rEvolutionist wrote:Seth wrote:rEvolutionist wrote:This is just another iteration of your silly OPM (Other People's Money) fallacy.
It ain't a fallacy, it's an economic fact.
Putting money into an economy doesn't make it disappear.
Agreed, so why the fuck do you object to "the wealthy" doing exactly that on their own terms with their own money?
Because poor people put ALL their money back into the local economy.
Ah, so this has nothing to do with anything but envy and jealousy. That's what I thought.
Wealthy people ship a lot of it offshore,
Do they? Where's your proof? And even if they do, so what, it's a global economy.
and or waste it on highly speculative investment that adds nothing of any value to an economy, other than ones and zeros on paper.
So now you're objecting because they are "speculators" and this is supposed to justify taking their money away from them by force? What sort of stupid rationale is that? If they want to "waste" their money on "highly speculative investment" like, oh, Tesla, or Space X, or Google, or Microsoft, or any other "highly speculative investment" what the hell is it to you? Why do you think you have any right at all to dictate to anyone how they choose to spend their money? Any "investment" no matter how speculative, offers the prospect of profit, otherwise they wouldn't invest in it in the first place, and any such project necessarily involves other people and their wages. If Elon Musk's Space X project ultimately fails to succeed, he's still poured billions of dollars of his own money into the project and tens of thousands of people, both directly and indirectly, were paid a wage to produce what he needed for his "highly speculative investment," so what the FUCK is wrong with that?
You seem to think that "highly speculative investment" is synonymous with "taking gold coins and throwing them into the bottom of the Marianas Trench." Here's a clue: It's not.
You see, the problem is not "putting money into an economy" per se, it's where you get the money in the first place and the consequential effects of stealing it from those who have accumulated it through circulation of their money through the economy on terms acceptable to them.
You don't deal in the reality of consequences, Seth.
No, you!
You deal in ideology.
I deal in economic facts, reason and logic.
If you cared about consequence you'd understand perfectly that Keynsian demand side economics produces higher economic growth than wealthy supply side "economics".
Except it doesn't, in the long run.
The consequences of allowing wealth inequality to soar is lower overall economic growth and greater social disruption.
And there it is, the true complaint and intent you have: Redressing "unfair" "wealth inequality." Your agenda has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with Marxist class warfare ideology and rhetoric.
It's another example of the cognitive dissonance (or whatever the correct term is) you hold regarding the zero-sum game fallacy and your own use of the same fallacy with OPM.
It's not a fallacy. "OPM" is a place-holder for wealth creation by those who possess capital and use it to create businesses, products, services and jobs for the proletarians. Unlike what you think, "the rich" don't sit on giant hordes of gold coins and do nothing with it but finger it and mutter about their avarice, they actually INVEST that money in profitable projects that recirculate the money and use it to generate more and more money, most of which they pay to workers for their labor in producing the goods that are sold to increase the wealth of the capital owner, and some of which they use personally to meet their own economic needs and desires, which like any other consumer transaction is nothing more or less than a recirculating of their wealth to the ultimate benefit of the entire economy.
I've talked about that above. And in summary, it's supply-side vs demand-side economics. And there's no argument at all that supply-side stifles economic growth. The only thing it has going for it, and the reason why it persists, is that it is good for the entrenched elite. They get to further increase their wealth at the expense of the non-elites in society.
What nonsense. There is no "supply side" without a "demand side." They are two sides of the economic coin. "The rich" don't invest their money unless there is demand for the products or services that will result in a profit. The consumers don't buy products that do not provide more value in terms of satisfying their needs and desires than the product costs. Nobody's forcing "non-elites" to buy anything at all. It's not, as you tacitly suggest, "big corporations" and "the rich" jamming products down consumer's throats and then pinning them to the floor while they rifle through their wallets for however much they can find. That's the essence of your "demand side economics" horseshit argument. You are merely spouting a thinly-veiled version of classic Marxist class warfare rhetoric against the "bourgeoisie merchant class." It's pathetic.
When I say that socialism fails when the OPM runs out it's because it DOES run out, but not because it's a zero-sum calculation, which is actually the favored fallacy of capitalist-haters like you who insist that no capitalist acquires capital without stealing it from some poor person, which is the essence of a zero-sum fallacy.
This is utterly laughable given how many times I've schooled YOU on the zero-sum gain fallacy. It's not a question of zero-sum gain. It's a question of which policy (supply-side vs demand-side) delivers the best outcome for economic growth and social stability. And there is no question whatsoever that supply-side is detrimental to economic and social well being.
Well, except for the fact that "supply-side economics" is responsible for creating the most prosperous, wealthiest, most economically advanced and powerful nation on earth: the United States of America, whereas "demand-side economics" has only ever produced the least-prosperous, poorest, most economically depressed and weak nations on earth, such as Cuba, Venezuela (how's the demand-side system working out there?), the USSR, Greece and pretty much every other Marxist-based political and economic system on earth that's used up the OPM.
Again, you're making a Marxist class warfare argument, not an economic one.
OPM runs out when the capital owners no longer feel it's worth investing their capital in the economy to create products, services and jobs because too much of it has been stolen from them by the minions of the dependent class, so they stop investing and stop creating the endless wealth that all economies depend upon.
You just don't get it. This is the zero sum gain fallacy again. That money DOESN'T disappear. It just goes into other people's hands. That money is still just as available to be invested into new ventures as it is if it is in the hands of less people.
No it's not because it's not the total amount of money in the economy that's important, it's
who has it in the form of excess capital that they are willing to risk by investing it in creating wealth-generating companies that employ people.
If you were right, Venezuela would be among the most prosperous, wealthy and vibrant economies on the planet, given it's abundance of oil resources. Please explain to us why your "demand side" system isn't working so well down there.
The proles may, as a group, have the same million dollars that was once under majority ownership by "the rich," but to each prole it doesn't represent sufficient wealth in excess of that which is necessary to meet their basic needs to permit them to invest it in creating a business. In most cases, if they have any spendable capital beyond their basic needs, they do indeed "stuff it in the mattress" against a "rainy day" because they would rather have cash in hand (or gold, which is even better because it can't be arbitrarily rescinded or artificially manipulated by government) hidden away so that when the economy goes south they will be able to buy food.
So, rather than having a million dollars in available investment capital that can construct factories and infrastructure to extract, process and ship its oil, Venezuela has "redistributed" a million dollars to the proles to create "economic equality" where each prole has a few hundred dollars that they squirrel away for future needs and do not invest, and therefore Venezuela's abundant oil remains in the ground and Venezuelans squabble and fight over squares of toilet paper and pints of milk.
So, rEv, how is it that "demand-side economics" isn't working out for Venezuela?
And given demand-side economics leads to greater all over wealth, it actually leads to MORE money being available to be invested into new ventures.
Except it doesn't, as I demonstrate above.
When that happens, when capitalists DO sit on their piles of gold, the economy goes begging and soon collapses. That's exactly what caused our recent recession.
What caused your recent recession was what I described above about highly speculative investment. Investment in convoluted and repackaged blocks of debt that served absolutely no purpose to society, and in the end nearly brought society down (it literally did in parts of your country).
No, it wasn't "highly speculative investment" it was, quite directly and precisely,
the federal government's interference with the real estate mortgage markets as captained by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who manipulated the system to achieve a political, not economic objective.
The whole sub-prime mortgage scandal and crash was the direct responsibility of Frank and Dodd who wanted to pander to the dependent class for their votes and did so by fiddling with the rules by which banks had been evaluating mortgage applicants for hundreds of years, which previously required that the applicant actually have a paying job that gave reasonable assurances to the bank that they would get their money back, with profit, and that the cost of the home was commensurate with the ability of the applicant to pay the monthly mortgage payment.
What Frank and Dodd (among others) did was to "guarantee" mortgage holders that the federal government would pay off the mortgage if the homeowner failed to do so, pretty much without question. This resulted in an explosion of mortgage lenders willing to give literally ANYONE a mortgage for a house they could not possibly afford to buy in economic reality by inducing them with low, low initial payments and huge balloon payments that threw a huge number of wannabee homeowners into bankruptcy as soon as the chickens came home to roost. The mortgage lenders knew full well that these mortgages would go into default the day they wrote them, but they didn't give a fuck because
the federal government guaranteed that they would get paid regardless of whether the homeowner went into default or not.
And from that emerged the "securitization" of bulk mortgages into "investment instruments" that were sold to offshore investors, which never should have been permitted.
But it was, and when the crash came as homeowners hit their balloon payment deadlines and began simply walking away from their mortgages, the federal government was on the hook for trillions owed to the mortgage holders, most of whom couldn't even be identified because each individual mortgage had been dumped into giant piles and sold as "shares" to thousands of offshore investors.
And THAT is why the crash happened, because of idiotic and frankly treasonous and disloyal criminal acts by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who should both be in federal prison, not because of "supply-side economics."
When the inflated derivatives market imploded and tax rates went up and all sorts of economic meddling was taking place by government, what happened to capital investment? It ceased to occur as large corporations and individuals both decided to stoke up their reserves of cash against a protracted recession that could bankrupt them if they did not have adequate cash reserves to get by in life-support mode until the economic climate improved. That's when socialists like YOU began demanding that those retained amounts be directly taxed, even though they weren't producing any "income", because you (and I distinctly remember having this very conversation with you years ago) and your ilk didn't think it was "fair" that "the rich" were not being compelled to fork over their "profits" to the poor.
More failed analysis. Correct government intervention in Australia saw us not even go into recession, and emerge from the GFC with the strongest economy in the world. What we did right, that you did wrong, was our government handed out money at the bottom of the pyramid where it IMMEDIATELY entered the economy and boosted growth and demand and therefore investment. Your gov handed it out towards the top of the pyramid where they just sat on it, because handing it to them did nothing at all to boost growth and demand. They had no incentive to spend it.
The critical component here is the "government handed out" part. Government has to GET it from somewhere before it can "hand it out," or had that fact escaped your notice? Where did the Australian government get it from so it could "hand it out" to the proles? Please be precise. Does Australia have foreign debt that it incurred to pay this "bottom of the pyramid" windfall? Yup.
What Australia’s Trillion Dollar Foreign Debt Really Means
Mat Spasic September 1, 2015
Reddit
Debt
Australia’s foreign debt position is bad, and it’s getting worse by the month.
Net foreign debt is fast approaching the trillion dollar mark. It ballooned to $967 billion in the quarter to June. That’s up 10% from the $871 billion deficit in March.
Since 2010, foreign debt has increased by almost $350 billion. And it now represents almost 60% of Australia’s GDP.
If you weren’t already aware, foreign debt is simply what we owe to foreigners. It represents the amount we’re obligated to pay back — with interest.
High foreign debt could be a sign that we’re living beyond our means. But you’d be hard pressed convincing everyone of this. Some think that raising alarm over net foreign debt is nothing but scaremongering.
Even our very own government is dismissive of its importance. Here’s a quote from the Parliament of Australia website:
‘[Foreign debt] hardly represents anything new. Australia has always been a net recipient of overseas funds because investment opportunities in Australia have always exceed what can be funded from the domestic savings of its population.
‘This has led to capital inflow that has built up capital, income and wages, but has also increased our net foreign liabilities, most of which are foreign debt rather than foreign equity.
‘The size of Australia’s foreign debt would be a cause for concern if it was mainly caused by increased consumption rather than increased investment, raising concerns that Australia was living beyond its means. However, Australia’s national saving and national investment levels are both above their long-term average, suggesting Australia is well able to cover the servicing of its debt’.
They don’t really believe that, do they?
How can anyone conclude that soaring foreign debt is financing investment, and not consumption? The figures speak for themselves.
Capital expenditures (capex) fell 3.9% in the quarter to June. Year-on-year capex is down by 10%. At the same time, retail consumption rose 4.7% over the same period.
That tells us rising foreign debt is going towards something. But it can’t business investments. So what does that leave? Consumption, of course. Business spending is at its lowest level in years. And it’s in stark contrast to robust consumption levels. What gives?
Reading between the lines, the answer is obvious. Here’s a passage from that quote above one more time:
‘The size of Australia’s foreign debt would be a cause for concern if it was mainly caused by increased consumption rather than increased investment, raising concerns that Australia was living beyond its mean’.
What conclusion can we draw from this? Australia is already living beyond its means.
Net foreign debt is rising, and nothing suggests it will start falling anytime soon. How do we know this? Because, as we’ll see, Australia’s trade position is getting worse.
There you have it. You're lying. Note the red highlighted section. Your "strongest economy in the world" is a complete sham and farce and it's being propped up by government borrowing of OPM from foreign sources and the OPM is going to run out as soon as the capital ceases to flow because Australians have lived beyond their means for too long (a socialist ideal) and can't pay their debts. Or, Australia will simply become a satellite state of Communist China, who I'd guess owns most of your debt. And then you're REALLY fucked.
And government handing anything out is most certainly not in any way remotely connected with "supply-side economics," which operate just fine if, and only if, government refrains from meddling with the markets in order achieve ideological social agendas.
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