolves into cronyism and boondoggles, but tax breaks so that those who have their own resources at stake can spend more on R&D? That's not a new insight, that's been known for a very long time, but not properly exploited by our less than bright folks that write tax policy.

She continues, arguing against concern over the National Debt:

Let’s remember what the national debt is. The national debt is nothing more than a historical record of all of the dollars that the government spent into the economy and didn’t tax back that are currently being held in the form of safe U.S. Treasurys. That’s what the national debt is. So the question about whether the debt is too big or too small (or whether it might get too big at some point in the future) is really a question about whether that’s too many safe assets for people to hold 10, 20, 50 years from now.​

It's also debt that needs to be serviced - which is a wealth transfer from tax payers to wealthy bond holders.

Stephanie Continues on the blessing of massive national Debt:

If you look at Japan today you see a country where the debt-to-GDP ratio is something like 240 percent. Well above, orders of magnitude above, where the U.S. is today or even where the U.S. is forecast to be in the future. And so, the question is how is Japan able to sustain a debt of that size? Wouldn’t it have an inflation problem? Wouldn’t it lead to rising interest rates? Wouldn’t this be destructive in some way? And the answer to all of those questions, as Japan has demonstrated now for years is simply: No. Japan’s debt is close to 240 percent of GDP — almost a quadrillion, that’s a very big number, yen. Long-term interest rates are very close to zero, there’s no inflation problem. And so despite the size of the debt there are no negative consequences as a result and I think Japan teaches us a really important lesson.
​

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/01/ber...or-stephanie-kelton-on-mmt-and-2020-race.html

​

How come our GDP is consistently stronger if their way is better? Why have their young people quit marrying, forming families, and producing children if their way better? They are in demographic suicide and we are not.

If you are going to fabricate positions, attribute them to yourself. If you want to know my position, simply ask.

No I'm not. I'm a fan of CO2. It's fertilizing effects are greening the world and I'm a big supporter of increased vegetative growth.

​

 

Entrenched poverty in the US is very real, your 'social safety nets' are the ultimate fraud, and your neoliberal economics will NEVER create an economy that works for all, as even this Fox news anchor is forced to acknowledge:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1226536797565374464

No you can't, that's why no-one is doing it. People want to be rewarded for partaking in and contributing to community well being, that's what working is. Just paying them "1 dollar above poverty" will fail utterly, because it denies our human aspiration to contribute, by everyone.

Nevertheless your policy is a type of UBI; is it part of any platform being presented to the electorate? (Unlike the MMT JG which is understood by AOC who may well be in government with Sanders and Kelton soon...the polls show these people are not some fringe group).

But don't forget to look in the mirror; apart from failing to implement an economy that works for everyone, the US has an horrific record of supressing information related to so-called national security eg Assange's virtual crucifixion for revealing the truth is comparable to anything China might be doing to its journalists.

Nonsense. You leave many behind to languish in systemic poverty, extinguishing the INDIVIDUAL rights of those affected.

..here we go, with your nonsense about incentives and "socialism"...

No they don't; in an economy that works for everyone, everyone WANTS to work.

Of course there is. Some "free wills" are more competitive than others; the Common Welfare doesn't get a look in, if individual free will is the primary driver.

Central bankers like to virtue signal? Congratulations, you are possibly the first person to ever have suggested that idea...

In fact she is correct.

You are confused because you think the government's finances are like yours and mine, who must first earn the nation's <means of exchange> , ie money denominated in the nation's currency, before we can spend ie buy resources; but the currency issuing government can spend before it taxes or borrows, ie before it "earns" money to buy resources/fund activity.

Now this is the important bit: unlike you and me (private sector users of the currency) the currency issuing government is limited, not by money, but by the productive capacity and the resources available for sale in the nation's economy.

Wrong, as explained above. You missed the first pages of Kelton's lecture, I hope you are now up to speed.

No she is completely aware of stagflation and why it occurred in the 70's. But that problem has passed and now we have sluggish wages growth, high under-employment, low interest rates, massive private and public debt (with Trump cheerfully adding $1.5 trillion to the national deficit via tax cuts to the wealthy), LOW INFLATION, and growth still sluggish at c. 2% in the US) and central bankers everywhere desperately trying to prop up their economies by seeing if negative interest rates can stave off recession...

Thanks for your version of history, but the validity of the Philips curve and Milton Friedman's counter arguments were never resolved because economies are dynamic and always changing in a complex internal and external macro economic environment.

And so we ended up with the GFC, which only the MMT economists saw coming, and who equally described why the mainstream economists would stuff up the recovery as well...

You need to start dealing with the world economy as it at present. as outlined be me above.

Addressed above.

Well we agree...except the beginning of MMT is recognition of the government as sole authorised currency issuer: and of course your tax breaks for individuals will NEVER create an economy that works for all. Checkmate!

True, that's why government should not be issuing bonds at all, they are nothing more than corporate welfare.

Kelton's point is not that Japan is better, but that national deficits don't matter to the extent we (and the mainstream) think they do. .

Indeed you are EXTREMELY fortunate Trump has disregarded mainstream deficit mythology, otherwise the US, with its sluggish mean wages growth, would be in recession by now.

Fact: a government can always repay its debt in the future, provided the nation's productive capacity is maintained, going forward. .

If it walks and quacks like a duck.....

And your policy to aid Brazil to retain what's left of its rainforest (known as "the lungs of the world", owing to its size) is.....?

​