In the recent Reader Tips, EBD provides a link that makes one reach for the calendar to see if it's April Fools Day. In a piece that is so stupefyingly idiotic, one Susan F. Steiner has published something that is even too outrageous for The Onion.
EBD kindly pulled out a few gems:
"The mantra that 'the budget must be balanced' is a throwback to the 19th century, originating from the same outmoded economic thinking that justifies women's lower wages…"
"Fiscal austerity - aka, reducing the deficit - endangers our lives."
"Since the U.S. government is both sovereign in its own currency and the sole issuer of dollars, it can never run out of them. How could it? Don’t think printing presses here: Federal debts are paid off by Treasury clerks making a few clicks on computer keyboards—keyboards identical to the one I’m typing on now…"
"In fact decent societies don’t 'cost too much.' The real problem is that our government, held hostage by right-wing extremists, won’t spend enough."
A quick check reveals Ms. Steiner's "credentials":
Susan Feiner, PhD
Professor of Economics/Professor of Women's and Gender Studies
University of Southern Maine
The Bio explains everything. Geez.
Another to add:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/young-criminals-in-canada-victims-of-federal-legislation/article2100253/
"Young criminals in Canada victims of federal legislation"
You read that right, criminals are victims.
A PhD in femenomics eh?..
Since the U.S. government is both sovereign in its own currency and the sole issuer of dollars, it can never run out of them.
She's right there.
The issue, though, is that the dollar will run out of buying power.
If printing money was the same thing as purchasing power what would the point to making a budget be?
Just spend, don't worry about how that spending is allocated if there isn't any limit to how much can be spent.
Why does the government even need to bother with collecting taxes?
100% tax cuts for everyone forever, YAY!
"Since the U.S. government is both sovereign in its own currency and the sole issuer of dollars, it can never run out of them. How could it? Don’t think printing presses here: Federal debts are paid off by Treasury clerks making a few clicks on computer keyboards—keyboards identical to the one I’m typing on now…"
THAT is the equivalent of the old Dumb Blonde joke, "I can't be out of money-I still have checks!"
It also shows that illiteracy in both economics and history is no barrier to getting a PhD. in Education from the U. of Massachusetts. Further, it helps explain the abysmal results of a lot of public "education" in the US. When such an ignoramus as Susan Feiner is "teaching" college students, the output can only be more ignoramuses.
"Since the U.S. government is both sovereign in its own currency and the sole issuer of dollars, it can never run out of them"
Where have I heard that before. That's right, around 1935 during the Great Depression. The Social Credit party pushed the idea of "Prosperity Certificates". Dubbed "funny money" by critics. That was in Alberta amazingly enough. As a policy it didn't live long. Too stupid.
Is Susan Feiner really a professor? If she is an Economics Professor we all are.
What,exactly,is a "feminist economist"?
How is it that a person as this "professor of economics" does not know the very basic economic principals.
The "professor" should make an experiment. Print some money for domestic use, between the members of the family.
If that works out well, the "professor" should expand the experiment by going to the supermarket and buy something with that money. See how far the money would go.
How can one get position of professor of economics and have no idea what economics is.
People seem to avoid the history in Germany where they printed money by the truck loads and ended with nationl socialism.
I'm sure this was one of Kinsellas profs, that would explain the s..t for brains. Print mo money sweetie, worked in the past, didn't it?
I always check the people out on Rate My Professors:
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=320354&page=4
(Why is Stephen Harper so mean? Why won't he print everyone in Canada a $1000,000 bill? If he printed a $100,000,000,000,000 bill he could give it to Barry and then everything would be wonderful.
But he won't, and you know why?: 'Cause of the Koch brothers.
Selfish jerk.)
Clearly the reason why some nations have had economic collapses in the past weren't because they spent to much or had too high unemployment, it was because their printing presses were broken.
It looks to me like Peggy Joseph has a decent shot at becoming an Economics/Women and Gender Studies professor (and/or working at Ms.Magazine).
Black Mamba's link was interesting. She sounds like a Class 'A' Socialist Totalitarian. Here's a sampling of her past students:
Worst teacher of all time. She loses everything and doesn't respond to emails. Expects you to understand things she doesn't explain and to read 50 books at a time. Will never ever take a class with this woman again.
She comments rudely on papers, never gives grades, she is very baised and her opinion is the right one, no matter what. she is sarcastic and questions your intelligence. She is an awful teacher and I will never again take a class with her. I am surprised she's still a teacher with the way she reacts to students. Unorganized.
Awful. The main text- Weedon- was awful, susan does not help students to understand, rather makes you feel stupid if you dont get it. EXTREMELY unorganized, lost my stuff all the time, many times. i have no idea what this class was about, i learned nothing from susan, i will NEVER take another class with her again. I would rather change my major!!
Where to start? She can be interesting at time, but for the most part she is very biased and very very anti republican and seems to hate any christian. If you want to be open minded then this is not the class for you. She is very stuck on what she knows and if you do not agree than your grade reflects. Very unorganized also!
two words: she sucks! No organization whatsoever, no goals for class discussions, no respect for differing opinions. Oblivious to the fact that she is insane. Often loses students' papers or never grades/returns them. Avoid her at all costs!
AVOID! I started out interested and grew to hate this class. Seriously, the teacher showed up more than ten minutes late to class at least 4 times and didnt return my papers on several occasions. Difficult to understand the syllabus and I learned very little with her flippant teaching style. Save yourself some frustration and wasted time. AVOID!
This was one of the funnest classes I've ever taken. We watched movies, had guest speakers from India, ate popcorn and made going to a class at night FUN! I highly recommend and class she teaches, she's great! :-)
Worst teacher I have had in 4 years. Only likes her opinion. Yells at anyone who disagrees. Very unhelpful when having questions.
Listens to one side- her own. Grades are hit or miss. I smiled, nodded, slept through the class, and got an A. My friends, who tried harder and challenged her thinking, all did poorly.
Her ideas are typical of professors in her field, unfortunately I took 'gender & ethics' etc. and this kind of moronic piffle is standard stuff - I wouldn't wish those courses on anybody. Education funding must be cut - drastically.
Could someone please explain just what "women's Studies" is? No, seriously; what does this subject relate to?
Gunney, I can only imagine that her views on economics are entirely run through the filter of "Women's Studies". Did you read through the comments of her students? She clearly HATES conservatives, Christians, and most likely white men.
Don't be surprised if she turns up as a future economic adviser to El Messiah Obama. :-(
Feiner ... Steiner
gunney99,
Woman's Studies relates to 'How NOT to relate to men as Human Beings'(adversaries only) + "How to have Your Cake and Eat it Too'
(advanced techniques in mental-bulimia while forking the blame over to men)
After reading that, I just sort of sat here in stunned silence for about three minutes. I really wish I was exaggerating.
Debt is paid for by typing on keyboards! Whee! Let's go find the magic keyboard and erase all the world's debt!
While we're at it, let's give everyone a unicorn and a magic wand.
I have no training or specific education in economics- just what I assume to be an average amount of common sense - and even I can see that's completely loony tunes. Do these people even listen to themselves?
"With so many people out of work—nearly 30 million and counting–and so many firms operating well below capacity, there is no danger of inflation."
Let's count the countries that tried that, starting with Ancient Rome...
Note to US citizens - fire this fool and give her a retirement package and a pension paid with money (bags and bags of it) printed off a regular keyboard. Put her picture on the bills and color them blue. A one way ticket to Cuba could be negotiable.
Soon to hold the prestigious Robert Mugabe Chair of Economics at the University of Zimbabwe Business School.
"outmoded" = reality-based
Quite often what EBD says in this article is very very true. When you see in the MSM, that this or that EXPERT is critical of something or some idea that is conservative in nature, check their credentials. They are invariably very left wing and usually have done nothing except go to leftwing schools. Most of them have nothing more to offer than secretary's a*s as a personal accomplishment in the real world....
God help the USA. (Sorry for the mystical reference. It just seemed apt for the circumstance.)
Is this lady retarded? That's a retorical question!
Worse . . she's a tenured prof and has been teaching for 30 years.
Think of all the minds she has poisoned.
You know, I remember reading in the Bible where people were calling the mountains to fall on them.
I can see why they want it now, the misery these chimps are infecting our youth will turn chaos into pleasure.
Not excusing the fact that this teacher is an economics/math moron, we have to look at this differently now IMO.
Yes, in each independent/Sovereign country to just print money will lead it to be worthless for trade vis-a-vis other exchange currencies but we need to look at the current globalization approach.
The US Federal Reserve (A non Governmental agency with Governmental like powers...Less transparent than even the CIA) and the IMF (International Monetary funds) are conducting an economic "experiment" across the globe right now IMO.
Is this what she's alluding to when she mentions that "numbers are in a computer and can easily be changed"?
By "globalizing" the world economically and financially are they just creating an empire of more and more make believe "IOU's" wrapped in new names in ever more convoluted investment packages?
Is it just a bunch of large numbers that can be manipulated endlessly in cyberspace now?...Is it totally out of control but at the same time irrelevant in a global context?
The "Too big to fail" pretext used on a worldwide scale?
As long as they keep making people believe in the value of a currency/trade...
Susan Feiner, PhD
Professor of Economics/Professor of Women's and Gender Studies
University of Southern Maine
Oh, c'mon now...at least its a degree.
It's the only choice left when you can't cut the rigours of the Co-ed Plasticene Art Therapy program...
What Ms. Feiner is referring to his a rather new entry into economics called Modern Monetary Theory. Originated by GF Knapp as “Chartalism," MMT has gained some strength through the works of Hyman Minsky, Wynne Godley, Warren Mosler and Randall Wray.
In a nutshell MMT states that the US is in a unique position to run almost unlimited debt. The dollar is the worlds reserve currency and since it is a fiat currency (i.e. there is no commodity such a gold behind it.) To the MMTers debt is not debt. China merely has a "savings account" with at the US Treasury.
The moment the Oil Barons dump the dollar MMT falls apart. In the age of the electronic transfer no one is compelled to use the dollar as his reserve currency.
black mamba and robert - thanks for the Rate My Professor link and comment. She has low ratings and note - most students don't feel they've learned anything..and talk about how disorganized and indifferent (doesn't mark) and biased she is.
Note also that there's no indication of what her PHD was in - it can't have been economics; no-one could be that ignorant.
She, like most socialist-feminist-leftists, lives in an 'alternate world', a virtual world isolated from hard reality. Made up only of: words. So, she can type money on the computer and remove debt just by a key-click. Don't we all wish our credit cards and bank debts could be dealt with this way?
And why is Obama so desperate for money and raising taxes if all it takes is a 'click on the keyboard'? Could this mean that the real world actually exists?
It is hopeless and useless to argue with these people; they live in their isolate virtual world of words...and are very, very firm about refusing to allow the real world entrance. Obama is the leader in their Fictional World.
The real problem is that our government, held hostage by right-wing extremists, won’t spend enough.
Ah, I see - if everyone were to quit their jobs and get $1 million a year from the government, everything would be just hunky-dory.
The things one can learn on the internet. Yesterday I found out from the TDSB that 2+2=4 is racist and today I find out it's a right-wing plot and sexist. Can fattening be far behind?
EJHill- thanks for your outline. But doesn't this MMT or chartalism effectively operate, (like the socialists!)in a 'virtual world', i.e., a closed bubble.
That is, the 'money' which is a govt-issued 'thing'...isn't it valid only within the bubble of that nation? Since our economies are now global, then, how could a nation have a currency that is unable to be measured against other currency values? As you point out, if an other country or even its own citizens rejected this 'fiat' as having any value...then..the bubble falls apart.
Also, what kind of economy operates focused only around the Symbol? The 'paper state money'? Economies operate not in the Virtual World but in the Real World where an economy is valued on the actual production of goods and services. This 'economic theory' doesn't seem to consider this real world. Only the symbol of wealth: the paper money issued by the state. And the state's insistence that everyone be taxed..and to pay for this tax in this 'paper money'.
To consider that the value of this Symbol, the paper money, is determined only by its acceptance by the people..ignores the reality of the world: the production of goods and services. What a govt should do is enable infrastructural devt to enable private businesses to produce goods and services. Infrastructural devt is: low taxes, limited regulations to business devt..and a focus on communication, transportation, opening up of foreign markets etc.
I'm beginning to think that this Chartalism is what Obama and his Gang are following. He's not interested in infrastructure: remember his laughing about 'shovel-ready projects not being shovel-ready'? The stimulus money didn't go to infrastructure; it went to pay his friends, the public service unions.
And Obama wants money..to buy his next election. He doesn't want it to develop jobs, he's not interested in enabling new small businesses to develop. He actually wants to tax them into oblivion...because he wants money for his election campaign (he's going to bribe the electorate with 'bonuses').
I'm beginning to think that this 'policy', is that of the Obama Gang. After all, Obama doesn't live in the real world; he lives in a virtual world of words...where he says one thing one day and its opposite the next day..
She must have someone else balancing her bank books, no way that chicklet is smart enough to grasp the difference between debit and credit. She seems ignorant to the facts, first of all the more money they print the lower the dollar value and eventually the US dollars will be a useless junk bond.
This is not signally different from anything that Linda McQuaig made a career out of saying, in a series of columns, features and bestselling books, one of which (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) I gave a positive review to, many years ago, before I decided I needed to educate myself a bit more on money and business.
Note also that there's no indication of what her PHD was in - it can't have been economics; no-one could be that ignorant..
Maybe not, but it certainly could have been. This is a very typical fallacy: that "economists" know how the economy works. Not really. Most economists -- bank, government, academic -- are court calculators (heh, I rather like that!). I'm remembering the claim even here betimes, "Harper should know better -- he's an economist". Not necessarily, and tho he has a MA in economics, he wasn't an "economist".
Krugman: US government under-spent in the stimulus programme.
Bernanke: (contra Paul) We did not create money out of thin air.
Some widely held beliefs:
- More debt is a good solution to getting out of debt.
- Government can "stimulate" the economy. No it can't; it can do favours for certain sectors at the expense of others, with very high overhead.
- Domestic government debt isn't a problem 'cos we "owe it to ourselves".
- Government should subsidize and nurture "infant industries".
I was on a ride in Switzerland-Italy. One of the group had TWO doctorates from an Ivy League University, Law and Economics. He told me, proudly, that he was a Marxist. Marx never visited a factory!
My late father -- a small businessman -- told me in 1968 (about Trudeau): "He doesn't understand economics". Skipper had no "economics" training but he understood economics.
von Mises never got a university gig!
Hey, nothing says economic boom quite like southern Maine.
This whole "green economics" business is really red economics, designed to give China economic advantages and turn our faltering economies into terminal dead zones, destroyed by high counter-productive energy cost bombs. Some have bought into it faster than others, they'll go down first.
And we can just pay McDonald's employees $1-million an hour. Problems solved.
Her article sounds like it was written by a highschool kid.
PHD;BA. Figures.
ET - According to the MMTers, the US is the only nation on earth that can effectively pull this off because the US dollar is effectively the world's reserve currency. But what happens when the ChiComs and the Oil Barons decide to stop dealing in dollars? They can pick any currency to bank their wealth and electronically convert to dollars only when they have to.
That's why Bernake made the point the other day to Ron Paul that gold is not money. Gold is an asset and a true measure of wealth. Money is just a piece of paper and a method of exchanging goods and services. It's an intermediary step of the barter system.
EJHill- thanks for your response. Exactly.
Since the paper money is only a Symbol of value, and must be grounded in some value system..then..if that value system is not real (gold, actual capacity of production of real goods) and is only a belief..then, when the belief in it having any value ends..well, the paper is worthless.
When a govt says: 'this paper has value; I will provide it and you will pay your taxes in it'...That's a belief system. It is grounded only in an internal acceptance of this paper as having 'value'. Drop the belief..and since the paper is not grounded in the real world but only in a belief system...
I believe in reality, and reality is objectively real outside of myself, outside of my beliefs, outside of other's beliefs. To have a national economic system based only in 'belief' - well, that harks back to the ideologies of the hunters and gatherers who felt 'the spirits will provide'.
The basics of a robust economy are, to me, the ability of the private population to produce goods and services that can be marketed. Period. The govt's role is to stay out of this as much as possible, enable this production to take place, and prevent abuse of the system. Taxation should be sufficient only to provide for these minimal common services (currency, communication, transportation, defense).
Instead, we have a massive 'faux economy' based around a massive unionized costly public civil service, all parasitic on the private economy (govts do not produce wealth)...and an equally massive host of dependents on govt money (fraud welfare, illegals, social security etc)..
The one thing the MMTers love to point out is this: every time the US has come close to balancing its books the world has plunged into a recession or depression. But none of that has ever taken place in the fiat economy Nixon created in 1971 by delinking the dollar from gold.
Hardcore MMTers don't believe in federal taxation either. After all, if currency is the sole purview of the feds, why do they have to take any of it from the citizenry?
EJHill @9:19 - does that mean that, since the dollar is a fiat currency, then if the dollar becomes devalued than so does the debt, if the debt's in dollars owed?
Rick McGinnis @10:31 - I've said it before, but literally every time I hear or see the words "Linda McQuaig", this is what happens in my head.
She is getting taken apart in the comments, FWIW. Only one commenter seems to be on her side.
If I was a terrible person, and motivated, I'd make up a mocking post that mangled feminist theory in exactly the reverse direction and claim to be a PhD economist.
But it's not remotely worth the effort.
Dick: I have fair familiarity with Austrian economics, and what little I know about the Social Credit movement does not make me think the arguments were "very similar".
Then again, I'm with Pretty Much Everyone when I consider Social Credit to be absolute bollocks.
Sometimes the majority is right, after all.
black mambma - I'm an imbecile in this area, but check it out. Fiat currency, since it is a symbol (ie an intellectual construct) and not pegged to reality, almost always collapses. It gets devalued and thus, the economy in which it operates also collapses.
You'll notice that Obama simply wants to print more money..heh..
http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/
And
http://elevationsgroupreviews.com/collapse-of-modern-financial-system/the-inevitability-of-fiat-currency-collapse/
Again, it's not my field, but...
S.he should study the words of Alexander Tytler, who in the 18th century stated : A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that point on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benifits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship:.
This woman is a idiot and would fail at running a hot dog stand. There are far too many more like her.
Another lefty who believes in money tree's, while having her wages assured by the tax payer.
When the crash comes you can bet she will have her loot stashed away safe. False prophets abound.
Let the good times roll with other peoples money.
She should study the works of JM Keynes. I am currently reading A Tract on Monetary Reform, which, in its first few chapters reveals he was a pretty smart guy. Here's what he had to say about governments printing money:
On whom had the tax fallen? ...The inflation has amounted to a tax of 25% on all holders of notes (here, he means the cash in circulation) in proportion to their holdings. The burden of the tax is well spread, cannot be evaded, costs nothing to collect, and falls, in a rough sort of way, in proportion to the wealth of the victim. No wonder its superficial advantages have attracted Ministers of Finance (My emphasis added)
This is as succinct a description of why governments love to print money as I have ever seen. I haven't gotten to the end of the book yet, so I don't know what he proposes, but Prof. Steiner apparently hasn't even read the first chapter.
Oh, and for oo2 Steiner - Feiner - Weiner