I've been looking into Debt-to-GDP a lot lately, so I've seen a lot of
debt data -- including recent debt data. I don't focus on recent data,
because in my view the recent situation is the result of bad policy
that's been in place since the 1980s since the 1960s or before.
I'm not focused on the results. I'm focused on the policies that led to those results. Just sayin. And I'm not the guy who points the finger at Federal debt. But looking at all those debt graphs lately, I was surprised to find myself surprised more than once by the size of Biden budget items.
My wife watches the Sunday morning news/talk shows (This Week & Meet the Press)
and on those shows lately the consensus seems to be that Biden is
promoting a "progessive" agenda; I take that to mean spending a lot, or
trying to spend a lot.
There are people who love that agenda and people who hate it. Myself, I'm just tired of it. It seems to be an agenda designed -- on purpose, far as I can see -- to make sure absolutely nothing gets done in Congress. It seems more like Mitch McConnell's plan than Joe Biden's. But according to the Sunday morning jabberwocks, this is the Biden plan.
Off the top of my head: For as long as I've been studying the economy, there have always been two reliable recurring issues: the debt ceiling, and the minimum wage. Both have the same problem: After a few years, the changes you made a few years ago are no longer good enough. After a few years, you need a new, higher minimum wage or a new, higher debt ceiling, or both. This is like economics for children. You're not making any progress. It's a joke to call such policies "progressive".
In the General Theory, Keynes made a most interesting point: The accepted theory of his time no longer explained the economy's behavior. In his view, what was needed was not a new gimmick, not a new narrative to retell the same old story, and not a new pointless progressive policy. What was needed was a thunderingly new theory to explain the behavior of the economy.
We're in a similar situation today. There are plenty of people who have a damn good idea what that new theory has to be. There are, however, disagreements on details; so we should hope, and pray if you pray, and in any case work toward agreement where there is now disagreement. And we have to hope that this new vision comes together and "gels" before it's too late.
I used to think we had plenty of time, you know, before it was too late. I don't think that anymore. Not since January 6th. Those people are more dedicated that you are, you progressive cunt, to setting the economy right. Only trouble is, their plan won't work either.
Those people, they all think what you thought I was gonna say -- that the Federal debt is the problem. Eh, they've moved beyond that now. Now they say the Federal government is the problem. But they're not thinkin clear.
I'm too old now to deal with insurrection, or revolution, or whatever you want to call it. But you know, no matter what you call it, and no matter how it turns out, when it's over and we try to get back to a normal life, we're gonna have the same problem. We're gonna have to deal with the economy and we're gonna have to make it work and it's gonna have to work for us. All of us.
No, that doesn't mean we have to maintain
and enhance the great disparities of wealth and income that have
developed over the last 40-odd years, no. But I am sure that there are
people who think they are worth more per hour than I'm worth, and I have
neither the energy nor the desire to argue the point.
If the problem, at root, is the economy, then maybe we should just admit that the economy is the problem. Then we could focus on the problem. And that is somewhere in the neighborhood of what we need to do, to actually solve the problem.
These assholes on Sunday morning TV... what they always say is "How are we gonna resolve our differences?"
Well, what we need to do is the thing that they never do on TV: We need to think of the problem as an economic problem, the way we used to think of it. And we should admit that the things we've been doing since the time of Reagan have not helped to solve the problem -- and that a lot of those things have changed our world, but *not* for the better. And then we can start re-thinking things.
Because yeah, nobody has a solution that works: nobody whose solution has been tried; they all have failed.
So what we have to do is choose to decide that we don't really know what the solution is, and that we have to stop, sit down, and think things through from the beginning. And postpone reaching any conclusion, until we are forced to reach it.
2 comments:
I wrote the above post mostly naked, with no links to back up what I was saying. No identification of sources.
Looking for something else just now, I found my offline Test Blog post of 5 September. Summarizing...
Meet the Press, Sunday 5 Sept 2021
Matt Bai talking, about 15 minutes in. Just after Betsy Woodruff Swan.
From Matt Bai, I catch the words "progressives" (regarding the things they want & things they think) and "infrastructure"; they are discussing options. [I don't know what this means. It's just my notes.]
But what Betsy Woodruff said about progressives made me think yes, they always want the solution that is not a solution. They always want to give people money to make life worth living; they never seem to give priority to actually fixing the problem.
On the other side, opposite Matt Bai, are people like Betsy, who say we need to fix the problems. But these people don't know how to fix the problem. They only know how to make things better for the supply side.
I never agree with them. But at least they are doing a kind of economics. The progressives are not.
The message I took from the show is that progressives want to spend money.
Here's the thing: I understand and accept the need to spend money when an emergency arises. But what must be done (and is not being done) is to FIX THE ECONOMY so that we can have fewer emergencies.
//
The link to the transcript:
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-september-5-2021-n1278543
//
The quote I got from Betsy:
Progressives need to go back to their districts and say, "We got this spending bill done. We expanded the social safety net." Moderates need to be able to go back to their districts, many that are red-leaning, and say the two most wonderful words that everybody wants to hear, bipartisan infrastructure.
"That's it. That's what got me going this morning," I wrote in my notes.
"Progressives need to go back to their districts and say, 'We got this spending bill done. We expanded the social safety net.'"
I say that expanding the social safety net is not the same as fixing the economy. Fixing the economy means you can spend less time and money expanding the social safety net.
I know. And I feel bad about this: Democrats think that if you say "fix the economy" you mean "make things better for rich people." I swear, that's what the problem is. Democrats are as committed to Republican principles as Republicans are. Except of course Republicans love and Democrats hate those principles. Therefore, Democrats hate econ with such passion that they refuse to work through a problem until they come up with some econ concept that could actually fix one of our problems. Instead, they unfailingly choose to just throw money at it.
I believe Democrats think that if you accept economics as a way of thinking about the world, then the answers to all of your questions will be the same sick, twisted answers that Republicans always get. Democrats do not understand that the principles of self interest and compound interest have made it a certainty that Republican solutions are the optimal path for those who unknowingly desire to move the cycle of civilization to its next phase, the post-capitalist phase when dictatorship replaces democracy as the political order for the next 400 years.
It's the post that was naked, in case that isn't clear.
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