Author Topic: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter  (Read 2372 times)

Hutch

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Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« on: March 05, 2010, 11:58:36 AM »
And here I spent all this time being worried and all.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/galbraith

Basic premise, since the US controls the dollar, we can print all we want.  Deficit spending is an unalloyed blessing, and the chickens will NEVER come home to roost.  Would that this were so....
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makattak

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2010, 01:19:21 PM »
He's an unrepentant Keynesian.

Also, apparently a moron.

Quote
Governments and banks are the two entities with the power to create something from nothing.

WOW. Really? I didn't expect to read one of the stupidest statements in my life today.

Let me retort:

Mr. Galbraith, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.



Good lord! I read this article and it's as though REAL prices and values mean nothing! He's technically correct that we can just create money and pay our entitlement commitments, but that's because massive inflation will cut the value of the benefit payments. But, hey, you're getting paid the amount we promised!
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought

makattak

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2010, 01:21:50 PM »
Quote
Social Security and Medicare also replace private insurance with cheap and efficient public administration.

I cannot begin to express the magnitude of stupidity in this article...
I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought

MechAg94

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2010, 01:34:58 PM »
So why do they need taxes then? 
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

AZRedhawk44

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2010, 01:43:48 PM »
So why do they need taxes then? 

You, sir, win 1 innernetz.

Print your tax money and leave MY money alone! =D
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Angel Eyes

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2010, 03:32:22 PM »
Quote
Social Security and Medicare also replace private insurance with cheap and efficient public administration.
I cannot begin to express the magnitude of stupidity in this article...

I thought it was comedy. 

No, really.
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longeyes

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2010, 04:34:38 PM »
The result of a life spent within paneled studies.
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Nitrogen

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2010, 04:56:58 PM »
They haven't mattered for a long time now.
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zahc

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2010, 01:28:42 PM »
Quote
So why do they need taxes then? 

My friend thinks that we might as well replace all taxes with inflation. Reason being, the government can effectively raise taxes for whatever they want whenever they want anyway, by inflating, so what's the point of the formalized tax rates? And nobody sees inflation for the tax that it is.
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BReilley

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2010, 11:11:30 PM »
Quote
About James K. Galbraith
James K. Galbraith is the author of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.

No, you don't abandon free market principles unless you intend to save the free market.

RevDisk

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Re: Thank GOODNESS! Deficits don't actually matter
« Reply #10 on: March 09, 2010, 12:42:31 AM »

That was essentially the dumbest economic commentary I have heard in many years.  If you try to replace prudent government spending vs revenue with the printing press, you have massive inflation.  That's bad.  Anyone that passed Econ 101 should understand that.   Heck, anyone that showed up for more than two class sessions should know that is bad.
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