[ckaihatsu]

Actually, the graph shows that the growth rate of US GDP is stagnant. This is entirely to be expected for a mature capitalist economy.

Yeah.

I'll add, look at those downward jags -- it looks like a definite *pattern*, if only over three economic crash-type events. The *magnitude* keeps increasing, though the *duration* keeps lessening.

This indicates, to me at least, increasing *fragility* and the need for quicker, larger *responses* to each successive crash.

I can't disagree with that.

Thanks -- commentators often forget to address *material output* / productivity, or prevailing 'overproduction', meaning that a greater amount of goods and services already exists in comparison to a *lesser* amount of consumer demand, yielding decreasing / lower prices across-the-board. This corresponds to what we'd *expect*, by the balance of supply-and-demand -- more stuff, less demand equates to a consistently lower interest rate since a glut of capital goods (finance) has already been produced, and there's not-enough activity, demand, or growth in the economy to make the *valuation* of capital (interest rate) rise at all.

Meant to include the following -- it's not 1970s-era productivity anymore....

[Potemkin]

Yeah.

I'll add, look at those downward jags -- it looks like a definite *pattern*, if only over three economic crash-type events. The *magnitude* keeps increasing, though the *duration* keeps lessening.

This indicates, to me at least, increasing *fragility* and the need for quicker, larger *responses* to each successive crash.

Indeed, in line with Marx's predictions. Though I would like to see more data points, to smooth out any random statistical noise. Not enough data points to draw firm conclusions.

Thanks -- commentators often forget to address *material output* / productivity, or prevailing 'overproduction', meaning that a greater amount of goods and services already exists in comparison to a *lesser* amount of consumer demand, yielding decreasing / lower prices across-the-board. This corresponds to what we'd *expect*, by the balance of supply-and-demand -- more stuff, less demand equates to a consistently lower interest rate since a glut of capital goods (finance) has already been produced, and there's not-enough activity, demand, or growth in the economy to make the *valuation* of capital (interest rate) rise at all.

Meant to include the following -- it's not 1970s-era productivity anymore....

And it is precisely this gap between increased productivity and stagnant wages which has created the current situation of overproduction and weak demand, which in turn has led to historically low interest rates and a potential deflationary spiral.

[Steve_American]

@ckaihatsu,
Sir, if you are an extreme leftist (which seems to be the case), than of course, you reject any and ALL fixes to the capitalist system. Extreme leftists have always held out for their socialism/communism, and rejacted all fixes of capitalism, because they NEED things to get so bad that the people will rise up and implement their program. They are all in "alll or nothing" mode.

My MMT experts, like Prof. Bill Mitchell, all say that all nations with a fiat currency are already using most elements of MMT, they just don't know it.
They say that [aside form their carefully worked out and fully explained] Job Guarantee Program [Federally funded but locally run (except no descrimination on basis of race, religion, etc.)] MMT is just a description of how all govs. now do things. It can't be implemented, because it is already implemented.

I, personally, think this is a dodge. They claim MMT is just a descrription and mandates no policies. But, it does mandate the JGP be used; and they don't make it clear enough that MMT says that the nationall debt be raised fairly slowly, without limit and never paid down (except in a period of hyperinflation) *and* deficit spending be increased from the levels we have seen, say in 2015 or so. [I can't say "now" because of covid.]

So, IMO, MMT can be "implemented" , so to speak by 1] setting up the JGP, and 2] increasing deficit spending a lot.

IMO, Unthinking Majority was right when he said that WWII showed that the amount of deficit spending FDR used in the 30s was just not enough. That if FDR had doubled or tripled the level of deficit spending it might have been enough. He was also correct that FDR could/should have in addition given every person $XXX a month to live on.
Of course, he couldn't because of several fixed ideas, but the main one was racism which meant that the money could not be given to Negros, now called Blacks, because southern Dems would not have allowed that.
.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu,
Sir, if you are an extreme leftist (which seems to be the case), than of course, you reject any and ALL fixes to the capitalist system.

True. The politically *acceptable* term would be 'far' leftist, thank-you-very-much.

Extreme leftists have always held out for their socialism/communism, and rejacted all fixes of capitalism, because they NEED things to get so bad that the people will rise up and implement their program. They are all in "alll or nothing" mode.

*Or*, why the fuck doesn't the current socio-political system simply work adequately for everyone? Why is there any remaining privation in today's world of industrial farming (etc.).

Also, from previously:

If you, or anyone, could point to a single instance from history to show where Keynesianism / MMT actually *worked*, then it would be encouraging, for consideration, but I've provided *counterexamples*, from the Great Depression, and since deindustrialization, to say that deficit spending hasn't been providing any kind of 'jumpstart', the way it purports to provide.

posting.php?mode=quote&f=115&p=15181044

---

My MMT experts, like Prof. Bill Mitchell, all say that all nations with a fiat currency are already using most elements of MMT, they just don't know it.
They say that [aside form their carefully worked out and fully explained] Job Guarantee Program [Federally funded but locally run (except no descrimination on basis of race, religion, etc.)] MMT is just a description of how all govs. now do things. It can't be implemented, because it is already implemented.

I, personally, think this is a dodge. They claim MMT is just a descrription and mandates no policies. But, it does mandate the JGP be used; and they don't make it clear enough that MMT says that the nationall debt be raised fairly slowly, without limit and never paid down (except in a period of hyperinflation) *and* deficit spending be increased from the levels we have seen, say in 2015 or so. [I can't say "now" because of covid.]

So, IMO, MMT can be "implemented" , so to speak by 1] setting up the JGP, and 2] increasing deficit spending a lot.

IMO, Unthinking Majority was right when he said that WWII showed that the amount of deficit spending FDR used in the 30s was just not enough. That if FDR had doubled or tripled the level of deficit spending it might have been enough. He was also correct that FDR could/should have in addition given every person $XXX a month to live on.
Of course, he couldn't because of several fixed ideas, but the main one was racism which meant that the money could not be given to Negros, now called Blacks, because southern Dems would not have allowed that.
.

---

He was also correct that FDR could/should have in addition given every person $XXX a month to live on.

Look, if everyone in the *world* got $XXX a month to live on that actually provided for *all* of their human humane needs, like food and housing, education, health care, transportation, utilities, etc., then we wouldn't even *be* here -- all political discussion forums would go 'bankrupt', so-to-speak.

[SueDeNîmes]

Yesterday I included a rundown of how Keynesianism failed to rejuvenate the capitalist economy in the U.S. in the '30s

It didn't read like it. More like a catalogue of resistance to Keynesianism along with attacks on organised labour.

U.S. GDP has been *stagnant* for at least a couple of decades now, and that's *with* the steady increase in government deficit spending:

Neither Keynesianism nor MMT say govt just needs to run deficits. Govt deficits (absent a trade surplus) are a necessary but not sufficient condition. Tax cuts for the rich won't stimulate an economy with deficient aggregate demand. Failure to stimulate aggregate demand will likely result in higher deficits as growth slows.

That govt deficits are necessary (absent a trade surplus) to maintain growth is not theory but observation. See HERE. So is the reason for it, i.e. that the govt's deficit is the private sector's surplus +/- balance of trade:

If you, or anyone, could point to a single instance from history to show where Keynesianism / MMT actually *worked*, then it would be encouraging

You've already pointed to it - namely the post war decades when wages grew apace with GDP. Growth has never stopped but the growth rate was higher and shared across the income distribution when policy was more Keynesian than before or since. As was the case in much of the world - see HERE.

[Steve_American]

Steve-American wrote:
Something like, "FDR could have given $XXX per month to every American during the Depression, ... "

Look, if everyone in the *world* got $XXX a month to live on that actually provided for *all* of their human humane needs, like food and housing, education, health care, transportation, utilities, etc., then we wouldn't even *be* here -- all political discussion forums would go 'bankrupt', so-to-speak.

Sir, no nation could give every person in the world even $100/mo. now. With 7 billion the is $700B/mo. X 12 mo. = $8.4T/year. In the 30s giving $10/mo. to every person in the world was impossible both because of financial limits and because of just how could we have done it.

I was speaking soecifically about Americans, not the world. And I wasn't assumig it would provide for every need. Just that it would have stimulated the economy to make more stuff, and so hire more people to make the stuff. Thu ending the Depression.

I have been saying for decades that the spending in WWII showed that what Congress was willing to spend in the 30s was not enough. AND, this doesn't prove that any level of additional spending would not have ended the Depression sooner. Rather, it *proves* that enough spending WOULD have ended the Depression by 1934 or 35.

[Again (last time nobody groked my point enough to reply) I point out the in the past leaders of many nations may have been on to something when they started a war to stay in power, ecause wartime spending makes many people happy because it adds income to many people, not just to arms makers.
Historians say that the leaders were just diverting public attention away from their hardships to the enemy.
I'm saying it created an excuse to borrow and spend to get people employed, thus ending the hardships.]
.

[Steve_American]

Double post.

[B0ycey]

Sir, no nation could give every person in the world even $100/mo. now. With 7 billion the is $700B/mo. X 12 mo. = $8.4T/year.

What you really writing here @Steve_American? That perhaps mass borrowing has a limit?

So much for the money tree you keep asking to be shook.

I would say providing free money without something in return (namely labor) would create an environment where the supply of money would exceed production and as such would see a surge inflation very much like we are seeing now given nothing is being made.

[Rancid]

The economy is fine. Trust me.

[SueDeNîmes]

The economy isn't fine. We are now rationing surpluses with an artificial scarcity of money. And it's becoming cruel and divisive.

[Rancid]

The economy isn't fine. We are now rationing surpluses with an artificial scarcity of money. And it's becoming cruel and divisive.

Trust me. It's all good.

[Steve_American]

What you really writing here @Steve_American? That perhaps mass borrowing has a limit?

So much for the money tree you keep asking to be shook.

I would say providing free money without something in return (namely labor) would create an environment where the supply of money would exceed production and as such would see a surge inflation very much like we are seeing now given nothing is being made.

No MMTer ever said that there is no limit. We all make it clear that the limit is inflation, and not the amount of the debt created by borrowing.

It seems strange that you, and many others, have not groked this point yet.
It also seems strange that many (not you, at least not here) point to Greece as if Greece is not a TOTALLY different sort of nation because it is a user of the euro, while the US is the issuer of the dollar.

MMTers say that we are NOT seeing a large surge in inflation, now. That prices have mostly just returned to the level that they were at in Feb., 2020. In this situation prices now (in 2021) should be compared to the same month in 2019, not to 2020. But, all MS economists are cherrypicking the available data that supports their narative. This includes their students who are here on the internet.
There are also shortages that were caused by the pandemic. Shortages cause price increases, more than too much cash does. [In a perfect free market with much competition and no shortages, the sellers can't increase their prices just because they see a lot of cash in the ecomimy, because other sellers will sell for less. In our imprefect market with many sellers with monopoly power, this can cause some inflation until all that excess cash has been moved to those with monolopy power.]
.

[B0ycey]

No MMTer ever said that there is no limit. We all make it clear that the limit is inflation, and not the amount of the debt created by borrowing.

It seems strange that you, and many others, have not groked this point yet.
.

Actually, it is you who has not 'groked' this point yet. If I remember correctly before inflation happened you said that it was ok that we printed money and increased our national debt by whatever trillion to fight this pandemic because just before it there were signs of DEFLATION. It was me who TOLD YOU that we should expect to see inflation and that we could see a reoccurrence of stagflation seen in the 70s because increasing the cash flow of money into the supply chain especially during a time you are shutting down production has historically caused inflation due to excess currency outstripping production. I ALSO TOLD YOU that MMT explains this and yet YOU still said we should continue to shake the money tree regardless. Anyway, given you are today basically repeating what I have told you last year and that inflation in the US rose again by 5.1% as Biden has yet to INCREASE the national debt further by stimulating growth, I will leave you with your own words to look at. Are you now saying that we should expect to see inflation due to the pandemic?

[Istanbuller]

MMT or any other trick cannot save you. America is finished. Therefore, this discussion is stupid. Angering China will lead him to destroy you earlier than you expected.

China might be already the world's largest economy if you look by actual economic activity measures. America is just passing huge government spending bills in Senate. Artifical increases in gdp figures. In China, they produce and sell which is the core of economc activity.

Moving away from classical liberalism and libertarianism destroyed your economic prosperity and competitiveness. Government cannot and will not save you. There is no magical stick.

[ckaihatsu]

You've already pointed to it - namely the post war decades when wages grew apace with GDP. Growth has never stopped but the growth rate was higher and shared across the income distribution when policy was more Keynesian than before or since. As was the case in much of the world - see HERE.

The prosperity of the postwar period was mostly due to the U.S.' *war profiteering*, than anything else. War is excellent business, and the U.S. sold armaments to both sides, as I mentioned earlier in the thread:

Yesterday I included a rundown of how Keynesianism failed to rejuvenate the capitalist economy in the U.S. in the '30s, and only *war profiteering* actually brought the U.S. empire out of its prolonged doldrums, at the expense of organized labor.

viewtopic.php?p=15181042#p15181042

---

Steve-American wrote:
Something like, "FDR could have given $XXX per month to every American during the Depression, ... "



Sir, no nation could give every person in the world even $100/mo. now. With 7 billion the is $700B/mo. X 12 mo. = $8.4T/year. In the 30s giving $10/mo. to every person in the world was impossible both because of financial limits and because of just how could we have done it.

What happened to 'MMT', then? Looks like you're getting cold feet now. (grin)

Seriously, though, this line upholds the *validity* of the U.S. dollar valuation as a metric, and if anything, we've seen that lately capitalist economic metrics have diminishing valuation / explanatory power, because there's simply far less *investment* activity, due to overall stagnant growth, capitalist overproduction, declining rates of profit, and prevailing deflation. Far less demand, combined with a glut of production and secreted-away mountains of capital goods / finance, means that capitalism's valuations are increasingly *meaningless* since there's no real constant 'heartbeat' of economic activity to *measure*, anyway.

I was speaking soecifically about Americans, not the world. And I wasn't assumig it would provide for every need. Just that it would have stimulated the economy to make more stuff, and so hire more people to make the stuff. Thu ending the Depression.

Well, I happen to find this to be *politically* / ideologically problematic, since it's a societal *dependence* on the capitalist market mechanism. Really, it sounds like putting-the-cart-before-the-horse, because if the point of an economic system is to produce and distribute goods and services, then there's no rational / good explanation for the gargantuan overhang of inequal wealth accumulation within the top 1%.

In other words the capital *exists*, but it's just not *in circulation*, so then what good is the system when, in operation, it produces *this result* of vast economic inequality?

One can't talk of 'stimulating the economy' (with public monies) when the 'success' of such 'stimulation' is the further *privatization* and secreting-away of vast hoards of wealth, out of the economy.

Hiring isn't a given when so much cheap government 'stimulus' money has just been used by corporations to do stock *buy-backs*, to further-deflationary ends.


The Power of the Fed (full documentary) _ FRONTLINE

I have been saying for decades that the spending in WWII showed that what Congress was willing to spend in the 30s was not enough. AND, this doesn't prove that any level of additional spending would not have ended the Depression sooner. Rather, it *proves* that enough spending WOULD have ended the Depression by 1934 or 35.

[Again (last time nobody groked my point enough to reply) I point out the in the past leaders of many nations may have been on to something when they started a war to stay in power, ecause wartime spending makes many people happy because it adds income to many people, not just to arms makers.
Historians say that the leaders were just diverting public attention away from their hardships to the enemy.
I'm saying it created an excuse to borrow and spend to get people employed, thus ending the hardships.]
.

[ckaihatsu]

The economy isn't fine. We are now rationing surpluses with an artificial scarcity of money. And it's becoming cruel and divisive.

Yup. I agree with your assessment -- deflation prevails, due to the massive surplus of production, even with gargantuan amounts of capital taken out-of-circulation, into offshore accounts, etc.

If hyperinflation is 'just around the corner', as is so popularly touted, then why has the interest rate been so flat over the past two decades, and stubbornly so now, worldwide -- ?

What you really writing here @Steve_American? That perhaps mass borrowing has a limit?

So much for the money tree you keep asking to be shook.

I would say providing free money without something in return (namely labor) would create an environment where the supply of money would exceed production and as such would see a surge inflation very much like we are seeing now given nothing is being made.

It's not true that nothing's being made, though -- the point is that capitalist rates of *productivity* are so high now, that minimal amounts of labor leverage *huge* outputs, and that could potentially rise to *infinity* if and when fully-automated production becomes the norm, meaning that labor is no longer needed *whatsoever*. (Like what self-driving vehicles would potentially do for the transport industry.)

Actually, it is you who has not 'groked' this point yet. If I remember correctly before inflation happened you said that it was ok that we printed money and increased our national debt by whatever trillion to fight this pandemic because just before it there were signs of DEFLATION. It was me who TOLD YOU that we should expect to see inflation and that we could see a reoccurrence of stagflation seen in the 70s because increasing the cash flow of money into the supply chain especially during a time you are shutting down production has historically caused inflation due to excess currency outstripping production. I ALSO TOLD YOU that MMT explains this and yet YOU still said we should continue to shake the money tree regardless. Anyway, given you are today basically repeating what I have told you last year and that inflation in the US rose again by 5.1% as Biden has yet to INCREASE the national debt further by stimulating growth, I will leave you with your own words to look at. Are you now saying that we should expect to see inflation due to the pandemic?

We can't compare the 2020s to the 1970s, though, because of the vast difference in *productivity* -- the 1970s were a time of nationalist existential *crisis* for the U.S. because it lost its industrial manufacturing base to its competitors (Japan, and then China), and it had nowhere to turn -- hence the Third-World-type runaway hyperinflation at the time, until Mao and Deng agreed to let China be colonized by U.S. finance. Otherwise we probably wouldn't be *having* this conversation.

The 5.1% or whatever *is* just a momentary echo of the pandemic, in CPI, or consumer prices, like the initial lack of hand sanitizer and paper products during the pandemic. Try drinking some water to get over the hiccups. (grin)

The U.S. / Fed *can't* further stimulate the economy any more, because the interest rate (federal funds rate) is now down to like, what, a quarter of a percent -- ? They're out of leverage, and even the *mention* of any future tightening of the cheap government money, for finance, tends to make the markets seize up (see the documentary).

[Steve_American]

...snip... what Steve_Americal wrote.

What happened to 'MMT', then? Looks like you're getting cold feet now. (grin)

Seriously, though, this line upholds the *validity* of the U.S. dollar valuation as a metric, and if anything, we've seen that lately capitalist economic metrics have diminishing valuation / explanatory power, because there's simply far less *investment* activity, due to overall stagnant growth, capitalist overproduction, declining rates of profit, and prevailing deflation. Far less demand, combined with a glut of production and secreted-away mountains of capital goods / finance, means that capitalism's valuations are increasingly *meaningless* since there's no real constant 'heartbeat' of economic activity to *measure*, anyway.


Well, I happen to find this to be *politically* / ideologically problematic, since it's a societal *dependence* on the capitalist market mechanism. Really, it sounds like putting-the-cart-before-the-horse, because if the point of an economic system is to produce and distribute goods and services, then there's no rational / good explanation for the gargantuan overhang of inequal wealth accumulation within the top 1%.

In other words the capital *exists*, but it's just not *in circulation*, so then what good is the system when, in operation, it produces *this result* of vast economic inequality?

One can't talk of 'stimulating the economy' (with public monies) when the 'success' of such 'stimulation' is the further *privatization* and secreting-away of vast hoards of wealth, out of the economy.

Hiring isn't a given when so much cheap government 'stimulus' money has just been used by corporations to do stock *buy-backs*, to further-deflationary ends.

Sir, you are correct that the 1% have way too much money. It should be taxed away.
I saw a report that one of them was funding a program where South Dakota is sending 50 national guardsmen to the Mexican border to stop illegals. WTF, now the rich can pay to have the gov. use troops in the US.
I also saw a report that an oil comp. was using a strange law to pay for the gov. to hound a lawyer who had beat them out of $1B in ciourt. Sore loosers suck. WTF, now the rich can pay to have the gov. crush a person for opposing their comp. in a totally legal way.


These are examples of how the rich are using their excess money in terrible ways, in addition to bribing Congress and all state legislautres.
.

[ckaihatsu]

Sir, you are correct that the 1% have way too much money. It should be taxed away.
I saw a report that one of them was funding a program where South Dakota is sending 50 national guardsmen to the Mexican border to stop illegals. WTF, now the rich can pay to have the gov. use troops in the US.
I also saw a report that an oil comp. was using a strange law to pay for the gov. to hound a lawyer who had beat them out of $1B in ciourt. Sore loosers suck. WTF, now the rich can pay to have the gov. crush a person for opposing their comp. in a totally legal way.


These are examples of how the rich are using their excess money in terrible ways, in addition to bribing Congress and all state legislautres.
.

Yup, the latter is business-as-usual, or the reason that the bourgeoisie *has* a government ('state') in the first place -- to exercise power.

The examples you cite just go to show how *egregious* it's getting, with the wealth gap, the 1000+ killer cops per year, etc. -- ultimately these conflicting class interests are going to have to play out large-scale. I think the Assange case is particularly exemplifying.