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#15249329
BlutoSays wrote:Where the hell did you think the money would come from? Did you really think debt would just be "canceled"?

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/fil ... lation.pdf


Are you a bot. an idiot, or just ignorant?

Are you ignorant of the fact that several Repud members of Congress who opposed the program were outed as having been given PPP loans and had those loans "forgiven"? Forgiven is the same as cancelled. Sometimes for over $1M, always for over $100K.

So, is it fine to forgive loans to business people but not to forgive college students' debts? Why?

As the MMTer on this site, I keep telling you-all that you are ignorant about economics if you believe that the US Gov. is in any way like a household, corp., state, or local gov. Or, that the national debt will ever be paid down more than $1T by having a surplus. Or, that deficit spending with money from selling bonds will certainly cause inflation, and maybe hyperinflation. Etc.

My evidence is from Stephanie Kelton (a Prof. of Econ. and leading MMTer), who said that over 12 months from March, 2020, the US Gov. passed 3 bills that spent over $5T to deal with covid. They didn't worry about "how are we going to pay for this". They knew how it would be paid for, that it would be by selling bonds a week after the money was deposited into accounts across the nation (and if necessary, by the Fed. buying the bonds in the secondary market to give the primary buyer their money back with a profit, so that they could maybe buy another bond & sell it to the Fed, etc.).
[PS -- IIRC, the Fed had other programs that added trillions more to the economy.]

link to Stephanie saying this (10 min. long, jump to 8 min. mark if you want)=>
. . . .


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Last edited by Steve_American on 02 Oct 2022 15:14, edited 2 times in total.
#15249356
BlutoSays wrote:Recorded before Biden inaugurated.



Lurkers, 1st, he ignored my assertion that many members of Congress got PPP loans during covid and then got them "forgiven". And then, my question of how come it is possible economically to forgive PPP loans but not student loans.

2nd, The video he posted contained many lies. The fact that he (and many others) don't see them as lies shows their ignorance of real economics.
For example, Peter Schiff goes on about "printing money". But, the Gov. under Biden didn't print any money. If it printed anything, it was bonds. Yes, it spent money by kiting checks and covering them 1 week later by selling bonds. This doesn't add to the cash available to buy stuff. It isn't like actually spending newly printed $100 bills.
Also, Peter never actually asserted that the inflation we are seeing was caused by the money printing. He just implied it. Is this because he really can't prove that the printed money caused the inflation? This likely, because no excess money was printed.
In Prof. Kelton's video, she asserted that the inflation has many causes. The San Francisco Fed report asserted that 0.4 percentage points of the 8% inflation (then) was caused by growth in the money supply. Doing the math 0.4% of 8% is 0.05% of the inflation. This is 1/20th of the 8%. I don't know about what you, the lurkers, think; but I think 1/20th is not THE basic cause of anything.
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#15249391
It's not "fine" to enact loan forgiveness for anyone. I'm tired of you saying well they did it, so they should do it. I'm not in favor of loan forgiveness for anyone. It's a moral hazard.

The is no loan forgiveness. Forgiveness is a LIE you keep in your head. The loan is added to the federal debt for the tax payer to deal with. However, the tax payer didn't sign up for these loans. They have their own problems to deal with. I'm sure you believe in the tooth fairy, but I don't. It is unfair to saddle the tax payer for the piss-poor decisions of others. Stop doing that.

BTW, Kelton is the former chief economist in the U.S. senate committee on the democratic staff.

And Thom Hartmann? Commie extraordinaire? Really? Big WTF there, SA!
Last edited by BlutoSays on 02 Oct 2022 14:58, edited 1 time in total.
#15249471
BlutoSays wrote:Where the hell did you think the money would come from? Did you really think debt would just be "canceled"?

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/fil ... lation.pdf

... snip several replies ...

Then Bluto replied:
It's not "fine" to enact loan forgiveness for anyone. I'm tired of you saying well they did it, so they should do it. I'm not in favor of loan forgiveness for anyone. It's a moral hazard.

The is no loan forgiveness. Forgiveness is a LIE you keep in your head. The loan is added to the federal debt for the tax payer to deal with. However, the tax payer didn't sign up for these loans. They have their own problems to deal with. I'm sure you believe in the tooth fairy, but I don't. It is unfair to saddle the tax payer for the piss-poor decisions of others. Stop doing that.

BTW, Kelton is the former chief economist in the U.S. senate committee on the democratic staff.

And Thom Hartmann? Commie extraordinaire? Really? Big WTF there, SA!


BlutoSays, I'm talking to you.
The basic idea of a person being 'stupid' is the he/she is unable to learn new things. You seem to be unable to learn new things.
In this discussion, you seem the have been unable to learn that banks create new dollars with every loan.
So, it follows that, forgiving or canceling the debt does not deprive the bank of any money that it had before the loan was made. In any case the US Gov. is going to make the bank whole in every case anyway.

I read your OP as saying that it was economically not possible to or very damaging to cancel the student debts. So, I showed everyone that others (Repuds) who joined you in opposing this had had their PPP loans forgiven.
You asked where "he" (Biden?) thought the money would come from to make the banks whole after the loans were cancelled (I think this is what you meant). I'm sure that Biden knows that the money will come from the same place that the money to make to loan in the 1st place came from, i.e. the thin air. You, OTOH, don't seem to know that banks create all the dollars out of thin air to make every loan. I have told you this 3 times, and provided the evidence for this (the experiment with 200K euros around 2014) 2 or 3 times. I sick of reposting it.

So, in my 1st reply, I used the word 'fine' in the sense that it is economically fine, just like forgiving PPP loans is economically fine.
Now, you want to talk about 'is it morally fine'. My reply is that the Gov. has already forgiven the much bigger PPP loans to many comp. owned by people that had a larger ability to repay them, than the students do. I see that it is morally wrong to forgive the entirety of the large PPP loans, and then not forgive any part of student loans. They both have the same moral hazard. IMHO.


Your final point is also a result of your seeming inability to learn new things.
Yes, the money to forgive the loans will be added to the national debt. This is just like the money for Reagan's increase in the size of the US fleet was added to the national debt. I don't see that anyone is or has been paying higher taxes as a result of that.
I have proven 3 times here that the national debt can never be paid off, except by just creating about $30T new dollars to do it. Despite what economists say, it is flatly impossible to run a $30T surplus to pay it off with a surplus. Economists who talk as if this is a good idea are gaslighting you. That is, they are lying to you. They have to know what the economic effect of having a $500B surplus for 60 years would do to the US's AND THE WORLD'S economies. That is, that it would soon cause the largest/deepest depression in history. Millions would die, for nothing. [Assuming that ACC is not really a thing at all.]

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#15249528
Steve_American wrote:BlutoSays, I'm talking to you.
The basic idea of a person being 'stupid' is the he/she is unable to learn new things. You seem to be unable to learn new things.
In this discussion, you seem the have been unable to learn that banks create new dollars with every loan.
So, it follows that, forgiving or canceling the debt does not deprive the bank of any money that it had before the loan was made. In any case the US Gov. is going to make the bank whole in every case anyway.

I read your OP as saying that it was economically not possible to or very damaging to cancel the student debts. So, I showed everyone that others (Repuds) who joined you in opposing this had had their PPP loans forgiven.
You asked where "he" (Biden?) thought the money would come from to make the banks whole after the loans were cancelled (I think this is what you meant). I'm sure that Biden knows that the money will come from the same place that the money to make to loan in the 1st place came from, i.e. the thin air. You, OTOH, don't seem to know that banks create all the dollars out of thin air to make every loan. I have told you this 3 times, and provided the evidence for this (the experiment with 200K euros around 2014) 2 or 3 times. I sick of reposting it.

So, in my 1st reply, I used the word 'fine' in the sense that it is economically fine, just like forgiving PPP loans is economically fine.
Now, you want to talk about 'is it morally fine'. My reply is that the Gov. has already forgiven the much bigger PPP loans to many comp. owned by people that had a larger ability to repay them, than the students do. I see that it is morally wrong to forgive the entirety of the large PPP loans, and then not forgive any part of student loans. They both have the same moral hazard. IMHO.


Your final point is also a result of your seeming inability to learn new things.
Yes, the money to forgive the loans will be added to the national debt. This is just like the money for Reagan's increase in the size of the US fleet was added to the national debt. I don't see that anyone is or has been paying higher taxes as a result of that.
I have proven 3 times here that the national debt can never be paid off, except by just creating about $30T new dollars to do it. Despite what economists say, it is flatly impossible to run a $30T surplus to pay it off with a surplus. Economists who talk as if this is a good idea are gaslighting you. That is, they are lying to you. They have to know what the economic effect of having a $500B surplus for 60 years would do to the US's AND THE WORLD'S economies. That is, that it would soon cause the largest/deepest depression in history. Millions would die, for nothing. [Assuming that ACC is not really a thing at all.]

.



I'm not buying what you're selling. You're full of shit. Anyone who believes the crap you peddle here is as dense and stupid as you are. There are no free lunches.
#15249546
BlutoSays wrote:I'm not buying what you're selling. You're full of shit. Anyone who believes the crap you peddle here is as dense and stupid as you are. There are no free lunches.


Lurkers, I tried to argue with Bluto, and he replied with that.

Ok, I'm back to replying to you.
Bluto says there are no free lunches. What do you call the situation we have now in which banks get to create new dollars with every loan they make? Before you deny that this is the true situation read some of this linked peer reviewed article. Read the abstract and jump to part 3 in the Outline in the top left corner.
It certainly seems like banks get free money to make their loans. A free lunch.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 1914001070

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#15249561
Steve_American wrote:
Lurkers, I tried to argue with Bluto, and he replied with that.

Ok, I'm back to replying to you.
Bluto says there are no free lunches. What do you call the situation we have now in which banks get to create new dollars with every loan they make? Before you deny that this is the true situation read some of this linked peer reviewed article. Read the abstract and jump to part 3 in the Outline in the top left corner.
It certainly seems like banks get free money to make their loans. A free lunch.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 1914001070

.



Steve, I don't think BS is referring to fractional reserve banking -- he's saying that government *debt creation* doesn't confer a 'free lunch', since it's a debt *obligation*.

I recently commented on another thread that increased borrowing / balance-sheet means greater *debt servicing* payments, which are certainly a hindrance to overcoming inflation.

I've also welcomed discussions of *value creation*, elsewhere, so if anyone can speak to how *new value* is created, please go right ahead.
#15249566
ckaihatsu wrote:
I've also welcomed discussions of *value creation*, elsewhere, so if anyone can speak to how *new value* is created, please go right ahead.



I like the idea that creating debt is creating money, and that when you pay off a debt, that money is destroyed.

Our trogdolytes won't like that, what I suggest is go learn. I have 2 medical appointments, a workout and some shopping to do. So I don't have time to hold your hand.

This is theory, of course. Debt is like gravity, everyone knows part of the story, but it's not something we completely understand. Try Debt:

#15249567
late wrote:
I like the idea that creating debt is creating money, and that when you pay off a debt, that money is destroyed.

Our trogdolytes won't like that, what I suggest is go learn. I have 2 medical appointments, a workout and some shopping to do. So I don't have time to hold your hand.

This is theory, of course. Debt is like gravity, everyone knows part of the story, but it's not something we completely understand. Try Debt:




Why does there have to be an abstract *intermediary*, known as 'value' / exchange-value -- ? Debt is one *form* of exchange value, but it's *fictional*, as you've noted.

Fictional-capital / debt implies that *real* / non-debt values exist somewhere, and it would be interesting to be able to identify how non-debt values are 'real' -- what makes them real, while debt is their shadow -- ?
#15249570
ckaihatsu wrote:
Why does there have to be an abstract *intermediary*, known as 'value' / exchange-value -- ? Debt is one *form* of exchange value, but it's *fictional*, as you've noted.



I wouldn't suggest using fictional as a defense in court.

On second thought, try it, and make sure there's video...
#15249571
late wrote:
I wouldn't suggest using fictional as a defense in court.

On second thought, try it, and make sure there's video...



Humorous, but you're sidestepping the main point (of importance) here -- society uses 'fictional' values (debt), but it also uses *real* values, and the door is wide open for anyone who wants to try their luck at 'What makes values real?'
#15249572
ckaihatsu wrote:
Humorous, but you're sidestepping the main point (of importance) here -- society uses 'fictional' values (debt), but it also uses *real* values, and the door is wide open for anyone who wants to try their luck at 'What makes values real?'



Capitalism is a completely artificial construct. In capitalism, value is what we say it is...

People often forget that economics is a social science...
#15249601
ckaihatsu wrote:
Follow-up -- you have no objection to the theory / structure of 'base and superstructure', do you, late?



I don't click on your goofy links anymore. If it's something real, news or something, I would.

But...

You didn't respond to my point, which is annoying, and suggests to me you can't.

As an example, a lot of the value of gold is because it is long seen as a store of value. But it's not 'natural' or intrinsic. Part of it's value is determined by belief.
#15249606
Steve_American wrote:You asked where "he" (Biden?) thought the money would come from to make the banks whole after the loans were cancelled (I think this is what you meant). I'm sure that Biden knows that the money will come from the same place that the money to make to loan in the 1st place came from, i.e. the thin air. You, OTOH, don't seem to know that banks create all the dollars out of thin air to make every loan. I have told you this 3 times, and provided the evidence for this (the experiment with 200K euros around 2014) 2 or 3 times. I sick of reposting it.

Okay, back to basics. People work and produce things, and this creates a certain amount of social wealth in the form of goods and services. In return for the work they do in creating this social wealth, people are given currency which entitles them to a certain fixed share of the social wealth. Currency, in this sense, is therefore a way of rationing out the finite social wealth among the population. It can therefore be thought of as ‘congealed labour-power’. Do you agree with this so far?

Now, it is indeed true that banks create loans by creating currency out of thin air, out of nothing. This causes no economic harm, nor does it increase inflation, so long as the loan is repaid. After all, being given the loan entitles the borrower to a certain share of goods and services, which are real and have been produced by human labour-power, by the sweat of somebody’s brow. The borrower must repay that loan by working to produce more goods and services to the same value, which he repays to the bank. This, in effect, destroys the money created out of thin air by the bank. The net result is that the borrower consumed goods and services to the same value as those he produced in order to repay the loan. He just got access to the goods and services he consumed sooner than he otherwise would have done, which is why he borrowed the money in the first place. All is well, economically speaking. But, and here’s the zinger, if he fails to repay the loan, then he has consumed goods and services in excess of those he has produced, and has therefore taken more than his fair share of the social wealth, which currency is intended to ration out. This is not okay, economically speaking. There is now more currency in circulation than there should be, and its value in relation to goods and services will therefore decrease. We call this ‘inflation’. And the deadbeat borrower is what we call a ‘free-rider’, aka a ‘moocher’.

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