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The Forum > Article Comments > Soberly pondering an uncertain future > Comments

Soberly pondering an uncertain future : Comments

By Paul Collits, published 2/12/2013

Yes, the golden age (which peaked from the 1990s to the GFC) appears to be over.

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JKJ: RobertLePage
The world's population is not just so many rats in a shipping container owned by you.

Please try to read more carefully. At no time did I write that the container was owned by me.
The intent of the massage obviously passed you by. Not to worry it will dawn on you one day that the earth is not flat and infinite.
Posted by Robert LePage, Tuesday, 3 December 2013 8:31:53 AM
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It's no secret that I find the arguments in those documents weak and unconvincing, Foyle. But that's just a matter of trivial detail when it comes to statements like this one:

>>That requires governments to pick winners and they tend to do that better that many companies<<

Does the experience of the Soviet Union not impinge upon your consciousness when you make statements like that? Can you point to any one business decision that the Soviets made that was in any way successful, either for the economy or for the people?

One of the most fascinating aspects of post-wall Germany was the massive disparity between East and West that became starkly apparent when the two economies were required to become one.

And you still failed to answer the question on firefighters:

>>...money should never be the constraint when the well-being of the community needs some particular facility such as fire-fighters. The constraints are what resources are needed and can they be made available.<<

That is plainly arrant nonsense. If you geared up a firefighting force to the size needed to "put out the forest-fires raging in our western states", they would quickly become a massive drain on the economy through being 99% inactive.

These naive, idealistic theories never survive the scrutiny of practical, everyday reality.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 3 December 2013 9:43:55 AM
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Foyle

“As for pointing to experts in a particular field who do you rely on for your health requirements - the best experts or quacks?”

We’re not talking about my health requirements, you don’t own other people, and the government is not some wise physician nor the economy a recalcitrant patient.

“Some government expenditures may add little to total well-being but it is the total effect of sovereign (money issuing) government expenditure which matters.”

That’s not the question, and stop trying to squirm out of it.

By what rational criterion do you know whether government provision of any given service is too little, too much, or just enough?

"Such constraints require some micro management"

That assumes you know whether the supply of any given thing is too much or too little. Prove it.

"at any time the sovereign government (SG) has the job of managing the economy to provide the maximum feasible benefits to the people in the sovereign area.

Circular drivel. Whether the government has the job of managing the economy is precisely what you’re failing to prove, because obviously if it doesn’t know what to do, it can’t manage it.

“The SG is spending too much when shortages of resources, both, or either, labour or products, causes unacceptable levels of inflation.”

So by what rational criterion do you know what that is?

Why don’t you just admit that you don’t know, instead of trying to evade the question?

“Alt simply makes the point that money should never be the constraint when the well-being of the community needs some particular facility such as fire-fighters. “

Then why not print so much money that everyone in the world is rich and no-one has to work?

Anti-economic, anti-rational, drivel.

“Please read the theories that have been developed in economics in the last 15 years.”

Please answer the question that totally disprove this parasitic garbage.

Robert
So who owns them?

How do you know that any policy you advocate isn’t going to make the situation even more unsustainable
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Tuesday, 3 December 2013 10:15:50 AM
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Jardine K Jardine
I never squirm out of any argument. Yesterday I was away from my laptop from 1pm until late evening.

Sovereign Governments don't print money to any great extent. Money is a SG's promise to pay and those IOUs are created by key strokes every time the SG pays an account or makes a social security payment etc. The public accept those IOU's because the SG will only accept its own IOUs to cancel out each citizen's tax liability or some other charge or fine and because they know other people also accept them as a means of exchange.

The individual Australian states are subservient entities, just as the PIIGS are under the Euro. Australians would be well served by a return to having a Loans Council.

re your comment on; "The SG is spending too much when shortages of resources, both, or either, labour or products, causes unacceptable levels of inflation".
Monitoring the economy is what the Treasury and Reserve Banks analysts do.

I am well aware of the problems of Russia and Eastern Europe after WW2. They did not get help to rehabilitate after the war front crossed almost all that territory. The most efficient production facilities ever, in a country that suffered almost no war damage, the USA, bailed out Western Europe and Japan.

I do not advocate anything but a mixed economy but do know that neo-liberalism tries to hide the extent of the dependence on competent government in developed economies. In that regard you need to read such books as Mariana Mazzucato's "The Entrepreneurial State" or watch her address to the London School of Economics. Most pharmaceuticals and the underpinnings of electronic gizmos such as Apple's "i" products have been developed in USA government or government funded research facilities.

Did you look at or attempt to understand the arguments and slides of Stephanie Kelton's presentation? Modern theory is supported by strong empirical evidence.
Posted by Foyle, Tuesday, 3 December 2013 12:08:26 PM
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Foyle

Imagine if I said “The invisible pink unicorn cured Fred’s disease”, and you said “How do you know?”, and I said “The empirical evidence proves it.”

What would you think of that process of reasoning? You’d think it’s irrational, wouldn’t you?

What about if I said “Becuase the high priests of the invisible pink unicorn cult said so.”?
Still irrational, right?

What would you think if the conversation went like this:
You: How do you know the invisible pink unicorn didn’t give Fred too much medicine thus wasting money unnecesssarily?
I. Because. That would be “inappropriate”.
You: Inappropriate meaning…?
I: Too much.
You: It would be too much because it would be too much?
I: Yes
You: Too much according to…?
I: The invisible pink unicorn.

It’s just complete garble-brained gibberish.

Stop asking me to go on an errand to construct your argument for you. I have followed your links before and they’re just people using the same methodology as you. You don't seem to understand that you need to be able to show *reason* for your beliefs, not just blind credulity and circularity. If you want, get one of your authors to come here and I'll offer to demolish their theory for you.

Being as confused about the basic requirements of logical thought, as I have shown, we would expect you to be confused about the basic concepts of economic theory, which is what we do in fact see.

The idea that the community’s well-being should never be constrained by the want of “money”, meaning physical capital, because government can make more “money”, meaning paper, is just more of the dark-ages magic-pudding superstitious nonsense which is the quintessence of Keynesianism.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Tuesday, 3 December 2013 7:47:57 PM
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Gawd ! All that argument about economic theories !

Anyone who thinks exponential growth can continue in a finite world
is either a madman or an economist !

Look economists and their theories only think that growth is dependant
on all the manipulations of money that they argue about.

AGAIN !

It has nothing to do with money !
Growth and even the status quoe depends on energy !
If you have excess cheap energy you can expand your economy.
If you do not have an excess of cheap energy you cannot expand the
economy and even maintaining existing systems because of inefficiency
and losses becomes very difficult.
The cheap energy is being used up and is replaced by hard to get
energy.
The loss of surplus easy energy is what is giving the governments a hard time.
This is what is meant by "The End of Growth".
Politicians, economists, financiers, CEOs etc find it impossible to
accept this reality and interestingly psychologists have made a study of it.
Both our parties are quite unconcerned about our energy security even
to suppressing reports by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and
Regional Economics (BITRE) which prepared a valuable 400 page report in 2009.

If you have any doubts just watch food prices escalate and track oil prices.
Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 4 December 2013 10:13:58 AM
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