Japan needs to do something different to get its economy going. - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14936899
Victoribus Spolia wrote:As much as I agree with most of what you said in both of your posts on here, isn't this bit a little hyperbolic and speculative?

Sure. Just to jolt people awake.
I mean, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and the idea that the wealthy are trying to create conditions in Japan that even the mid-victorians would envy seems a bit far-fetched.

I saw some weird $#!+ living there, things that seemed clearly malevolent rather than just incompetent. Like the "education" system.
I mean, is an 8% sales tax really going to cause mass suicide due to extreme poverty? That seems a bit nutty to me.

The sales tax is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
If you are going to claim that the elites are raising consumer taxes to create mass suicide to ameliorate their social-security costs, you need at least some evidence for this as a motive.

Living in Japan I got used to the unstated being the important part. Maybe I'm hypersensitive, but that's how it looks, or at least could look.
Plus its a shitty plan if you think about, even if you kill off 10% of the working population by tax-induced suicide (which everyone would notice BTW), the other 90% is still going to retire anyway and now you have even less workers paying taxes into the retirement subsidy pool because they killed themselves and therefore aren't paying any consumer taxes into the system.

The idea is that when you're working, you can survive, but the prospect of retirement looks horrible.
Plus, as any marketing advertiser would tell you, the most important consumers are the young working ones, they buy the most and are the ones that drive the economy....they are exactly the ones you don't want to kill.

Consumption does not drive the Japanese economy. Exports do.
If these elites wanted to cull their population, they would kill the ones already retired and leaching off of the subsidies, not the ones paying for those subsidies.

I agree they want to reduce the elderly population, and minimal provision for them is one part of that. However, it's true they haven't taken measures I would consider much more effective and obvious. For example, there are now about 250K elderly, incapacitated Japanese kept alive in hospitals and other institutions by tube feeding. 250K! That's 1/500 of the entire population! But they don't seem able to find a way to do anything about it.
Besides, the birth rate is so low in Japan its population is already shrinking at an exponential rate, so reducing it further would be somewhat superfluous.

Not if you think workers will not be able to compete with robots, and consumers will just be in the way.
In a simple paragraph, I don't want to read 400 lines responding to my dozen above. If you could please.

:lol: Don't know me very well, do you?
#14936905
Truth To Power wrote:Like the "education" system.


OOOOOH.....Do tell! Whats up with the Japanese education system? I never heard anything bad about it.

enlighten me.

As for everything else you said, you basically admit its speculative and hyperbolic, but I can definitely say reading what you wrote was quite entertaining. :D

Truth To Power wrote:Don't know me very well, do you?


I know you well enough to expect this eye-sore style from you, but was hoping that a bit of mutual respect and a kindly worded request would appeal to your better nature enough that you would actually make a semi-professional looking post.

Fail.

Thanks for thinking about it though. :p
#14937005
Truth To Power wrote:#1] It's not. It's just truer than the neoclassical fairy tales put about by the likes of Krugman, Mankiw, etc.

#2] It [i.e. MMT] doesn't understand taxation, falsely claims that net financial assets can only be created by government deficits, claims all money is debt, and ignores the need to remove private banksters' money creation privilege to prevent hyperinflation if the government is to create more money as a source of purchasing power.

#3] How well did that [i.e. printing money] work in Zimbabwe, or any other place that has tried it? They printed money, never got remotely close to full employment, and had hyperinflation.

#4] Only by comparison with its earlier self [does Japan have high under or unemployment].

#5] Which [i.e deficits don't cause inflation] is true [i.e. if the Gov.] it also reduces bankster money issuance.

#6] [Their trade balance is in] Long-term surplus.

#1 --- No need to comment.

#2 Yes, MMT claims that net private financial assets can only be created by government deficits. I see the logic in MMT's argument. They say that the loan creates cash and a contract that specifies a liability; and that the net effect of this is zero additional financial assets being created. How is this wrong?
. . . Yes, MMT claims all fiat money is debt. Were you saying that some money is not fiat currency [especially when it is backed by gold]? Or, are you saying that the US Dollar is not a debt?

#3 Yes, Zimbabwe printed money and got hyperinflation.
Stephanie Kelton pointed the this study [ https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/ ... er-8_1.pdf ] and said that in every one of the 56 cases they found; there were also shortages in the economy. The situation in Zimbabwe [as you know] was that the new land owners were ex-soldiers and not farmers. Their crop yields fell dramatically and this created a food shortage. Zimbabwe could not pay to import food so it became the classic case of to much cash chasing too few products, i.e. food.

#4 Thank you. [I thought of another way that Japan may have a problem with inflation. Namely, it must import food. It it can't import enough then you have a case like Zimbabwe. However, Japan also has a trade surplus and a boat-load of Dollars in reserve.]

#5 Yes, I have never seen an MMTer say that it is only true if banks can't create endless dollars with loans. I have seen Steve Keen [an MMTer] say that economists really must keep an eye on private debt. That before 2006 he [Steve] predicted the GFC/2008 because he saw the growing mountain of private debt would be a problem=crisis when the bubble burst. Then in 2007-2008 we had the GFC/2008. Can you please explain your point more. I don't think I understand it yet.

#6 --- Thank you, I thought Japan's TB was in surplus. This surplus gives Japan the "Policy Space" to deficit spend like crazy for a while, (according to MMT) because foreign interests can't demand more Yen for their products when Japan can pay in dollars and euros.
#14937010
Victoribus Spolia wrote:1. Japan cannot borrow itself into prosperity, that is an insane idea that defies common-sense and that is exactly what QE via deficit spending is.

2. The idea that hyper-inflation is not possible while an economy is stagnant is foolish, because the economic conditions can change on a dime (like recently in the U.S.) or with tariffs, or war, etc., that could leave banks and businesses holding a ton of excess cash. Hyper-Inflation only requires a large amount of currency in circulation to happen as a potentiality, if Japan embraces a more radical QE program, those conditions will be met (period), and it would only take a sudden market change to cause everything to come crashing down.

<<<I snipped off the part directed at others. >>>

#1 --- Europe has pretty much proven that a nation can't use austerity and cut its way to prosperity. Right?
I think it is also obviously true that a nation can't tax its way to prosperity either.
These 2 ideas are similar because they both have the effect of reducing the ability of the nation's people to buy stuff by reducing their incomes.
And to me, prosperity means "to have the ability to buy stuff".
So, this just leaves the idea of the nation spending its way to prosperity. This spending has to come from borrowing [which will never be paid off, but rather rolled over endlessly until the nation ceases to exist] or from cash that is created out of nothing [i.e. a lot like 'printing money'].
MMT says that everyone needs to get out of their head the idea that the US [or most nations with their own fiat currency] is like a corporation or a person. Such nations are not at all like a person. I have explained it in an earlier thread.
So, why can't Japan or the US borrow its way to prosperity? As long as it will never pay the loans back. And remember the US [for example] can't pay back the debt it has now, so why worry if it gets bigger?

#2 This point of yours is not going to happen. It's because the Gov. will react to the crisis and solve the problem. It seemed like you assumed that the Gov. could not act. War is an especially silly example. When has a modern nation ever had to end a war because of "money troubles"? They just sweep them away in the crisis. Wars have a way of focusing everyone on the real problem.
. . . By "recent change in the US economy" do you mean the GFC/2008? If so, it went the opposite way. Instead of tons of excess cash in the economy, there was a huge shortage of cash in the economy when literally trillions just disappeared when the derivatives [bundled mortgages] turned into junk bonds, aka wall paper. So, this example doesn't support your point either.
#14937122
Steve_American wrote:Europe has pretty much proven that a nation can't use austerity and cut its way to prosperity. Right?
I think it is also obviously true that a nation can't tax its way to prosperity either.
These 2 ideas are similar because they both have the effect of reducing the ability of the nation's people to buy stuff by reducing their incomes.
And to me, prosperity means "to have the ability to buy stuff".


No you have to do both at the same time until the population adjusts to being self-motivated again. Democracies in the west haven't done this since the 19th century in any measurable way.

You can't cut taxes and keep the welfare state, and you cannot cut the welfare state and keep high taxes. Both gotta go as a starting point.

Steve_American wrote:So, this just leaves the idea of the nation spending its way to prosperity. This spending has to come from borrowing [which will never be paid off, but rather rolled over endlessly until the nation ceases to exist] or from cash that is created out of nothing [i.e. a lot like 'printing money'].


Can you give a historic example of this succeeding in a nation prior to 1900?

every fiat currency in human history has returned to its intrinsic value eventually, which is 0.

Steve_American wrote:#2 This point of yours is not going to happen. It's because the Gov. will react to the crisis and solve the problem. It seemed like you assumed that the Gov. could not act. War is an especially silly example. When has a modern nation ever had to end a war because of "money troubles"? They just sweep them away in the crisis. Wars have a way of focusing everyone on the real problem.


No, any sudden change in the economy can leave people with excess cash, this is a possibility. For instance, if global confidence in the dollar dropped and all those dollars flooded our market, we would have an inflationary crash. Its that simple.

What conditions could create this?

Who knows, but anything that would lead to lack of global confidence in the dollar, or if there was an overnight bypassing of the dollar as a reserve currency.

This is the same in Japan, any situation where the amount of cash far exceeds spending can lead to hyper-inflation. There only needs to be a catalyst.
#14937197
I rearranged your items, but didn't change them.
Victoribus Spolia wrote:#1] No, any sudden change in the economy can leave people with excess cash, this [hyperinflation] is a possibility. For instance, if global confidence in the dollar dropped and all those dollars flooded our market, we would have an inflationary crash. Its that simple.
What conditions could create this?
Who knows, but anything that would lead to lack of global confidence in the dollar, or if there was an overnight bypassing of the dollar as a reserve currency.
This is the same in Japan, any situation where the amount of cash far exceeds spending can lead to hyper-inflation. There only needs to be a catalyst.

#2] Can you give a historic example of this [borrowing and spending the nation to prosperity] succeeding in a nation prior to 1900?

#3] Every fiat currency in human history has returned to its intrinsic value eventually, which is 0.

#4] No you have to do both [cut taxes and slash welfare spending] at the same time until the population adjusts to being self-motivated again. Democracies in the west haven't done this since the 19th century in any measurable way.
You can't cut taxes and keep the welfare state, and you cannot cut the welfare state and keep high taxes. Both gotta go as a starting point.

#1 You just asserted this. Can you give 2 examples from history of when and where hyperinflation with this cause actually happened.

#2 The only examples of fiat currency I can think of before 1900 were in China and other Far East nations. I don't think they tried to borrow and spend.
. . . And, besides, why should I be required to provide actual examples from history when you don't provide examples from history to demonstrate or illustrate your points?

#3 Every nation in history has failed and been replaced. When this happened their currency was revalued to its gold content. This only directly harmed those who held the currency, which historically was only the rich. The rich also owned property so they either suffered because they were killed or their property was stolen, during the transition. So, what? When a nation fails its citizens will suffer. How can this be avoided by having a gold backed currency?

#4 Can you provide an example of a nation that cut taxes and slashed its welfare spending and became prosperous as a result?
. . . Can you give me an example of a Libertarian nation that was prosperous?
. . . You do realize that this process would always involve a lot of suffering by the masses and almost none by the wealthy? I don't call this a moral choice if there is an alternative.

{I asked him for examples from history. I expect to hear crickets in reply.}
#14937249
Steve_American wrote:#1 You just asserted this. Can you give 2 examples from history of when and where hyperinflation with this cause actually happened.


Weimar Germany.

Steve_American wrote:#2 The only examples of fiat currency I can think of before 1900 were in China and other Far East nations. I don't think they tried to borrow and spend.
. . . And, besides, why should I be required to provide actual examples from history when you don't provide examples from history to demonstrate or illustrate your points?


I am not asking you to illustrate my points, I am asking you to provide historical precedents in order to justify your claims.

Steve_American wrote:#3 Every nation in history has failed and been replaced. When this happened their currency was revalued to its gold content. This only directly harmed those who held the currency, which historically was only the rich. The rich also owned property so they either suffered because they were killed or their property was stolen, during the transition. So, what? When a nation fails its citizens will suffer. How can this be avoided by having a gold backed currency?


I find this question odd, it looks a bit like a concession with a tu quoque response of "but how can gold do better?" et al.

The fact is, just like my claim is true that fiat currencies always return to their intrinsic value of zero, those who have gold retain value in money (as gold) during and after the collapse of such a currency or the state that presumes to be its originator. The state will fall, but Gold will live on, the currency will fall, and gold will live on. Yes, those stupid enough to have tons of fiat paper garbage will be caught with their pants down when shit goes belly up, but those with gold will not.

This of course being the problem with Chartalism and its mutant step-child of MMT. It believes money originates with the state in some sense; whereas, what it defines as money is really just debts and liabilities, there is no such thing as a credit card with no limit, they is no such thing as a blank check, and fiat currency is an illusion.

Fiat currency crashes, it always does, with or without a state crash, but Gold always has value unless you live in El Dorado.

Steve_American wrote:Can you provide an example of a nation that cut taxes and slashed its welfare spending and became prosperous as a result?


Every time it is even remotely approximated, like during certain presidential terms in western republics, the economy invariably improves; however, I do not believe that any social contract, ANY, once instituted will voluntarily self-restraint. As long as their is representative government and public ownership, the state will expand by praxeological necessity because the representatives of the state have no personal liabilities in the state as they do not own it themselves; hence, its not their money, so why not spend it to get votes? This why republicans will cut taxes but never cut spending and why democrats will raise taxes and also raise spending, because voters will always vote for state-benefits either in being allowed to keep more of their own money (republican retards) or to get more morally destructive and debt-rolled welfare programs (the democrat retards).

The state can only grow until it collapses under such a scenario. Its inevitable.

Steve_American wrote:Can you give me an example of a Libertarian nation that was prosperous?


Define nation, for if you mean a state, then you pretty much have an oxymoron, but I don't want to quibble about AnCap v. Libertarian thought, so in answer to your question, pretty much every monarchy in history prior to 1780 that ever existed was pretty close to libertarian economics and even if they were not fully libertarian (mercantilist) they still held to hard money, not fiat money.

The belief that fiat currency is a real viable way of doing economics, besides being the doctrine of tyrants, is based on the illusory security the U.S. petro-dollar gave the world. In many ways, we don't really have a "fiat currency" at all, we have an oil-based currency that all other world currencies rely upon and it is only because oil production has not peaked that the U.S. (and therefore the world) can print with impunity without a market collapse.

If oil production peaked, the dollar as a reserve currency would have to act like a gold-backed currency (thus dramatically curbing spending); however, if peak oil actually happened and was public, the world would do a bank run on U.S. dollars and the world-market as originating in the Bretton-Woods agreement and as later saved by Kissinger's agreement with OPEC will come crashing down.

Its inevitable at this point and the U.S. attempting energy independence and other countries buying up Gold and trying to bypass U.S. dollar reserve status may all be signs of an awareness of such a possible future.

Steve_American wrote:You do realize that this process would always involve a lot of suffering by the masses and almost none by the wealthy?


Don't care.

The wealthy are wealthy for a reason and if they can survive with their wealth after a collapse that is just more reason to believe they deserve to have it.

Likewise, who do you think would pull the strings of an MMT policy? The poor? The masses? Give me a break. :lol:

The Federal Reserve is a private bank full of Goldman-Sachs oligarchs and don't think for a moment that their commitment to printing cash is anything but self-interested.
#14937358
@Victoribus Spolia,
Weimar Germant is NOT an example of hyperinflation that resulted from the German Gov. spending like crzyto kickstart the economy and then "something" triggered the inflation.

And I asked you to illustrate your points.

The Cato Institute paper I linked to above claimed to be a list of all 56 cases of hyperinflation in history. None were from before 1920. So, I can't give you an example of that.

So, how many of those monarchies were prosperous? Not many at all.

In my OP I said that if Japan did as I suggested it would be an experiment to see if a nation with a fiat currency can borrow and spend its way to prosperity. Did you miss that part?
#14937404
Steve_American wrote:Weimar Germant is NOT an example of hyperinflation that resulted from the German Gov. spending like crzyto kickstart the economy and then "something" triggered the inflation.


Its an example of proto-MMP thinking. This has actually been documented, the German economists at the time held to Chartalism, which is basically MMP, and big surprise, it destroyed their economy.

German monetary economics was at that time heavily influenced by Chartalism and the German Historical School, which conditioned the way the hyperinflation was analyzed.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinfl ... Stadler-29

Steve_American wrote:The Cato Institute paper I linked to above claimed to be a list of all 56 cases of hyperinflation in history. None were from before 1920. So, I can't give you an example of that.


That is because since the era of fiat currencies, there have been mass inflationary crashes. Obviously. Which is the problem with your naive MMT.

Furthermore, if you want an example of hyperinflation prior to 1920, one only has to consider Athens in the Peloponnesian war when it debased its gold with copper in order to fund its war with Sparta, fucking its markets and arguably contributing to its losing the war.

Rome did something similar as well at one point in order to promote deficit spending. Same result.

Inflationary crash.

Steve_American wrote:So, how many of those monarchies were prosperous? Not many at all.


Nonsense, The Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, British Empires, etc., were arguably the most wealthy civilizations in the history of human kind. All gold standard, all fairly minarchist, especially when compared to modern social contract states. If the American founders would see what representative governments would become they NEVER would have fought the revolution. NEVER.

Steve_American wrote:In my OP I said that if Japan did as I suggested it would be an experiment to see if a nation with a fiat currency can borrow and spend its way to prosperity. Did you miss that part?


You don't need to do an experiment, America and others have already done this thanks to the Petro-Dollar, but the problem is that this all causes the government to become increasingly at risk of insolvency and destabilization.

Which is logically, praxeologically, and historically, TRUE.
#14937450
Victoribus Spolia wrote:
#1] It's [Weimar Germany] an example of proto-MMP thinking. This has actually been documented, the German economists at the time held to Chartalism, which is basically MMP, and big surprise, it destroyed their economy.

. . . "German monetary economics was at that time heavily influenced by Chartalism and the German Historical School, which conditioned the way the hyperinflation was analyzed."
quoted from the link below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinfl ... Stadler-29

#2] That is because since the era of fiat currencies, there have been mass inflationary crashes. Obviously. Which is the problem with your naive MMT.

#3] Furthermore, if you want an example of hyperinflation prior to 1920, one only has to consider Athens in the Peloponnesian war when it debased its gold with copper in order to fund its war with Sparta, fucking its markets and arguably contributing to its losing the war.

Rome did something similar as well at one point in order to promote deficit spending. Same result.
== Inflationary crash.

#4] Nonsense, The Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire, British Empires, etc., were arguably the most wealthy civilizations in the history of human kind. All gold standard, all fairly minarchist, especially when compared to modern social contract states. If the American founders would see what representative governments would become they NEVER would have fought the revolution. NEVER.

#5] You don't need to do an experiment, America and others have already done this thanks to the Petro-Dollar, but the problem is that this all causes the government to become increasingly at risk of insolvency and destabilization.

Which is logically, praxeologically, and historically, TRUE.

#1 Germany is not an example of a society that tried to spend its way to prosperity. According to the article you linked. It borrowed to fund the WWI. This is not aimed at "prosperity". When it lost the war, the payment method planned was not an option. Note that it had not at that time just printed Marks, it had borrowed Marks. Then the treaty required reparations be paid in gold. So, soon Germany was trying to buy gold from other nations/people. It then resorted to printing Marks.This spending was not going to create more production in the German economy. Quite the contrary it gave foreigners many Marks that they needed to use to buy the products of the German economy. This lead immediately to shortages of stuff for the German people to buy. This drove up prices.
. . . When prices rose the foreigners asked for more Marks for an oz. of gold. This gave the foreigners even more Marks and a reason to convert them ASAP into stuff. This drove up prices more. Etc., etc., etc.

MMT says that a nation can run large deficits when 3 criteria are met:
. . . a] The nation has a fiat currency. Met, at least after the 1st few gold payments drained the gold supply.
. . . b] The nation have a free floating exchange rate. Met, maybe.
. . . c] The nation only borrow in its own currency and have no debts in other currencies and gold. NOT MET, not at all.

So, Weimar Germany is not a case of MMT like spending leading to hyperinflation. Again let me emphasis the shortages in the German economy. These sorts of shortages are according to Stephanie Kelton [an MMTer] always present in every case of hyperinflation on the Cato Inst's list.
BTW --- the link you provided said not one more word about how Chartalism led German economic thinking wrong. It is not therefore a good back up for your claim.

#2 However, in almost every case they happened in the 90s and 2000s as ex-communist states struggled with the transition to a market economy. They are in no way evidence of what would happen if the US or Japan borrowed and spent like crazy to kick start their economies.

#3 So, you think we have enough data about the economic facts in ancient Athens and the Western Roman Empire to know why they had inflation? We have IIRC just 1 source for the Peloponesian War. One source is not enough to prove anything.
. . . In the case of Rome. My lifetime of learning has provided me with an alternate explanation for its inflation. Namely, soil erosion had reduced crop production in both halves of the Empire except in Egypt which was in the eastern half. Again shortages of food could have lead to price increases even if the money was not debased. Also, the iron and metal mines of Spain began to flood as they went deeper down. This increased the costs of mining because slaves were needed to run pumps to remove the water. As they went even deeper they lost control and had to close the mine, sometimes. This cut total production and this would lead to higher prices for metals. Again shortages were driving prices up, not the debasing of the currency. Maybe at least.

#4 You hold up the Spanish, Dutch, and British Empires as examples of prosperous nations.
So, you see Charles Dickens's London as an example of a prosperous city? Amazing.
Pretty sure that the Spanish Empire from 1550 to 1815 was not prosperous either.
The Dutch Empire may have been but being an Empire and for a while the one with the most foreign trade it would not be surprising if it was wealthy. After all it was stealing everything that it could from its empire. But, I don't know how prosperous the people were.

#5 My God you are confused. --- OK, I can see your point that the US has been doing a lot of MMT like spending for the last 36 years. But, it has NOT yet led to hyperinflation or even "instability" in the economy. At least not more than in any ordinary economy. [The US had "Bank Panics" every decade or so all through the 1800s and early 1900s. So, it was unstable even then.]
. . . So, you think it is OK to start an experiment and stop it halfway through and assume that you know what the result will be; AND then claim that this experimental result is PROOF that you are right? Amazing.
#14937500
Steve_American wrote:BTW --- the link you provided said not one more word about how Chartalism led German economic thinking wrong. It is not therefore a good back up for your claim.


The quote I gave was from the article, so obviously you didn't read it.

The point is that chartalism empowered state economists to spend because of the theoretical construct set by that system; namely, that money is the product of the government as a substantial and not an accidental quality.

That is my point. You can make the case they were shitty MMTers, which is fair and I would concede that point; however, if they held to hard money and operated under the paradigm of lets say, Adolf Hitler's government (which assumed the gold standard as a legitimate monetary form, they could have avoided the inflationary crash. Its was Chartalist thinking that drove their arrogance and folly.

Bad roots yield bad fruits.

Steve_American wrote:(#2)However, in almost every case they happened in the 90s and 2000s as ex-communist states struggled with the transition to a market economy.


Why did they inflate in those cases?

Steve_American wrote:They are in no way evidence of what would happen if the US or Japan borrowed and spent like crazy to kick start their economies.


That depends, but with the U.S. and its closest allies, the issue has always been that Kissinger's arrangement has created a backing for the U.S. Dollar that allows it to act like true fiat currency; however, I question whether or not the world money system can truly be characterized as pure fiat given the Dollar's status as reserve currency.

Imagine if the dollar was still backed by gold, but the U.S. owned the only gold mines and they were producing at an accelerated rate (Every year production increased).

Would America be able to print more and more dollars under such a scenario?

The scenario is the same with oil presently. Its the exact same point, only oil has an advantage that it is consumed (burned in combustion engines) so the value of it (and therefore the dollar) can remain high as supply never overruns demand in the way that the gold-mine example above eventually would.

Thats my point, America acting like an MMT nation may be more illusory than you might think. After all, Chartalism does not take into the account this arrangment, it only operates on the assumption that currency values is derived from its status as fiat; however, MMT has only existed since the petro-dollar, and if I am right on this, there really aren't many true fiat currencies on earth (which is why weimar is a good example, as it was truly fiat at the time).

Thus MMT's presumptions would be ipso facto false, for they are based on an observation of a system that is not truly fiat and they extrapolate from these observations a system built on the presumption of a fiat currency deriving its value from government decree.

Steve_American wrote:In the case of Rome. My lifetime of learning has provided me with an alternate explanation for its inflation. Namely, soil erosion had reduced crop production in both halves of the Empire except in Egypt which was in the eastern half. Again shortages of food could have lead to price increases even if the money was not debased. Also, the iron and metal mines of Spain began to flood as they went deeper down. This increased the costs of mining because slaves were needed to run pumps to remove the water. As they went even deeper they lost control and had to close the mine, sometimes. This cut total production and this would lead to higher prices for metals. Again shortages were driving prices up, not the debasing of the currency. Maybe at least.


https://mises.org/library/inflation-and ... n-empire-0

This a well-documented piece of work, it was complicated, but inflationary crises in Rome were definitely caused by government mismanagement.

Steve_American wrote:So, you see Charles Dickens's London as an example of a prosperous city? Amazing.


Yeah because a children's story with a polemical edge is really convincing historical evidence. :roll:

Steve_American wrote: You hold up the Spanish, Dutch, and British Empires as examples of prosperous nations.
So, you see Charles Dickens's London as an example of a prosperous city? Amazing.
Pretty sure that the Spanish Empire from 1550 to 1815 was not prosperous either.
The Dutch Empire may have been but being an Empire and for a while the one with the most foreign trade it would not be surprising if it was wealthy. After all it was stealing everything that it could from its empire. But, I don't know how prosperous the people were.


You are going to have to define prosperity then, because if not holding and possessing wealth is not prosperity then you need to tell me what is. Income disparity exists everywhere, if you went to inner city Chicago you would find conditions that would make Dickens's industrial-age London look quite tolerable. So what do we mean by prosperity? I am arguing for national wealth possession, which if that is what we are talking about, then you have a tough row to hoe if arguing against the great colonial empires.

Besides, haves and have-nots is a fact of nature and I have no qualms with this.

Steve_American wrote: After all it was stealing everything that it could from its empire. But, I don't know how prosperous the people were.


Post-colonialist propaganda. Dismissed.

Steve_American wrote:OK, I can see your point that the US has been doing a lot of MMT like spending for the last 36 years. But, it has NOT yet led to hyperinflation or even "instability" in the economy.


Because of the petro-dollar arrangement, the reason that the U.S. can do "MMT" things is because its not really a true fiat currency as MMT presupposes, its backed in oil as a replacement for the Bretton-Woods debacle. Nixon-Kissinger getting the dollar to be the reserve currency for oil quite literally saved the world following Nixon's dropping of the Gold Standard.

Steve_American wrote: So, you think it is OK to start an experiment and stop it halfway through and assume that you know what the result will be; AND then claim that this experimental result is PROOF that you are right? Amazing.


I don't even know what you are saying here.
#14938043
Actually I did read it.
You,however, don't seem to be able to red what I write to you.
I said the article you linked had not One MORE word about how Chartalism lead Germany astray. And it doesn't.
At the end I riffed on your use of the word 'experiment'. The experiment of MMT spending in the US or Japan either hasn't been started or at least the spending is nt being done on the right things. In any case the fiat dollar is still going strong. It had not yet caused hyperinflation. Yet you claim that it sort of has. I don't see it. I hope the lurkers also can't see that the result is negative, because it isn't. To a large extent the experiment isn't over yet, so the result has not been reached yet.

Antway, I'm tired of telling you that Weimar Germany is not a guide to US policy and you ignore my claim. But, then you next day you are back pointing to Weimar. You'r a ibertarian, this means you think the vigulante justice will work out well for all the 'good' people and not well for all the bad people.

I'm done.
#14946707
In my OP of this thread, I wrote,
"It seems to me that MMT offers a solution. It is to spend more. To have the Japanese Gov. increase its deficit by a lot. To sell bonds with positive interest rate and spend like crazy. Increase the payments to their retired people and poor people. Increase spending on infrastructure. Maybe cut taxes on the rich to give them some benefit too. Ask the recipients of these payments to do their civic duty and mostly spend them in the Japanese economy.

Yes, I know; the current economic thinking is this is a very bad plan. MMT says it isn't.! MMT strongly claims that when the economy is stalled no amount of deficit spending will result in hyperinflation. MMT says that Japan can't be unable to pay the interest on its bonds and also it can always redeem the bonds as they mature. This is because Japan has a fiat currency and it can just create Yen as necessary without limit."

The part I bolded above is the thing Japan would be doing different.
1] Give money to retired people.
2] Give cash to poor people.
3] Demand that they spend this money. That is maybe put a big %'tage tax on new deposits into savings accounts at banks. this tells the people if you try to save it we will take it back.

This is different because IIRC Japan's QE and QE' have all gone to people and comp. that are rich now. Buying bonds from their holder's is buying bonds from rich people because the poor don't have bonds now. And, I suppose the thought is that the cash in the hands of the rich will trickle down to the poor. Well, I dn't believe that "trickle down" actually happens. At least, in amounts of more than a trickle.

A new idea of mine that Japan could try is --- increase the minimum wage. Or if there isn't one --- create one that is more than the current lowest amount paid to a worker now.

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