We don’t pay taxes at the rates of the French, etc: No, we pay for every service the French, et al receive as government services. Child care, elder care, medical care, un- employment, education, etc. Tally up all these costs, include payroll taxes, WE PAY MORE, with every cost category marked up by a profit margin. This simplistic comparison is inadequate. US tax structure implies we’re all millionaires who can independently afford to hire servants, caretakers, tutors while living off the interest of our investments. No public services required!
Step 1. Stop deporting workers that would prefer to stay here and pay taxes. Step 2. Welcome a million more immigrants this year and every year there after that would love to come here and pay taxes. The Trump administration is solving the wrong problem.
I appreciate your efforts at intellectual honesty, but I think you’re right, the situation has changed, not you. And you’re not the only one: other “liberal” economists like Krugman and Bernstein, who also have strongly objected to the “deficit scolds” (Krugman’s term) in the past are sounding the same alarms now, for exactly the same reasons. PS I like Thompson too, and really wish he’d quit working for the Atlantic (which I no longer subscribe to).
Economic literacy. It sounds like it could be an answer but I wonder if that's a pipe dream. I don't mean that more people couldn't become economically literate---I mean that I'm not sure if that would have the effect of helping to solve our problems. It seems as if there are a lot of economically literate stockbrokers, bankers, business leaders and politicians---i.e. people who--- theoretically---should know better---but who continue down this path to debt disaster. This ties into Justin's discussion of the need for basic democratic transformation. Thus, it's not just economic literacy we need, it's an end to magical thinking and a commitment to the community, not just the self. What is that---moral literacy? Teaching people critical thinking? A new dedication to realism?
Perhaps the most important sentence in this rumination is “But a government that wants to act boldly in emergencies needs to build fiscal space in ordinary times.” It would be great to explore that idea. And it may not just be space - it may also be capacity —better basic services, more buffer stocks, things like that.
Thank you both for the conversation and your commitment to educating the public about what we’re facing. In a way it feels sort of like driving way too fast in traffic because the traffic itself is going way too fast. Most people just shrug their shoulders about it. Maybe we’re too used to the partisan rhetoric—the blaming and the lies. Maybe that’s changing right now. Maybe that political risk of telling the truth is becoming less risky now that we see what comes of not scrutinizing the candidates. It could be just around the corner if we demand it collectively.
Contingency. That’s what political historian Joanne Freeman says the future is shaped by. What happens now, what we do now shapes our future.
Thich Nhat Hanh taught, “thanks to impermanence, anything is possible.”
One hates to burst anyone’s bubble but this cost of living crisis that Americans are currently seeing is not something that happened in the last 18m Of course WE the People would expect that POTUS would do something, anything to try to deal with this economic problem But like COVID Cheeto is completely over his incompetent head to handle the matter
The fact is this The US dollar has become worthless as a fiat currency In terms of gold the value of the dollar is 4 to 6 cents of what it was in 1971 when Nixon took the country off a gold standard Let that sink in for a moment The dollar in your wallet has the purchasing power of 4 to 6 cents while many if not most salaries have not kept up with the cost of living due to the ineptness of elected officials(https://bit.ly/4f4L9BG) Currencies are not money, just a front for credit and not money Gold/sliver is money and the US Constitution calls for a metallic standard for its money
In a historical perspective in the early 1920’s after WWI postwar Germany’s economy seemed to be humming along without a gold standard until it wasn’t and by 1922 people were burning Reichsmarks to stay warm Saliently the politicians knew the currency was in trouble but didn’t do anything about it And there are numerous examples littered throughout history of countries that have flirted with a fiat currency and all have ended in disaster Now Deutsche Bank predicts $8000/oz gold
China knows this It sits on 70K tonnes(the US has an unaudited 8Ktonnes) and many American financial commentators like Ray Dalio are warning of a financial crisis Cheeto will preside over the next Great Depression and will make GW Bush’s Great Recession look like a picnic
WE the People should demand that this issue be front and center as an election issue for now and until the country is put back on a gold standard but the major lesson is that gold is not an investment It’s a way to protect your wealth
We don’t pay taxes at the rates of the French, etc: No, we pay for every service the French, et al receive as government services. Child care, elder care, medical care, un- employment, education, etc. Tally up all these costs, include payroll taxes, WE PAY MORE, with every cost category marked up by a profit margin. This simplistic comparison is inadequate. US tax structure implies we’re all millionaires who can independently afford to hire servants, caretakers, tutors while living off the interest of our investments. No public services required!
Step 1. Stop deporting workers that would prefer to stay here and pay taxes. Step 2. Welcome a million more immigrants this year and every year there after that would love to come here and pay taxes. The Trump administration is solving the wrong problem.
I appreciate your efforts at intellectual honesty, but I think you’re right, the situation has changed, not you. And you’re not the only one: other “liberal” economists like Krugman and Bernstein, who also have strongly objected to the “deficit scolds” (Krugman’s term) in the past are sounding the same alarms now, for exactly the same reasons. PS I like Thompson too, and really wish he’d quit working for the Atlantic (which I no longer subscribe to).
Economic literacy. It sounds like it could be an answer but I wonder if that's a pipe dream. I don't mean that more people couldn't become economically literate---I mean that I'm not sure if that would have the effect of helping to solve our problems. It seems as if there are a lot of economically literate stockbrokers, bankers, business leaders and politicians---i.e. people who--- theoretically---should know better---but who continue down this path to debt disaster. This ties into Justin's discussion of the need for basic democratic transformation. Thus, it's not just economic literacy we need, it's an end to magical thinking and a commitment to the community, not just the self. What is that---moral literacy? Teaching people critical thinking? A new dedication to realism?
Perhaps the most important sentence in this rumination is “But a government that wants to act boldly in emergencies needs to build fiscal space in ordinary times.” It would be great to explore that idea. And it may not just be space - it may also be capacity —better basic services, more buffer stocks, things like that.
Thank you both for the conversation and your commitment to educating the public about what we’re facing. In a way it feels sort of like driving way too fast in traffic because the traffic itself is going way too fast. Most people just shrug their shoulders about it. Maybe we’re too used to the partisan rhetoric—the blaming and the lies. Maybe that’s changing right now. Maybe that political risk of telling the truth is becoming less risky now that we see what comes of not scrutinizing the candidates. It could be just around the corner if we demand it collectively.
Contingency. That’s what political historian Joanne Freeman says the future is shaped by. What happens now, what we do now shapes our future.
Thich Nhat Hanh taught, “thanks to impermanence, anything is possible.”
Anyway, thanks for the conversation.
Inflation: The Need For A Gold Standard
One hates to burst anyone’s bubble but this cost of living crisis that Americans are currently seeing is not something that happened in the last 18m Of course WE the People would expect that POTUS would do something, anything to try to deal with this economic problem But like COVID Cheeto is completely over his incompetent head to handle the matter
The fact is this The US dollar has become worthless as a fiat currency In terms of gold the value of the dollar is 4 to 6 cents of what it was in 1971 when Nixon took the country off a gold standard Let that sink in for a moment The dollar in your wallet has the purchasing power of 4 to 6 cents while many if not most salaries have not kept up with the cost of living due to the ineptness of elected officials(https://bit.ly/4f4L9BG) Currencies are not money, just a front for credit and not money Gold/sliver is money and the US Constitution calls for a metallic standard for its money
In a historical perspective in the early 1920’s after WWI postwar Germany’s economy seemed to be humming along without a gold standard until it wasn’t and by 1922 people were burning Reichsmarks to stay warm Saliently the politicians knew the currency was in trouble but didn’t do anything about it And there are numerous examples littered throughout history of countries that have flirted with a fiat currency and all have ended in disaster Now Deutsche Bank predicts $8000/oz gold
China knows this It sits on 70K tonnes(the US has an unaudited 8Ktonnes) and many American financial commentators like Ray Dalio are warning of a financial crisis Cheeto will preside over the next Great Depression and will make GW Bush’s Great Recession look like a picnic
WE the People should demand that this issue be front and center as an election issue for now and until the country is put back on a gold standard but the major lesson is that gold is not an investment It’s a way to protect your wealth
What's the difference between a bitcoin and a tulip? The tulip is real.