Global stock markets have had their worst week - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15077692
late wrote:You are going to have to do some homework.


Sounds like you have to do the homework.

late wrote:start with a $1K check to everybody.

How will that be funded?

Here's the thing, I know how it can be funded, my point is, you are consistently very light on details, which is partly why I'm pressing you for details.

late wrote:Then start work on programs that patch the holes.

Which programs?

late wrote:Step One is getting a home for the homeless. That makes economic sense,


Often the homeless don't actually want homes. Because usually the accommodations are in shelters and hotels. A lot of the homeless have mental issues, so you are basically setting up a powder keg when you place so many mentally ill people in close quarters. Further, it's actually expensive, which is why it hasn't been done. I have a better/practical solution if you cared to listen.

late wrote:A lot of hospitals have financial woes, and the last thing we want right now is hospitals closing.

What's the solution you propose?

Again, I have a proposal (I can share it if you cared), but I'm pressing you for details because you tend to speak in platitudes more than anything. I'd like details from you occasionally.

blackjack21 wrote:I think identifying products that are a national security requirement and ensuring they are made in the US. Naturally, I would start with pharmaceutical ingredients, drugs and medical equipment.

I agree with this, but this is more about the long term. I was asking about what can be done right now during the immediate economic fallout.
#15077709
Rancid wrote:

Sounds like you have to do the homework.


How will that be funded?

Here's the thing, I know how it can be funded, my point is, you are consistently very light on details, which is partly why I'm pressing you for details.


Which programs?



Often the homeless don't actually want homes. Because usually the accommodations are in shelters and hotels. A lot of the homeless have mental issues, so you are basically setting up a powder keg when you place so many mentally ill people in close quarters. Further, it's actually expensive, which is why it hasn't been done. I have a better/practical solution if you cared to listen.









If you want to me pay to take a month or two and write a hundred pages ( or 200) than I am pleased to say no.

If you want to tell me what you think, I don't have a problem with that.

My primary concern with the homeless is homeless families, the number of homeless children has skyrocketed. They should get help, no excuses.

The homeless that are mentally ill should also get help. Although I have no idea why you think I want to cram them all into a closet somewhere.

We need a program to care for the mentally ill. I am less concerned about the nature of that program than that we get one so fewer of them die in the street. But, obviously, I would prefer they be adequately cared for. That would require some Fed involvement because so many of our communities wouldn't be able to fund it.
#15077716
Rancid wrote:Policy.


Time to embrace Socialism. As the contradictions of Capitalism will crash the economic model, it will be up to governments to maintain the survival of vital services for all to prevent more deaths if the supply lines are effected with businesses going bust and a rise in prices due to less competition and a shortage in daily supplies.
#15077720
B0ycey wrote:Time to embrace Socialism. As the contradictions of Capitalism will crash the economic model, it will be up to governments to maintain the survival of vital services for all to prevent more deaths if the supply lines are effected with businesses going bust and a rise in prices due to less competition and a shortage in daily supplies.

Yeah I don't think we need to add starvation and death squads to our list of problems. :hmm:
#15077721
SolarCross wrote:Yeah I don't think we need to add starvation and death squads to our list of problems. :hmm:


You still confuse authoritarianism with Socialism I see.

During the American depression, the means of production stopped operating not because the demand wasn't there but because the wealth wasn't there. If the means of production was state run, the means of production doesn't stop operating because profit isn't the underlying factor. Demand is.
#15077722
B0ycey wrote:
Time to embrace Socialism. As the contradictions of Capitalism will crash the economic model, it will be up to governments to maintain the survival of vital services for all to prevent more deaths if the supply lines are effected with businesses going bust and a rise in prices due to less competition and a shortage in daily supplies.


I do wonder if this crisis will push people into wanting more socialistic policies.
#15077725
Rancid wrote:I do wonder if this crisis will push people into wanting more socialistic policies.


It should do. A Socialistic democracy would be better prepared over a pandemic and its aftermath than a Capitalistic model could ever be. SolarCross is right to be worried about the forthcoming inflation possibility because the demand for goods doesn't stop just because businesses go bust or the supply lines are effected. Although with supply and demand it does mean prices rise and thinking otherwise is wishful thinking.
#15077726
B0ycey wrote:It should do. A Socialistic democracy would be better prepared over a pandemic and its aftermath than a Capitalistic model could ever be.

That is your belief, but it is just pure superstition. In a "socialistic 'democracy'" (maduro's venezuala?) all the bogroll hoarders would be vindicated.

B0ycey wrote:SolarCross is right to be worried about the forthcoming inflation possibility because the demand for goods doesn't stop just because businesses go bust or the supply lines are effected. Although with supply and demand it does mean prices rise and thinking otherwise is wishful thinking.

Actually demand is down too. Nobody is going on holiday, people are not buying luxury items, they are driving less... The problem is not really a mismatch between supply and demand of goods and services in general but only in the particulars because it will take people a bit to adapt to the new and different trading environment. For example supermarkets for decades have seen to it that they always have gargantuan amounts of fresh flowers for Mother's day. But yesterday for the first time ever, mother's day was effectively cancelled as so many people decided they would rather not potentially kill their mother with a dose of coronavirus. A lot of supermarkets failed anticipate this dramatic shift in consumption and now have a million unsold flowers that will rot away.

The inflation will come when governments / central banks dramatically increase the money supply again.
#15077740
B0ycey wrote:
It should do. A Socialistic democracy would be better prepared over a pandemic and its aftermath than a Capitalistic model could ever be. SolarCross is right to be worried about the forthcoming inflation possibility because the demand for goods doesn't stop just because businesses go bust or the supply lines are effected. Although with supply and demand it does mean prices rise and thinking otherwise is wishful thinking.


I'm still very very on the fence if this will get people to be more socialistic, or get people to think like @SolarCross. I'm typically for a mixed economy. I do think certain segments of the economy need to be socialized/nationalized. One reason is for things like national security & public health. We have a medical supply shortage precisely because we left the medical industry up to the free market. The free market decided it was best to manufacture these goods in China. Why? because the markets place profit over national security. Free enterprises only optimizes for profit, and sometimes that is not the best thing to optimize for.

Of course, this is all speculative:

I'm not so worried about hyper-inflation at this moment though. This virus is putting downward pressure on inflation. The projected unemployment rate after the virus is done with is 20%. In 2008-2009 it was 10% (and we didn't see inflation then). This virus is economically harder than the 2008-2009 recession was. GDP is expected to drop by 6%. All of this pushes us towards deflation rather than inflation.

That said, we could end up with stagflation (high unemployment with high inflation), but I don't buy that will happen. Most of the job losses right now are in low paying, low skill menial jobs. The high tech and high paying jobs are still in much demand even now (hell this virus is causing a surge in cloud computing, which is where I work). Especially since we can still work through the virus, the pay is still coming in. That is, once the virus passes, these high paid professionals will get out there and pay for drinks at the bar, go to restaurants, pay for home cleaning services,etc. etc. and thus they will cause the unemployment to improve.

Additionally, with historically low interest rates, and very low inflation before the virus. I question if the Fed can even print enough money fast enough to cause inflation. In other words, i think the fed can't move the inflation needle up very fast as it is, so it will be easy for them to ease the pressure on the money printing on the first indication of inflation (if it ever happens).

All of that said, I certainly agree with @SolarCross, that even though I think the macro economics will look ok, the micro economics of people that are lower skill, less educated, blue collar, etc. will be much worse off. They will again, continue to be ignored. Eventually something will give, but it will be something beyond this virus.
#15077744
@Rancid, I agree with most of what you wrote. I don't really fear hyperinflation, but I do wonder what impact there will be from increased borrowing with a reduction in spending in terms of price in goods, retaining production and currency value due to over supply. And yes I too support the hybrid economy and have expressed as such in many posts I have published prior on PoFo. But in terms of your post and an economic resolution should we be in the mist of a depression, the solution is Socialism. If Capitalism is unable to maintain the supply lines for the nations populous survival, it is up to governments to execute measures to maintain them.
#15077755
SolarCross wrote:Just do socialism on your own.


Or at least do it differently this time. Instead of nationalizing industry and printing money we could just cut the corporate tax rate to 0% and give everyone dividend paying voting shares in the corporations. It's market socialism without state control or central planning. And it would still preserve private property. You wouldn't lose your business, you'd still own that share of the business that was due to your effort. You'd just have to give up the share of it that was due to the efforts of workers and stakeholders. In small businesses it wouldn't even be a majority share. It would only be a majority share in natural monopolies and the biggest corporations and the commanding heights.
#15077759
Sivad wrote:Or at least do it differently this time. Instead of nationalizing industry and printing money we could just cut the corporate tax rate to 0% and give everyone dividend paying voting shares in the corporations. It's market socialism without state control or central planning. And it would still preserve private property. You wouldn't lose your business, you'd still own that share of the business that was due to your effort. You'd just have to give up the share of it that was due to the efforts of workers and stakeholders. In small businesses it wouldn't even be a majority share. It would only be a majority share in natural monopolies and the biggest corporations and the commanding heights.

That sounds better for sure. However it is a solution looking for a problem but the problem is money printing and your solution does not address that. All the big companies are already purchasable by the public because the fast path to bigness is to let as many people as possible buy shares in the company. The problem is that money printers can hide their inflation if they dump it in the stock market first. When the stock market inflates people think that is great, when consumer goods inflate people get mad. The fact is if some people have a licence to print money they will end up owning everything. That's where your inequality comes from. Shareholders of publicly traded companies are incidental accomplices because when the FED buys up stocks with their fake money the share price inflates and the shareholders think they are getting richer. But the true criminals are the money printers.

By a continuing process of inflation governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. - John Maynard Keynes
#15077794
SolarCross wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfMF0MB3AP8


I actually watched that whole video. :lol: I normally ignore videos people post.

Anyway, I agree with mostly everything he said. The only thing I question (not disagree, but question) is this:

1 - He called central banks adding (i.e. print) cash to the economy as MMT. I would argue, this is not MMT, this just regular Keynesian practice. MMT implies that there is a plan/system in place to suck excess capital via variable tax rates. THis is not happening right now, and it never will in my opinion. In other words, MMT is practically impossible to implement. NOt sure why he even said MMT....

2 - He said that the current central bank managed system failed to stop this downturn. Fair enough, but what system would be able to prevent a downturn? I don't think any system could deal with this.

3 - The only think I disagree on is that he's saying the real economy is in shambles. I think no, for the reasons I posted in my previous post. This is probably the only thing I disagree with, not strongly though. Just mild disagreement.

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