16. Deficits and Fiat Money - Why Not Just Give Everybody Everything They Want
The queen used fiat money deficit spending to draw resources and labor toward addressing common social problems.
So why not just issue infinite tally sticks and ... blah blah blah? Inflation. A sane queen would not manufacture limitless tally sticks and deficit spend with abandon. A queen who is not insane realizes she cannot mobilize production out of workers whose heads are chopped off or from resources that don’t exist using factories that run more than 24 hours a day.
One way to think about price inflation risk is to look at the unused productive capacity in the economy. Our economy today has unemployment higher than all but two recessions of the past 50 years, and record-long persistent unemployment and underemployment. We are looking at a low risk of inflation versus certainty now of economic capacity wasting away today. The loss of wealth is loss forever -- it could have been created but was not. Leaving aside the human loss of dignity and damage to families the unemployment represents.
Yes price inflation is a risk of deficits. This is a call for deficit spending to support creation of goods and services in an era of multi generational persistent high unemployment.
Deficit loathing is common in both parties. They all know cutting spending will destroy jobs - just listen to the right’s number one reason not to cut military spending: it will destroy jobs first, only secondarily will it will weaken America’s international presence. Then the contradictions and incoherence of austerity fake morality ... non military jobs will be created by austerity! Because government meddling destroys jobs! Because austerity removes immoral government from your life! And anyway when unemployment happens to you, it will toughen you up!
Yes some of those unemployed will toughen up through self-enterprise. Many people can cherrypick an example of an outstanding individual who overcame great adversity. Specific excellence does not erase the actual general harm to society caused by unemployment. This is the morality of manufacturing more unemployment?
We can create a sociopathic social-Darwinian dystopia if we choose. Or we can choose to mobilize the unemployed capacity of the system into productive action.
Medicare - the resources exist, the hospitals and doctors and trained medical people exist. This is not a system staring down “unsustainability.” A nation looking to maintain its exceptionalism would check if its medical system is overworked. If so that nation would set national investment priorities to expand it as needed. A national priority of maintaining a healthy population is “giving everybody everything they want”? How very socially-Darwinian. How narrow is it possible to construe the Preamble to the Constitution to promote the general welfare?
“Give everybody everything they want” is a snarky pre-programmed sound bite misattributed to Jefferson. It is magic thinking about money -- that money exists to fulfill wishes. As a strawman argument against deficits it says this about the critic - the critic’s instant reaction is resort to magic thinking.
The focus of these stories was employment. I hope the message of these stories is how fiat money can mobilize employment to create the things that society needs.
Government spending is not “giving.” It should be obvious that government spending in the productive economy maintains employment, because somebody will produce -- by their labor and their sweat -- what was purchased. Simply delusional, to say employment of economic energy is “giving.”
So why not just issue infinite tally sticks and ... blah blah blah? Inflation. A sane queen would not manufacture limitless tally sticks and deficit spend with abandon. A queen who is not insane realizes she cannot mobilize production out of workers whose heads are chopped off or from resources that don’t exist using factories that run more than 24 hours a day.
One way to think about price inflation risk is to look at the unused productive capacity in the economy. Our economy today has unemployment higher than all but two recessions of the past 50 years, and record-long persistent unemployment and underemployment. We are looking at a low risk of inflation versus certainty now of economic capacity wasting away today. The loss of wealth is loss forever -- it could have been created but was not. Leaving aside the human loss of dignity and damage to families the unemployment represents.
Yes price inflation is a risk of deficits. This is a call for deficit spending to support creation of goods and services in an era of multi generational persistent high unemployment.
Deficit loathing is common in both parties. They all know cutting spending will destroy jobs - just listen to the right’s number one reason not to cut military spending: it will destroy jobs first, only secondarily will it will weaken America’s international presence. Then the contradictions and incoherence of austerity fake morality ... non military jobs will be created by austerity! Because government meddling destroys jobs! Because austerity removes immoral government from your life! And anyway when unemployment happens to you, it will toughen you up!
Yes some of those unemployed will toughen up through self-enterprise. Many people can cherrypick an example of an outstanding individual who overcame great adversity. Specific excellence does not erase the actual general harm to society caused by unemployment. This is the morality of manufacturing more unemployment?
We can create a sociopathic social-Darwinian dystopia if we choose. Or we can choose to mobilize the unemployed capacity of the system into productive action.
Medicare - the resources exist, the hospitals and doctors and trained medical people exist. This is not a system staring down “unsustainability.” A nation looking to maintain its exceptionalism would check if its medical system is overworked. If so that nation would set national investment priorities to expand it as needed. A national priority of maintaining a healthy population is “giving everybody everything they want”? How very socially-Darwinian. How narrow is it possible to construe the Preamble to the Constitution to promote the general welfare?
“Give everybody everything they want” is a snarky pre-programmed sound bite misattributed to Jefferson. It is magic thinking about money -- that money exists to fulfill wishes. As a strawman argument against deficits it says this about the critic - the critic’s instant reaction is resort to magic thinking.
The focus of these stories was employment. I hope the message of these stories is how fiat money can mobilize employment to create the things that society needs.
Government spending is not “giving.” It should be obvious that government spending in the productive economy maintains employment, because somebody will produce -- by their labor and their sweat -- what was purchased. Simply delusional, to say employment of economic energy is “giving.”