Are readers here acquainted with Modern Monetary Theory? It holds that for a government, such as the U.S.A., there is no shortage of money. Modern Monetary Theory [held by a wide group of economists] informs us that government can create all the money it wants – it just declares it into being. So what government needs are priorities. What is the most urgent priority on which to spend some money? That is the question the congress needs to ask itself. Then doit.
As a result, the economy will revive, and produce real wealth, and the excess money in circulation can gradually be phased out. So the real questions are: On what area of the economy is the best place to put emphasis? What is the project that it is most urgent to spend money on, that will produce the best results? Right now it is jobs. Everything congress does – if it is to work on what it was hired for - should be focused on immediately creating jobs.
Then the booming economy will do the rest. Money will circulate. The more people get to touch it, the more valuable it becomes (from the point of view of Economics.)
There is a “multiplier effect.” Hire people who are now unemployed to do constructive work: infrastructure projects. {For example, have them help build bullet trains between large cities. Have them work on setting up clean, green energy installations everywhere. Re-train them so they know how to do it well.} The goal ought to be Activity versus Stagnation.
Ethics, as explained in the UNIFIED THEORY OF ETHICS, is all about adding value In http://tinyurl.com/27pzhbf See esp. pp. 28-30.
Everything a business does ought to be adding value for businesses to be ethical. [Of course, there is more to it, as explained in Katz - A UNIFIED THEORY...] That is why they have Business Ethics courses in virtually ever business school and University Colleges of Business.
And individuals ought to be busy adding value in their personal lives. It all fits together logically
Tell us what you know about the Weimar Republic; and tell us how what I wrote leads to a redux. Be more specific. Analyze some of the concept or concepts involved here, please.
I get the impression you don't understand what I mean. I would like to understand where you're coming from. Are you afraid of something? What is it you fear? And why?
This all is not exactly true, because "the booming economy" is just an increase of the volume of cash, but the volume of commodities for sale that people wants can remain the same. Because of this: inflation. And because of inflation: everybody suddenly gets a real value drop in their cash.
Therefore, economies do not just pay everybody what it takes to make them do the job, because they have to do it in such an order that the "ecology" of the economic sphere is self-sustaining and balanced. If we built roads everywhere, that would require a lot of effort in the population to focus on road-building and all the parts involved: the population would be centralized on building roads, leading to exponential wage increases, BUT, the consumption value we get out of the roads, drops more and more as the usefulness of each new road decreases because of their already far extent. In so doing, people will get money for doing jobs that, while the roads may be useful in a fantastic dream future, their value in the consumption market is dead-low and people will experience inflation because of increased money-supply and in the end: everybody looses because a few people, those who build roads or are related to that business, have the money to price out the consumption market and decrease access to the wider population.
Why - may I ask - is the economic activity limited to roads? Why not all types of construction - such as the repair of bridges, which is really and urgently needed in the USA - and why not ultra-rapid, quiet, train service between every city, as an alternative to flying? Yes, there could be some accidents occurring now and then; and yes, it would put a dent in the airline industry (which is a very-intensive consumer of gasoline, a highly-polluting substance.) I believe the benefits would far exceed the costs.
And why couldn't jobs be offered to improve and clean up our National Parks, to provide more personal services, such as live phone operators coming on the line immediately when you want one, such as doctors who make house calls, such as postal service daily and on weekends?
It all comes down to priorities (one's values.) If one cares about people, and their suffering, one who is in power in Washington will vote the right way and sponsor the right bills. Today, the Repub-cons hardly come in to work at all. Look how many days off they have taken
It's as if there is nothing to do, no problems to solve. What a sad performance !!!
I'm not cursed with living in the US. I've all my life thought Americans are a crazy bunch. As a Norwegian in terms of modernization I probably have some advantage over the average American, here, where the social services's buildings to an outsider would look like the entrance to a top modern hotel in the US.
I read economy, but what I just said I didn't say because I'd read it, but because of my own intuition and sensibility. Maybe America needs a new shiny look, but the question is if there are people who will use it to generate the value that pays for, not it, but the added expense of it. Sure there are people who use bridges and roads. But are there people who will use it enough that repairing them adds value that can be repaid by the expense? And we have to think not of infinity, unlike what you might think you don't have infinite time to repay it, because inflation comes, and so does lagging behind in terms of economic growth, which to such a country like the US would be terrible to moral.
In Norway the Norwegian government are among the few governments in the world with both high surplus in the budget and high spendings on the population (more than one third of the budget goes to NAV, the social services organization, abbreviation for "Norwegian Work and Welfare agency", translated, doesn't include the exclusively state run health care services). AND STILL, despite that, the Norwegian government chooses NOT to spend money... why? Because Norway already have among the world's highest wages (a job at the supermarket gets you something like ~40 000 dollars pr. year, taxes not included), among the world's most expensive countries, so if we spent money, we would out-price ourselves in world market, making us less attractive to foreign investors, increasing import (because of oil we are a net exporter, a country with a high trade surplus) and import makes our economy weak (one of several reasons why Norway has retained a vast subsidiary agriculture producing most of the things we consume of local and northern-hemisphere food and drink, a place we would've easily been out-priced if not). Instead, preserving balance on the budget and ensuring efficiency (wealth makes people lazy or avoidant, and it's a recurring thing the government fights to keep at bay, in turn making Norway retain efficiency and not succumb to the same disaster that many other oil rich countries has succumbed to).
In the end, including some "ethical reasons" (preserving wealth for future generations), the Norwegian government choose to invest abroad most of its surplus (surplus that is not included in the previously mentioned surplus, since this surplus I talk of now is a different budget, it's direct income to the government paid by companies to exploit oil resources), thereby preserving its own efficieny while fuelling the economy about the world. Currently the Norwegian government owns 2% of all stocks in entire Europe with an estimated value of 6-7 hundred billion dollars (spread among 5 million inhabitants). You see, the Norwegian government has money and surplus value, but, exploiting that value now would give the economy and its people a wealth disease that destroys the human spirit and ecology of the economy in turn ruining future opportunities. So, instead, we put the money away for when we need it, and let it work its magic elsewhere where it is more needed or will give more value to our society for when we need it to stabilize the fall in wealth that will come with the waning of oil money.
In this way, you can see, that even if you had all the money in the world, you can still not have that which you need the most: efficiency, dependability, reliability. In one word: sturdiness to your choices and their outcomes.
Inflation in the American economy will hit the poorest the most, while the rich will just have settle for a smaller yacht. The best alternative I would ever think, is a smaller army and use the money from the army to spend on roads, hospitals and other necessities for the society, and to continue or boost efforts to come up with new ingenious forms of engineering to save money and increase efficiency for all of society.
The Voice of Time wrote:...Inflation in the American economy will hit the poorest the most, while the rich will just have settle for a smaller yacht. The best alternative I would ever think, is a smaller army and use the money from the army to spend on roads, hospitals and other necessities for the society, and to continue or boost efforts to come up with new ingenious forms of engineering to save money and increase efficiency for all of society.
Thank you, Voice, for a very extensive and relevant contribution
Norwegians really know how to run a government !!
We could learn so much from Norway, if we didn't think already that "we know it all." We need to copy the best models, and catch up with those who are far ahead of us. In Estonia, broadband installation is far in advance of any major city in the USA. We still use the industrial model in our classrooms; very backward in education.
So thanks again for filling us in on how they do things in a more rational society.
The billions in automatic spending cuts in the U.S., which come into effect today, could have an impact on cross-border trade with Canada as well as contribute to a general economic slowdown.
"I think even within the U.S. it's not clear where the axe will fall. There is so much uncertainty about exactly what programs are going to be cut and which ones aren't."
However, given the sheer size of the cuts — the plan involves slashing $1.2 trillion in federal spending by 2021, including $85 billion this fiscal year — the sequester will undoubtedly have some impact, particularly with respect to cross-border travel and trade.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said earlier this week that her department would be slashing 5,000 border-patrol agents if the cuts go through, and that would ultimately slow some of the busiest crossings between Canada and the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is also preparing to reduce its work hours by the equivalent of 2,750 inspectors as well, meaning cargo inspections at the border could drag on.
That will undoubtedly have an impact on the approximately $1.6 billion worth of goods and 300,000 or so people crossing the U.S.-Canada border each day.
reasonvemotion wrote:That will undoubtedly have an impact on the approximately $1.6 billion worth of goods and 300,000 or so people crossing the U.S.-Canada border each day.
But that, exactly, are the kind of things that opens the opportunity to find new and ingenious ways of efficiency and extended opportunities. The US could eventually end up with a long-term gain on such a drop situation by pressing forward with new ways of carrying out the workload, whereas previously this might had been neglected.
I don't believe the unemployed of the USA enjoy the benefits Norway provides her/his unemployed. When I read this my first thought was "unemployment" and with this brings hardship. I agree something has to change, but unfortunately it will have terrible side effects for the people. As always, the poor have to pay and the rich remain rich.
reasonvemotion wrote:I don't believe the unemployed of the USA enjoy the benefits Norway provides her/his unemployed. When I read this my first thought was "unemployment" and with this brings hardship. I agree something has to change, but unfortunately it will have terrible side effects for the people.
certainly they don't. I've never had a real job and I enjoy my house paid for, electricity, internet... no extra house-related fees. And I get bucks enough to buy food and stuff every month. Only thing I have to do is promise to keep searching for jobs, and if I don't find any, then they'll put me in a program for gaining job qualification and the likes, but basically, it's a rather relaxed run. I can imagine how being unemployed is a bit of an angst over there.
