Your Economic Recovery Program

[niemivh]

I'm not sure that this country will move 'this far to the left' (whatever that means anymore) until we have a complete meltdown or revolution, but I can hope.  I'd just be happy if we could stop our express train that we've been on for 40 years moving to the 'right'.  Pretty soon the politics will be so fascistoid that the political debate will be between choosing debtor prisons or concentration camps.

We have pundits on the radio laughing about people not getting an unemployment check and trying to destroy any means of social decency so we don't have old, sick, or disabled people dying in the streets.  The amount of cruelty and hatred in the general populace is starting to get nauseating.

Socialism means a different thing to each person you ask but if Tarpley's plan is socialist plan then sign me up.  If selling toxic Chinese plastic injected molded shit to each other is the best the naked Free Market has to offer I want alternatives.  Overall our level of GDP that is in the government sector is far lower than other 1st world countries and then when you account for how much of that is military spending it is pathetic.

The only thing to make people more social is to do social things for them. It is strange that the US socialist party is pretty small if there are so many poor and unemployed people in the US (all potential voters for that party if they would help them directly). I don't think you need a revolution or complete meltdown to get a more social society. Just a change of how people take care for each other.

The propaganda has been very effective to keep people divided, fearful and hateful.

[1715187608]

1715187608

[1715187608]

1715187608

[1715187608]

1715187608

[niemivh]

At least this batch of techno-alarmists is more entertaining than the last 50.

Fire bad! Thok like cold meat! Wheel Bad! Thok like walking!

As a singularitarian and technology geek I welcome our robot overlords, I just can't imagine new types of jobs for humans if technological change continues at its current rate.

If AI can do every job a skilled and creative human can, you've got a lot more to worry about than your naughty bits.

I completely agree. Fire up the paperclip maximizer, we've got a solar system to tile!

I agree that automation doesn't nec hurt workers, but it doesn't nec help them either under the current arrangement, as most of the profit from that productivity gain gets captured by the super-rich. If we lived in a different socioeconomic system, I'd be a lot more excited about advancements that allow productivity to be gained, because then it is much more liekly that people will actually have the choice to work less and maintain a basic standard of living - eg the mythical world where the dripfeed essentially provides you basic shelter and food for next to nothing and one can build on top of that.

Yeah, Russell wrote about a 4-hour work day almost 80 years ago. We've got all this extra productivity and no extra slack, no change at all.

That's because we've been duped into believing that 'the market' will take care of us.  If we had public outcry and mobilization around these issues: full unionization, full employment and a 30 hour work week we could have them at even higher pay than what we all have now.

It's just an issue of political awareness and action.

[blogospheroid]

I missed the part where it was mentioned how much power is actually there with me.

Assume I have the power to do what I want, then here are my prescriptions.

The free market seems to work through bubbles in which many things are tried out for one goal. The generalised american goal in the most recent past was making money out of real-estate, which made the americans feel rich, and in china, it was  - sell things to the americans!

I would try to create a bubble, at the end of which hopefully something positive is left at the end.

My favourite is charter cities. Give out empty land to consortiums to create new countries, where they can try out different laws and structures. Let a thousand nations bloom.

My second favourite is Life Extension. Create a prize for an extremely ambitious life extension goal. eg. 50 year olds with characteristics of 25 year olds.  The benefits of achieving this target are many, but the employment potential in the near term is relatively less.

My third favourite is Space. Create a very large prize for achieving an ambitious goal in space. eg. Mining a certain amount of material from an asteroid and bringing it back to earth. Space build up has the potential to create a whole ecosystem around it.
The other way to create a space race is defacto and dejure recognition of sovereignty of those who land and spend some time on any particular space object.

[LastBattle]

Since we are still in a Global Economic World Wide Depression I'm wondering what the general consensus is out there regarding:

1) What caused it (primarily)
2) What is your plan to get out of it (includes any laws or programs you would add or repeal)


I'll post my program after I put some finishing touches on it.

1) Printing money will-nilly.
2) STOP!

Simple, brief, yes... But added complexity wouldn't help anything.

So a deflationary panic meltdown of the market by cutting off all new credit?

This would result in millions of deaths and probably WWIII.

Try again.

Because without an excess of credit, the wealth it represents would disappear.

Yeah, this is a massive simplification. Honestly, the correct answer under the ideal conditions would be "End legal tender", "End most federal agencies (assuming we are recovering the US economy", "Cut taxes" and "Pull out of any international organizations that would attempt to stop the US from doing this for being a so-called tax haven (UN, World Bank, etc)" in that order. Without doing that, the best option would be "No bailouts, wait out recession, then jack up rates to clear out excess credit" (Kind of like the Volcker solution).

Volckner solved less than he caused.  His actions devastated the industrial sector of the USA while chasing phantoms of inflation.  Inflation is about 13th on what the average person should be demanding out of a central bank policy.  In addition much of what the Central Banks consider inflation is a rise in wages -- to which they are against.  A 20% prime rate is exactly what we don't need right now.  That would cause incredible misery and hardship for 99% of the world and favor those that have money in this economy which really only is the rich and super rich, everyone else's effective debt burden would be greatly expounded by the deflation this would cause.  Works great for the bankers though, they sign you on to some debt when money is cheap (low interest rates) and then get you to pay that back after the price of money is made very expensive (high interest rates).

Uh, what?

Have you even heard of prices in the 70s? The US was a couple of clumsy rate decreases away from hyperinflation and collapse. Had Volcker not increased rates, the US would have been screwed over and Jimmy Carter's idiotic new government agencies wouldn't have helped in the slightest. As it was, he dealt with inflation and the US recovered from the recession and began to grow again. A lot of the growth was from easy credit policies, but at the very least the malinvestment of the past thirty years was cleared out and the economy was far healthier in the long run as a result. Mind, a solution like that might not work this time, it might take a more radical push (again, removing legal tender), but it would at the very least be better than bailouts, easy lending, lots of inflation, bailouts for other countries trying equally retarded strategies (Japan and the Eurozone lack the "worldwide reserve currency" status of the USA), and stagnation.

The facts of the 80s disagree with your wild claims about catastrophe from high rates.

The overall lack of solutions being posted to this board proves the general ignorance of the member of this forum on economics.  That goes for all that aren't reading this.

 

This depression can be stopped almost overnight, this is a political problem not a failing of economics or a lack of solutions that do exist if we seek to find them.

"DAMN IT YOU GUYS! YOU AREN'T COMING TO THE CONCLUSIONS I WANT SO IMMA CLAIM YOU DIDN'T PROVIDE ANY SOLUTIONS"

derp

I think American's typically have been so propagandized about the 'evils/dangers of inflation' that they are overly sensitive to inflation.  I'm sorry, while 14% doesn't sound immediately desirable that is a far far way from hyperinflation. 

Are you arguing that 14% is near hyperinflation or that it would somehow 'spark' a hyper-inflationary event?  If the former you're historically way off base and if the latter please explain how.

As for my comments regarding the lack of solutions there was only 1 person on this board at the time that I wrote that post that posted any 'program' worth a damn.  The other was 'let's trigger a hyper-deflationary meltdown and global panic' in the simplistic statement of 'stop printing money'.

First, had rates not risen, it wouldn't have ended up being 14%. It would have continually risen until the US dollar lost its value entirely. Furthermore, any "recovery" would be plagued by malinvestment.

Second, your "hyper-deflationary meltdown" is completely unfounded. Please, point me to an example.

[niemivh]

Since we are still in a Global Economic World Wide Depression

Global? Only the 1st world are affected. Anything outside the Americas, Europe and Australia are doing just fine.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/07/25/general-eu-east-africa-famine_8582795.html

If they get an economic depression, it's caused by all the "helping" they get. Hard working farmers that managed to get something produced won't be able to sell it then at all any more.

+1

True, most "aid" is just a geopolitical bulldozer through there economy so we can sell them our farm products.  And, of course, I'm against it.

[niemivh]

I missed the part where it was mentioned how much power is actually there with me.

Assume I have the power to do what I want, then here are my prescriptions.

The free market seems to work through bubbles in which many things are tried out for one goal. The generalised american goal in the most recent past was making money out of real-estate, which made the americans feel rich, and in china, it was  - sell things to the americans!

I would try to create a bubble, at the end of which hopefully something positive is left at the end.

My favourite is charter cities. Give out empty land to consortiums to create new countries, where they can try out different laws and structures. Let a thousand nations bloom.

My second favourite is Life Extension. Create a prize for an extremely ambitious life extension goal. eg. 50 year olds with characteristics of 25 year olds.  The benefits of achieving this target are many, but the employment potential in the near term is relatively less.

My third favorite is Space. Create a very large prize for achieving an ambitious goal in space. eg. Mining a certain amount of material from an asteroid and bringing it back to earth. Space build up has the potential to create a whole ecosystem around it.
The other way to create a space race is defacto and dejure recognition of sovereignty of those who land and spend some time on any particular space object.

Now we're thinking.  It really shows the increasing worthlessness of our elites.  As technology grows in leaps and bounds adult brats with trust funds will become increasingly and increasingly unable to successfully allocate capital to the projects that humanity needs.

Life extension.  A+++.  Great idea.  The problem we face too is that eventually the base levels of study of certain fields will take 20 years of college level training to have a general grasp on, to which our present lifespan will provide a barrier unless extended.  I'd issue 1 Trillion dollars of credit to discovering the cause of aging in a heartbeat.

It's funny if you think of popularized future versions of society (take Star Trek for example).  If you think we are going to get to that society from where we are at via the 'Free Market' I don't believe simply 'mistaken' covers it.  If so, please go read everything I've posted on this site and maybe you'll see that you're misled.

[niemivh]

Since we are still in a Global Economic World Wide Depression I'm wondering what the general consensus is out there regarding:

1) What caused it (primarily)
2) What is your plan to get out of it (includes any laws or programs you would add or repeal)


I'll post my program after I put some finishing touches on it.

1) Printing money will-nilly.
2) STOP!

Simple, brief, yes... But added complexity wouldn't help anything.

So a deflationary panic meltdown of the market by cutting off all new credit?

This would result in millions of deaths and probably WWIII.

Try again.

Because without an excess of credit, the wealth it represents would disappear.

Yeah, this is a massive simplification. Honestly, the correct answer under the ideal conditions would be "End legal tender", "End most federal agencies (assuming we are recovering the US economy", "Cut taxes" and "Pull out of any international organizations that would attempt to stop the US from doing this for being a so-called tax haven (UN, World Bank, etc)" in that order. Without doing that, the best option would be "No bailouts, wait out recession, then jack up rates to clear out excess credit" (Kind of like the Volcker solution).

Volckner solved less than he caused.  His actions devastated the industrial sector of the USA while chasing phantoms of inflation.  Inflation is about 13th on what the average person should be demanding out of a central bank policy.  In addition much of what the Central Banks consider inflation is a rise in wages -- to which they are against.  A 20% prime rate is exactly what we don't need right now.  That would cause incredible misery and hardship for 99% of the world and favor those that have money in this economy which really only is the rich and super rich, everyone else's effective debt burden would be greatly expounded by the deflation this would cause.  Works great for the bankers though, they sign you on to some debt when money is cheap (low interest rates) and then get you to pay that back after the price of money is made very expensive (high interest rates).

Uh, what?

Have you even heard of prices in the 70s? The US was a couple of clumsy rate decreases away from hyperinflation and collapse. Had Volcker not increased rates, the US would have been screwed over and Jimmy Carter's idiotic new government agencies wouldn't have helped in the slightest. As it was, he dealt with inflation and the US recovered from the recession and began to grow again. A lot of the growth was from easy credit policies, but at the very least the malinvestment of the past thirty years was cleared out and the economy was far healthier in the long run as a result. Mind, a solution like that might not work this time, it might take a more radical push (again, removing legal tender), but it would at the very least be better than bailouts, easy lending, lots of inflation, bailouts for other countries trying equally retarded strategies (Japan and the Eurozone lack the "worldwide reserve currency" status of the USA), and stagnation.

The facts of the 80s disagree with your wild claims about catastrophe from high rates.

The overall lack of solutions being posted to this board proves the general ignorance of the member of this forum on economics.  That goes for all that aren't reading this.

 

This depression can be stopped almost overnight, this is a political problem not a failing of economics or a lack of solutions that do exist if we seek to find them.

"DAMN IT YOU GUYS! YOU AREN'T COMING TO THE CONCLUSIONS I WANT SO IMMA CLAIM YOU DIDN'T PROVIDE ANY SOLUTIONS"

derp

I think American's typically have been so propagandized about the 'evils/dangers of inflation' that they are overly sensitive to inflation.  I'm sorry, while 14% doesn't sound immediately desirable that is a far far way from hyperinflation. 

Are you arguing that 14% is near hyperinflation or that it would somehow 'spark' a hyper-inflationary event?  If the former you're historically way off base and if the latter please explain how.

As for my comments regarding the lack of solutions there was only 1 person on this board at the time that I wrote that post that posted any 'program' worth a damn.  The other was 'let's trigger a hyper-deflationary meltdown and global panic' in the simplistic statement of 'stop printing money'.

First, had rates not risen, it wouldn't have ended up being 14%. It would have continually risen until the US dollar lost its value entirely. Furthermore, any "recovery" would be plagued by malinvestment.

Second, your "hyper-deflationary meltdown" is completely unfounded. Please, point me to an example.

First, are we of the Friedman school that the Fed and the Government should try to fix all the problems of the economy simply by jiggering with the prime rate?  So... are you apologizing for 20% prime rates which devastated our industrial sector?  If the choice is between keeping an industrial sector or pitching it to avoid high inflation I'd choose saving the industrial sector every time... it sure would come in handy in our existing predicament, no?

Second, regarding the "deflationary crash" what else do you determine "stop printing money" to mean?  To me it means hyper-deflation, how could it not without an economic recovery program?

[niemivh]

As for my plan it would be Webster Tarpley's plan (http://tarpley.net/five-point-program.pdf) + the following changes/additions:

Prior to building the 100 nuclear reactors build a few variant prototypes of Thorium Floride, Molten Salt reactors as these have the potential to provide basically unlimited power based on how efficient they are and how commonplace Thorium is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA).

Of course end the global empire and begin raising revenue by selling bases to the countries in which they reside at a fair market price.  Begin by selling 10% of foreign bases each year for 10 years (compounding).

I'd include a education bank that would provide 1% or 2% loans for student education with long repayment schedules.  Everyone could refinance their existing loans through this bank.  The money from the interest would pay for the administration of the loans and the excess (if any would go to the Treasury). But you'd see less crowding in schools as union pay scales and a living wage would mean that all the people that flock to higher-schooling that really have no business being there would no longer need to pursue said education.

End the pointless embargoes and restrictions on travel (Cuba) other countries with trade restrictions (Iran).

Start national companies (corporations chartered by the State) as follows:
US Oil: Oil Drilling, refining for whatever oil remains on state land.  If it is State owned Oil I want the State getting the revenue, not giving it away like a cheap prostitute to BP (British) or Shell (Dutch) Oil companies.
US Internet:  This company would have laid fiber optic lines to everyone in America by the year 2030, long term debt at or near 0% would provide for this and eventually you'd sell this company off once it was matured.

Probably others, need to think on that more.  It is an area seldom if ever discussed (state chartered companies).

[deuxmill]

That's not necessarily a bad thing. By definition, if there are no more jobs for humans to do, every human need will have been met.

No, that's not right. Assuming that you still need food, water and shelter, how exactly would you convince anyone who owns the means of production to produce for you if you have nothing to offer them in return?

Well, either way you look at it, in a society where every need is met by robots, there won't be anyone who "has not"... at least, not for long.

I totally agree with you . There will be one product which will matter and that is energy . That will be the greatest battle . We have the technology to provide enough energy for free but this is clearly not wanted , because of economics.

Economics created the current situations. Forgetting economy will solve it.

[onesalt]

...The libertarian way to stop world hunger is to give everyone a hot meal...