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Scarcity is absolutely NOT the only reason for poverty.

Again, you're trying to propose a whole new economics system here, but you are not giving any of the details.

Not everyone can hold a job. Game over.

OK, but you haven't said anything about how you proposal works, including who pays for it.

Again, you dodge on how your system works.

As an aside, you should know why all first world countries EXCEPT the US have single payer healthcare before proposing a change.

 

Ultimately it is is, because if there is no scarcity, there need be no poverty (this is where the Job Guarantee comes in).

In short, the US has all the resources it needs to decently house, clothe, feed - and employ - everyone. Your classical economics, and free market supremacy, is part of the problem.

[Climate change is back in the news with the latest IPCC report; if the man-made CO2 emergency is real, the free market will have to be suspended (just as it should have been during the covid lockdown, to avoid the problems we are now facing with supply chain blockages)].

link:

Innocent Frauds - Mosler Economics / Modern Monetary Theory

Or read Stephanie Kelton's best seller: 'The Deficit' Myth'.

Mental illness affects 1-2% of the population. Think again.
link:
The Case for a Job Guarantee - Pavlina Tcherneva (pavlina-tcherneva.net)

See above; in short: the currency-issuing government pays for public spending.

In the US, wealthy people support an expensive purely profit-driven private system.
because the US takes the idea of individual "freedom" to extreme, forgetting there is no freedom - only destructive hyperpartisanship - without universal economic security.

BTW, here is an MMT thread on PF:

MMT: overcoming the political divide. | PoliticalForum.com - Forum for US and Intl Politics

 

You're trying to propose some totally new and different economic system - one that appears to be used by NOBODY today.

And, you aren't describing any of the fundamentals.

 

That's right, a system which eradicates poverty.

Resisted by the private financiers manipulating global capital today for their own benefit, while half the world is on the edge of economic collapse.

Fully described in the links provided; basically resource mobilization, not money, is the basis of sustainable prosperity.

And elimination of war via an ICJ backed by a reformed UNSC minus veto; then humans - having their own house in order - can co-operate to explore in space ...

 

You owe a much stronger and more comprehensive explanation of how you want things to work if you decide to remove free market enterprise, capitalism, and taxes.

And, that certainly includes the idea that the government should just print more money when it wants to do something.

 

A necessary corrective:

 

Not remove them, just greatly reduce them, consistent with maintaining incentive AND establishing common prosperity.

This is not the place for a detailed explanation, beyond noting that currency-issuing government must be authorized to issue and spend its own money (as directed by the electorate) rather than being forced to tax or borrow from the private sector. The detail is widely available in MMT forums and the links I supplied.

Study MMT: government CANNOT do that, government is constrained by available resources, though the choices available to government are greatly expanded, when the electorate can choose between spending "government money" as opposed to "taxpayer money".

 

Of all the things to be arguing about:

 

OK, if it can't be described OR compared with our current system, then what's the excuse for proposing that people talk about it?

 

It CAN "be described OR compared with our current system":

MMT: overcoming the political divide. | PoliticalForum.com - Forum for US and Intl Politics

and an interesting primer about how 'debt money' was invented:

Money as debt



In fact this is THE problem with the current dysfunctional system:
currency-issuing governments are also forced to tax or borrow from private sector financiers, just as ordinary citizens are forced to pay interest on loans.

 

Making attacks on our current system does not support or justify some system you haven't described here in a clear succinct way.

 

How succinct can I be?

1. The current debt-money system ("money as debt", in the video in the previous post) is evil, existing and controlled since the middle ages by usurious private financiers/banksters.

2. In the modern post gold-standard era of floating-exchange-rate fiat currencies, currency-issuing governments need to be authorized to issue their own debt-free money, constrained only by available resources on which to spend the money, to avoid inflation. [Note: understanding the true causes of an inflationary episode is vital; a resource constraint of some type -whether supply or demand based, or both - is always responsible).

Beyond that, you will need to educate yourself, here's a start:

(link)

Warren Mosler: '7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy'

Innocent Frauds - Mosler Economics / Modern Monetary Theory

"I begin with the innocent frauds of the budget deficit, because they are the most pervasive and most damaging to both the US and the rest of the world’s standard of living".

Deadly Innocent Fraud #1:
The government must raise funds through taxing or borrowing in order to spend.
In other words, government spending is limited by the government’s ability to tax or borrow.

Fact:
Government spending is NOT operationally limited or in any way constrained by taxing or borrowing.
........

Mosler explains how a government - with its own treasury and reserve bank - can ISSUE debt-free currency, in contrast with, and alongside money issuance in private banks, when these banks write interest-bearing loans ("money as debt") for USERS of the currency (ie you and me, and private sector firms).

So currency-issuing governments don't need to tax the private sector in order to spend; nor do they need to borrow money at all - hence Mosler's statement above (in blue).

Mosler explains the true function of taxation is to reduce the purchasing power of private citizens (if an inflationary episode is developing), NOT to fund government spending; which means the electorate has more choices regarding how a nation's resources can be mobilized, for the benefit of the nation.

6 more frauds in the current system to go, which you can learn about yourself.

Succinct enough?

 

You didn't even read my post!!

The problem, as I pointed out, is that you are proposing we switch to something that you are unwilling to describe in a clear and concise manner.

ALL you do is rant on our current system.

Anybody can do that.

 

Fascinating.

Please describe where my post is not clear and concise ; and please reread my edited post #262 (at least from point #2 on) , which you replied to before my edits.

Do these edits make any difference, or does #262 still fail your "clear and concise" test?

If so, why?

 

Once again, you rant against our current system.

Then, you edit your post to emphasize that the government can print money - something you said earlier.

Even if that worked, it is NOT a clear description of a system as a whole.

I think you need to read the wiki on MMT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moder...on_of_MMT_with_mainstream_Keynesian_economics

Plus, you should read what economists not steeped in MMT say about it. You aren't going to find the problems by limiting your reading to proponents.

 

I 100% agree. The shuffling around of debt locally and globally is one of the greatest problems that exist today. It has pretty much become the root of all evil, massively increasing income disparity, forcing an ever increasing consumption of goods and energy whether or not they are required, and causing wars to fuel the MIC.

 

Evil always needs to be called out.

Did the edit amount to a clarification, or a strengthening of my argument?

If so, what's wrong with that? (Ok, don't bother answering that, I just made the point on behalf of stating an argument more clearly).

Well at least one poster agreed "100%" with my description of the ills of the current system, and the remedy described in point #2 in post #262.

No, I don't need to read that article, because MMT is only just now making inroads into university-level faculties (eg the new tertiary-level MMT text-book entitled 'Macroeconomics', by Mitchell, Watts, and Wray, was only released two years ago); and articles by commentators grounded in obsolete orthodox economics with only a superficial understanding of MMT are worthless.

Addressed above. It seems the issue of money-creation is as fraught as the issue of creation itself (....was 'God' the responsible 'first principle', or not....).

But I might have a look at the Wiki article later, to see if I can discover why you are apparently unable to differentiate between the concept of resources - which are real - on the one hand; and money, which is artificial - ie always created out of nothing, on the other hand, whether created by privileged private banksters, or by currency-issuing governments.

 

cancel

 

If you want to criticize our current system, that's perfectly reasonable. Our system does have problems that we try (or should be trying) to mitigate.

But, your criticisms don't necessarily support a change to some other pretty much undefined system.

BTW, I haven't addressed the topic you think I don't understand.

 

Werner von Braun had a genius working for him that was the guy that could coax rockets into flying. He thought the first thing we should do is build a station at L5. That if we didn't do that, it would be seen as a stunt, and that would be the end of it.

And he was right.

 

How was this genius planning on protecting humans from radiation at L5?

Today, NASA has no solution for that.

I think there are other advantages on the side of the ISS, too. ISS is a short distance that allows the many required trips (fuel, new experiments, new equipment, etc.) to be carried out cheaply and rapidly, provides for emergencies, etc. And, it still has the advantages of micro gravity.

The 30 day travel time to L5 is a significant obstacle. There have to be serious advantages to warrant paying that price.

 

We didn't know, that's an interesting point.

Actually, if this was an international effort, we could get the radiation level down. It would be expensive, it would require a base on the Moon casting massive sections of rock into sections of the station. The next step would be generating a field. The sleeping areas would also have a layer of water for added protection. It wouldn't be perfect, but then it doesn't have to be.

When we get serious about space, we'll need a base, and it's that or the Moon. In any case, at this point both are unlikely for some time to come.

 

My own view is that we don't need a station on the Moon.

The ideas for protection that you mention are ones that pretty much all interested parties are examining.

Some of the results are startling. For example, when the particles of most concern hit a metal spaceship, they rain slightly lower energy, but still very dangerous particles throughout the interior. That could be worse for humans that simply not shielding in that way.

NASA's comment on this problem when going to Mars is that we should work on getting there the fastest way practical.

I know people talk about living underground. However even if there are caves they are going to require significant work to make them easily accessible and otherwise usable. So, I wonder how that work gets done.

 

It would be smart to fix the relationship between China and the US. Then 'the sky is the limit' to human progress in space.

What's with the fear of a one party state? The Chinese themselves are OK with it (at least until this silly Shanghai lock-down, hopefully short lived).

 

That's part of the problem.