The Rich Are Getting Richer!

[Boss]

We see being illustrated here, what the Marxist propagandists LOVE to do. Whenever they are challenged by legitimate distinguished economists who are highly honored people in the field of economics, they simply attempt to ridicule and denigrate them. Proving once and for all, these people will only listen to economists who share their Socialist Marxist philosophical viewpoint, and reject everything else. They are simply NOT open minded people, in any sense of the word. They are not interested in a dialogue or debate, they have made up their minds that their viewpoint is the only proper viewpoint, and everyone else is wrong. This should be the clearest sign that we are dealing with totalitarians or authoritarians, and not reasonable people. These are the kind of people who often become dictators and tyrants, sociopaths who think their ideas and ambitions are all that matters, and the rest of us should genuflect toward their wisdom.

 

[Auteur]

Point #1: The US government does have resources. It creates financial assets. Those dollars and bonds, in the form of liabilties of the federal government, are assets to the public. I figured we should start with something simple.

Where I come from debate is more than using words like "socialist" and "Marxist" and ignoring entire parts of an argument. You sound like some college kid that attended a Ron Paul rally. Have you even read Das Kapital? Or do you randomly just repeat shit you hear by some random Professor on YouTube? Talk about confirmation bias.....

Does your brain even comprehend what your idiot fingers are typing? How the hell is a liability an asset? On what planet in what universe is that even possible? Our government is $15 trillion in debt, with nearly $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. The government can print all the phony money it wants to, it doesn't create a damn thing except further devaluation of the dollar. Williams nailed it... Quantitative easing... aka: Counterfeiting!

Government does not produce and sell a product for profit. It has no means of generating monetary assets at all. The funding of the government comes from taxes collected, money confiscated forcibly by threat and intimidation from it's agents. Every penny it spends is money it has stolen from someone who worked and earned it through capitalism.

You are still struggling with these concepts Mr Boss. Taxes are not theft, and in fact most in modern society come out ahead of the game, after paying taxes and receiving the services they get for them. As for QE, try this little primer and see if it makes things clearer for you. And please don't tell us that the financial consultant here is really a closet Marxist, or I'll know your not smoking tobacco:

Understanding Quantitative Easing | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

 

[Rshermr]

Koch Koch co koch-koch,
Banana fanna fo foch-foch
Fe Fi mo Mach Mach... KOCH!

...In the words of the great philosopher, Cyndi Lauper...

I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow!

Ah, now boss. Please stop the attempt at comedy. Stupid people are always awful at it. As you just proved again.

And the Koch brothers??? You love the koch brothers. And the economists they buy, and the universities they buy. So far, two economists, both closely associated with the koch brothers. Just does not pass the giggle test, me boy.

You know, you are annoying as fuck. All you ever do is spew the same old propaganda you've obtained from various liberal blogs, and act like you are some freaking genius. In this entire thread, I have not seen you even ATTEMPT to make a valid argument, of ANY kind. It's just more and more of the same tired old shit, over and over again. Now you've revealed what kind of a hack you are, by ranting on the Koch Brothers again. Six years ago, you had no idea who the Koch Brothers were, and neither did anyone else. No one had even heard of them until MoveOn.Org decided to turn them into boogeymen, and now they are the two people on the planet who control the freaking world! Oh yeah, they are responsible for every problem we have, and the only reason anyone on Earth disagrees with birdbrain liberal policies. If only you could get rid of those two guys, the rest of the planet would easily fall in line with your backward wrongheaded ideas, and usher in UTOPIA FOR ALL!

You're a goddamn MORON!

You never heard of them??? Really??? More proof that you are ignorant. Move on hardly invented them, me poor ignorant con. Just think of how much you could know if you were able to read.
Relative to your insults, you do know how much it hurts my feelings. I do so value your opinion.

So what DO they pay you to post conservative dogma, dipshit??? Or are you so stupid that you do it for free?? Those of us in the rational world all want to know.

 

[Rshermr]

We see being illustrated here, what the Marxist propagandists LOVE to do. Whenever they are challenged by legitimate distinguished economists who are highly honored people in the field of economics, they simply attempt to ridicule and denigrate them. Proving once and for all, these people will only listen to economists who share their Socialist Marxist philosophical viewpoint, and reject everything else. They are simply NOT open minded people, in any sense of the word. They are not interested in a dialogue or debate, they have made up their minds that their viewpoint is the only proper viewpoint, and everyone else is wrong. This should be the clearest sign that we are dealing with totalitarians or authoritarians, and not reasonable people. These are the kind of people who often become dictators and tyrants, sociopaths who think their ideas and ambitions are all that matters, and the rest of us should genuflect toward their wisdom.

And here we have more comedy by the great (in his own mind) boss. Who believes that living in the world of bat shit crazy con web sites and being able to drag out the drivel of a couple of libertarian economists is the end all of economic thought. Jesus, it must be nice to be able to believe anything you want.

By the way, you seem to have totally ignored the fact that I outed you on the affordable care act. I guess that you do not worry at all about being shown to be a liar. It is so obvious anyway.

Funny how you lie, get caught at it, and then just keep on keeping on. So, I keep asking you, is ignorance bliss?

 

[Rshermr]

Point #1: The US government does have resources. It creates financial assets. Those dollars and bonds, in the form of liabilties of the federal government, are assets to the public. I figured we should start with something simple.

Where I come from debate is more than using words like "socialist" and "Marxist" and ignoring entire parts of an argument. You sound like some college kid that attended a Ron Paul rally. Have you even read Das Kapital? Or do you randomly just repeat shit you hear by some random Professor on YouTube? Talk about confirmation bias.....

Does your brain even comprehend what your idiot fingers are typing? How the hell is a liability an asset? On what planet in what universe is that even possible? Our government is $15 trillion in debt, with nearly $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. The government can print all the phony money it wants to, it doesn't create a damn thing except further devaluation of the dollar. Williams nailed it... Quantitative easing... aka: Counterfeiting!

Government does not produce and sell a product for profit. It has no means of generating monetary assets at all. The funding of the government comes from taxes collected, money confiscated forcibly by threat and intimidation from it's agents. Every penny it spends is money it has stolen from someone who worked and earned it through capitalism.

You are still struggling with these concepts Mr Boss. Taxes are not theft, and in fact most in modern society come out ahead of the game, after paying taxes and receiving the services they get for them. As for QE, try this little primer and see if it makes things clearer for you. And please don't tell us that the financial consultant here is really a closet Marxist, or I'll know your not smoking tobacco:

Understanding Quantitative Easing | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

Boss lives in a very small conservative world. He only knows of two economists, out of many thousands. He believes them because they are the ones that are quoted in the bat shit crazy con web sites that he frequents. So, he then thinks that everything else is a marxist attempt at painting reality. Poor ignorant bastard is too stupid to venture outside of his little world.
And he is unable to name the marxists the thinks we are all listening to. Do you, like me, believe that it is really not his fault?? I think he is simply a congenital idiot. Not his fault. Just bad luck.

Or perhaps he is just working on what he believes to be a comedy routine. Because he is pretty funny, in a childish sort of way.

 

[Rshermr]

So, boss, out looking at the bat shit crazy con web sites, says:

The government can print all the phony money it wants to, it doesn't create a damn thing except further devaluation of the dollar. Williams nailed it... Quantitative easing... aka: Counterfeiting!

Now, boss, as has been established, lives in a very small world. His economist is a nut case working for a university paid for and owned by the Koch brothers. And he thinks that the us is simply counterfeiting useless dollars. So, I would suggest that if you have any dollars, boss, they were printed by the Fed. If you do have any dollars, and you believe that they are useless, you could send them to those of us who think you are wrong. Of course, that would delute the value of your dollars, as almost all who read your drivel know you are wrong.

Government does not produce and sell a product for profit. It has no means of generating monetary assets at all. The funding of the government comes from taxes collected, money confiscated forcibly by threat and intimidation from it's agents. Every penny it spends is money it has stolen from someone who worked and earned it through capitalism.

Yes. And you need to stop immediately driving on those useless roads. And if you have a fire and your house is burning, please do not call the useless fire department. Use your garden hose. And please, if you are robbed, do not call those gov police. They have nothing of value to offer you. Just contact your insurance company. I am sure they will understand that the reason you did not contact the police was that you know they are valueless.

Do you see how stupid you are??? Of course not. Stupid people ALWAYS think they are smart.

 

[Boss]

Point #1: The US government does have resources. It creates financial assets. Those dollars and bonds, in the form of liabilties of the federal government, are assets to the public. I figured we should start with something simple.

Where I come from debate is more than using words like "socialist" and "Marxist" and ignoring entire parts of an argument. You sound like some college kid that attended a Ron Paul rally. Have you even read Das Kapital? Or do you randomly just repeat shit you hear by some random Professor on YouTube? Talk about confirmation bias.....

Does your brain even comprehend what your idiot fingers are typing? How the hell is a liability an asset? On what planet in what universe is that even possible? Our government is $15 trillion in debt, with nearly $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. The government can print all the phony money it wants to, it doesn't create a damn thing except further devaluation of the dollar. Williams nailed it... Quantitative easing... aka: Counterfeiting!

Government does not produce and sell a product for profit. It has no means of generating monetary assets at all. The funding of the government comes from taxes collected, money confiscated forcibly by threat and intimidation from it's agents. Every penny it spends is money it has stolen from someone who worked and earned it through capitalism.

You are still struggling with these concepts Mr Boss. Taxes are not theft, and in fact most in modern society come out ahead of the game, after paying taxes and receiving the services they get for them. As for QE, try this little primer and see if it makes things clearer for you. And please don't tell us that the financial consultant here is really a closet Marxist, or I'll know your not smoking tobacco:

Understanding Quantitative Easing | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

Taxes ARE theft, you don't have the option to not pay them. What if I came to your house with a gun, and said.. "I need $3,000 from you, so I can refurbish your lawn, I noticed it was looking bad and this could drive down property values." Fearful of my gun, you give me the $3,000... a few days later, I come by and throw a few grass seeds out. Is that theft? You did gain a benefit, I did do what I said, but you didn't have any choice but to comply, I had a gun.

Pragcap.com is a BLOG. Now, notice I didn't say it was a Marxist propagandist blog, but it is still a blog. This means it is not a credible source of information, it is someone's opinion. It may or may not be an opinion I agree with. That's fine, but it's really no different than my opinion or your opinion posted here. The most interesting thing at the link you posted, comes at the very end:

For details on how QE works, what its impact is and why the policy fails to generate positive economic effects please refer to my archived research.

So it sounds like, his opinion dovetails with my own.

QE is the printing of currency with no backing, or as Williams calls it, Counterfeiting. Now we can do all kinds of gyrations to justify it and pretend that it's something else, but it's no different than if you and I set up printing presses in our basement and started printing currency for ourselves. What would happen if everyone did that? Soon, currency would have literally no value at all. It would be great at the start, because we'd have all this extra money, and be able to afford things we never could have afforded otherwise. If we were able to discipline ourselves and only print a little money each month, it may not affect the value of the dollar very much, but if everyone were doing it, eventually it couldn't help but to devalue the dollar. I mean, instead of giving us free health care, why couldn't Obama just give us free money printing presses, so we can print out the amount of money we need to live comfortably each month? Or, since we have a $15 trillion debt, why not just print up $15 trillion dollars and pay it off? I didn't read Collen Roche's opinion on why QE fails to generate positive economic effects, but I bet most of it, I already understand.

 

[Kimura]

Does your brain even comprehend what your idiot fingers are typing? How the hell is a liability an asset? On what planet in what universe is that even possible?

It’s pretty basic accounting. For every liability, there’s a corresponding asset. Liabilities of the federal government, whether in the form of bonds or cash, are assets to the public at large, sort of like the $15 trillion in “debt”.

Our government is $15 trillion in debt

And? That 15 Trillion dollars in “debt” simply represents the total savings of the US economy. US public debt should be viewed as private wealth. In other words, net private financial wealth equals public debt down to the last penny. Any interest payments should be viewed as private income.

with nearly $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities

There no such thing as unfunded liabilities, genius, unless you believe the US government can somehow run of US dollars. Like I’ve tried to explain to our other resident genius, Ed, as long as we can produce the real goods and services that people need to retire, there aren’t any problems in the least.

At the end of the day, anything that occurs in the future is an unfunded liability. I could make the argument that food, clothing, and shelter are “unfunded liabilities”. If we don’t destroy our productive capacity, we’ll be able to produce everything we need as a country.

Williams nailed it... Quantitative easing... aka: Counterfeiting!

QE isn’t money printing, genius. It’s nothing more than an asset swap. In the business, we call them LSAPs (Large Scale Asset Purchases). All the Federal Reserve does is buy Treasuries – or some other financial instruments – and sell dollars it creates. After this asset swap is accomplished, the primary dealer that sold the US Treasuries to the Federal Reserve now has cash as opposed to US Treasuries; the Federal Reserve has Treasuries on hand as opposed to cash.

As a matter of fact, both LSAPs had a deflationary effect since it moves interest-bearing assets out of the economy, swapping them out for non-interest bearing assets. When the Federal Reserve conducts QE, all it’s doing is changing the overall composition of the assets held by the public and they duration they are held for.

For example, a US bond has duration of two years, five years, thirty years, etc. On the other hand, cash has zero duration so to speak. Basically, we’re shifting those financial assets from a longer duration to a shorter duration. This all QE does, there hasn’t been the creation of any new financial assets.

Dr. Williams is WRONG. He should hang out at a bond desk for a few weeks. My colleagues and I can get him up to speed on monetary operations.

 

[Boss]

Rushey, you need to continue flooding this thread with your profound enlightenment, maybe one day you will actually stumble onto a point and be correct about something. By all means, please keep hurling insults and denigration at me, because this shows that you are intellectually bankrupt and can't actually argue the points I've raised. I want everyone who reads this thread in the future, to be able to recognize your failure to engage in a rational conversation with meaningful dialogue.

 

[Boss]

For every liability, there’s a corresponding asset.

I'm sorry but this is just not true, and it defies any logic whatsoever. Assets and liabilities are opposites. It's like saying, the less money you have in the bank, the more money you have. Liabilities are not assets, they are the opposite of assets. If you are calculating your net worth, you take your total assets and minus your total liabilities. Your liabilities are not also counted as your assets.

 

[Kimura]

Government does not produce and sell a product for profit. It has no means of generating monetary assets at all. The funding of the government comes from taxes collected, money confiscated forcibly by threat and intimidation from it's agents. Every penny it spends is money it has stolen from someone who worked and earned it through capitalism.

Wrong. Under a fiat monetary system, for the 10,000th time, governments aren’t constrained in their spending by a requirement to raise revenue. We can’t get our hands on US dollars until the federal government spends them into existence so to speak. In a fiat system, the spending occurs prior to taxing and borrowing. In all actuality, if we analyze operationally what occurs, the federal government is taxing what it has already spent and borrowing back money which is also already spent.

Our tax obligations are denominated in US dollars and must be paid in US dollars. That’s the bottom line. The demand for the national unit of account (dollars) derives from the fact we have to extinguish our tax obligations in dollars. This is what creates demand for intrinsically worthless pieces of paper, which actually function as tax credits when you think about it. Under such a monetary system, the federal government can never come up short of dollars. It doesn’t need us to lend it money or collect taxes to fund its expenditures.

 

[Kimura]

For every liability, there’s a corresponding asset.

I'm sorry but this is just not true, and it defies any logic whatsoever. Assets and liabilities are opposites. It's like saying, the less money you have in the bank, the more money you have. Liabilities are not assets, they are the opposite of assets. If you are calculating your net worth, you take your total assets and minus your total liabilities. Your liabilities are not also counted as your assets.

I see double-entry bookkeeping is a problem for you. For example, your mortgage is an asset to the bank and a liability for you. The same with a car note, student loan, etc.

 

[Boss]

There no such thing as unfunded liabilities, genius...

Yes there are. Things that you do not have the funds to pay for, are unfunded. Things that you have promised you would pay for, are liabilities. If you have promised to pay for things that you do not have the money to pay for, they are unfunded liabilities.

as long as we can produce the real goods and services that people need to retire, there aren’t any problems in the least.

But we can't, and that is the problem. We can't even pay down the current debt we owe, we are paying the interest on it each year, which is among the largest expenditures in the fiscal budget.

 

[Boss]

For every liability, there’s a corresponding asset.

I'm sorry but this is just not true, and it defies any logic whatsoever. Assets and liabilities are opposites. It's like saying, the less money you have in the bank, the more money you have. Liabilities are not assets, they are the opposite of assets. If you are calculating your net worth, you take your total assets and minus your total liabilities. Your liabilities are not also counted as your assets.

I see double-entry bookkeeping is a problem for you. For example, your mortgage is an asset to the bank and a liability for you. The same with a car note, student loan, etc.

Yep, and the liability of our debt is an asset to the Chinese government, not to us.

 

[Rshermr]

For every liability, there’s a corresponding asset.

I'm sorry but this is just not true, and it defies any logic whatsoever. Assets and liabilities are opposites. It's like saying, the less money you have in the bank, the more money you have. Liabilities are not assets, they are the opposite of assets. If you are calculating your net worth, you take your total assets and minus your total liabilities. Your liabilities are not also counted as your assets.

Actually, discussing something with you is more like having a discussion with a dog. You are incapable of understanding.

Perhaps, if you could find any college willing to let you in, a course in economics would help. Though a dog trainer would probably be more appropriate.

 

[Rshermr]

Government does not produce and sell a product for profit. It has no means of generating monetary assets at all. The funding of the government comes from taxes collected, money confiscated forcibly by threat and intimidation from it's agents. Every penny it spends is money it has stolen from someone who worked and earned it through capitalism.

Wrong. Under a fiat monetary system, for the 10,000th time, governments aren’t constrained in their spending by a requirement to raise revenue. We can’t get our hands on US dollars until the federal government spends them into existence so to speak. In a fiat system, the spending occurs prior to taxing and borrowing. In all actuality, if we analyze operationally what occurs, the federal government is taxing what it has already spent and borrowing back money which is also already spent.

Our tax obligations are denominated in US dollars and must be paid in US dollars. That’s the bottom line. The demand for the national unit of account (dollars) derives from the fact we have to extinguish our tax obligations in dollars. This is what creates demand for intrinsically worthless pieces of paper, which actually function as tax credits when you think about it. Under such a monetary system, the federal government can never come up short of dollars. It doesn’t need us to lend it money or collect taxes to fund its expenditures.

No use trying to educate boss. Your words of explanation simply get in his way of posting right wing dogma. It is what he is paid to do.

 

[Kimura]

There no such thing as unfunded liabilities, genius...

Yes there are. Things that you do not have the funds to pay for, are unfunded. Things that you have promised you would pay for, are liabilities. If you have promised to pay for things that you do not have the money to pay for, they are unfunded liabilities.

Once again, are you saying that the US government can run out of dollars? Like I explained, technically, anything that happens in the future which has to paid for is an unfunded liability. You're repeating talking points which have zero basis in reality.

But we can't, and that is the problem.

If we destroy our productive capacity, which some reactionaries in Congress would love, you would have a point.

We can't even pay down the current debt we owe, we are paying the interest on it each year, which is among the largest expenditures in the fiscal budget.

So what? National governments rarely run down their stock of debt. The currency issuer plays by different rules than the currency users. Any comparisons between a monetarily sovereign government and a household doesn't hold water.

 

[Boss]

QE isn’t money printing, genius. [YES IT IS!] It’s nothing more than an asset swap. [NO, IT'S NOT!]

It's the same as saying; I have this paper and ink, and a printing press, and those are my assets... so I am going to use those assets to print some currency in the basement, and swap my assets for something I can use to buy stuff. Williams suggests if you are ever charged with counterfeiting, argue that you were just engaging in monetary policy.

 

[Rshermr]

There no such thing as unfunded liabilities, genius...

Yes there are. Things that you do not have the funds to pay for, are unfunded. Things that you have promised you would pay for, are liabilities. If you have promised to pay for things that you do not have the money to pay for, they are unfunded liabilities.

as long as we can produce the real goods and services that people need to retire, there aren’t any problems in the least.

But we can't, and that is the problem. We can't even pay down the current debt we owe, we are paying the interest on it each year, which is among the largest expenditures in the fiscal budget.

Ah. Great, boss. So, we owe someone the national debt??? Who would you suggest writing a check to???
If we do not pay down the debt, then what, genius??? Armageddon?? Large unworldly dragons descending upon us? What, in that pea brain of yours, is your fear?

 

[editec]

You morons are big on "economists" so I thought I'd post this... not that any of you will bother taking the time to listen to a John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics from George Mason University, but he explains the role of Federal Government precisely. The actual speech he gives is about 45 minutes, with a Q&A at the end. The Q&A is pretty intense, as he is challenged by several people who hold your viewpoints. He handles all the questions brilliantly.

The Legitimate Role of Government in Free Society - YouTube

I'll take a look, even though I'm familiar with Walter Williams. I must admit, as an someone with a strong background in economics, I tend to laugh at guys like Walter Williams. I'm already like 20 minutes in and I'm having a LOLZ seizure.

Sorry, Walter, the US government does have resources. It creates net financial assets in the form of dollars and US Treasury securities.

Sorry, Walter, the government doesn't need taxes to fund its expenditures, that's one of the benefits of a fiat monetary system.

Sorry, Walter, taxes drive money and regulate aggregate demand.

Sorry, Walter, the US is the monopoly issuer of the dollar and doesn't need to collect that which is freely issues.

Why is it that the majority of conservative and libertarian economists still frame arguments as if we're on the gold standard (fixed-exchange rate)?

Because the do not understand what MONEY truly is, that's why.

Additionally few of them seem to have any historical sense of how economies worked when we were on the gold standard, either.

Basically they do not understand that WEALTH is not the same thing as money, neither do they understand that in economies controlled by monetarists, we can recessions when there is NO shortage of any REAL WEALTH.

What they basically do not understand is that all economics is CONTRIVED by men.