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
KevinB:
Yeah, Keynes was a smart guy; no one denies this.
I only recently became a aware that he had a SINGLE COURSE in Economics. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that. [see Krugman, Bernanke].
HOWEVER, I strongly disagree with his comment about inflation falling proportionately according to the wealth of the victim.
The Austrians teach us that the big thing to get about inflation is that the effect is, in fact, quite uneven. The first receivers of new money (friends of the government esp. bankers) profit from the new money and later receivers lose, as their costs have risen. People of modest means on fixed incomes are decimated.
BUT, albeit very smart in an intellectual sense, extremely stupid with his notion of countercyclical fiscal action– believing that politicans could successfully prime the pump during a slump (run deficits) and pull back during times of prosperity (run offsetting surpluses). The rankest amateur observer of public policy can see that this is a chimera, a convenient one for political looters and plunderers.
KevinB: You yourself strike me an awfully smart chap. Have you read von Mises’ Human Action.? If not, do it. You’ll thank me — profusely.
ET: You’re doing fine on this subject. See above paragraph for a book idea, while remembering that I read your Popper (volumes 1 and 2!).
Is she any relation to Phineas Feiner, of Feiner’s Fine Wheelbarrows?
Well, if she thinks she can just inflate away the US debt, the PLA will certainly have something strategic to say about that. Possibly an intervention somewhere like Libya?
Where do you think the “cash” comes from to run the US Military?
Thin air. Not tax receipts, thin air. Look at the numbers.
Where does your bank mortgage “cash” come from?
Thin air. It’s called fractional reserve banking because the bank has a tiny fraction of “real cash” on hand. A license to steal.
Countries get invaded and otherwise messed with when they move against the dollar.
What was Saddam Hussein trying to do?
What was Gaddafi trying to do?
Look into those two things and you will have your answer as to why the US went there.
So yes, MMT is just pointing out the obvious.
Now, we can choose to spend the fake “cash” any way we like. If we “print” too much, too quickly we have trouble. The US has been faking since 1971. The creeps needed “cash” to finance endless wars into the future…hence *they* created MMT and fiat cash. Your government.
Don’t be brainwashed into believing otherwise. This lady is right for once about something. Otherwise she is pretty bunko. I’m amazed she actually jumped on the MMT bandwagon.
Here is the backstory. Read the comments at both places:
http://kir-t34.livejournal.com/14869.html
http://www.thedailybell.com/2228/Gaddafi-Planned-Gold-Dinar-Now-Under-Attack.html
Plus…
“I have said a few times already that one obvious reason why one could predict that Libya, Syria, and Iran would become targets is that they are among the very few remaining countries that do not have a foreign- (mostly synonymous with Rothschild-) controlled central bank. This is not the case anymore with Libya. The last two countries which have seen the establishment of foreign-controlled central banks? Why, Irak and Afghanistan, of course… ”
Even before the fighting is done in Libya, the “rebels” are setting up *drumroll* a central bank.
Read about it:
http://www.infowars.com/regime-change-libya-privatization-of-their-central-bank-and-the-theft-of-their-nationalized-oil-profits/
Infowars talks about a Bloomberg article:
““The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company”
Google “Land Destroyer Blog” and read up on the fake Arab Spring “color revolutions” and the fist logo. It’s laughable.
But yeah, don’t mess with the US and it’s fiat cash.