Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

[Starving Steve]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

Entitlements are fine. But there should be a requirement of government to pay for the entitlements, even if taxes have to be raised. Then let the people decide at the polls which entitlements they can afford, and which entitlements they have to pay for through the private sector and not government.

What I do NOT like and what I especially blame Ronald Reagan and Arthur Laffer for are the notions that: a.) government can provide services without raising taxes; b.) government can pass costs onto the children and have them pay; c.) government deficits don't count because "we can grow our way out of the deficits", according to Laffer.

And the Demos in the U.S. are also to blame for this idea of a free lunch coming from government, especially with telling the people that "some inflation is required and healthy for an economy to grow". This idea that some inflation is good started with John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s and his stupid way of thinking, and sadly, this Keynesian way of thinking--- fully discredited by the stagflation of the lost decade of the 1970s--- continues to this day. The terrible ideas of John Maynard Keynes still are taught in universities to this day, as if the 1970s never happened.

Yes, Keynsian stimulus can work if the stimulus is spent on projects that raise the productivity of the society. The spending to build the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge was an example of stimulus that was beneficial and non-inflationary. But how does Cash for Clunkers raise the productivity of America? How is consumption and waste not inflationary? (This is where the Demos are out-of-touch.)

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

Earlier I wrote, convincing no one, least of all cjppjc:

Well, yes, my carbon credit prediction is rather 'far out" .

We'll see in perhaps two or three years.

By 'carbon credits as a monetary system' I not mean that we will have carbon credit backed money, but rather that the primary means of determining who has how much of what will no longer be who has (or can borrow) the money but rather who has the carbon credits.

It seems that my strange prediction is not original.

In the NewScientist of 29 April 1995, the article Towards a single carbon currency states:

My proposal is to set a global quota for fossil fuel combustion every year, and to share it equally between all the adults in the world. Individuals would be entitled to take part in any fuel-consuming activity - whether flying in an aircraft or using electricity to heat their house or to cook by - only if they had enough Fossil Fuel Rights to cover it. Anyone wanting to consume more than their quota would have to buy extras FFRs from one of the underconsumers.

In the Harvard Review of Summer 2004, the article
A New Currency - Climate Change and Carbon Credits discusses:

the creation of strong national carbon currencies

At The Planet Ark on July 20, 2006, a Reuters release Pollute Less and You Could Cash In, Britons Told states:

Personal carbon allowances are one of several options Britain is looking at to help the public get involved in tackling climate change.


Other ideas include carbon loyalty cards, league tables, the use of carbon offsets at point of purchase for certain sectors, product carbon labelling and carbon calculators.

In The New York Times on May 6, 2007, When Carbon Is Currency states:

Ten states have joined to create the first mandatory carbon cap-and-trade program in the United States.

Now it may seem that the Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW) justification for carbon credits took a serious blow with the recent controversies involving global warming and climate research, but that's just temporary.

In the op-ed We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change in The New York Times on February 27, 2010, Al Gore wrote:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

Observe that there are more reasons than AGW to "go green." These include (in Gore's view) national security, peak oil, trade imbalances and important sources of jobs.

We are heading toward a new world monetary system, displacing the U.S. Dollar from it's role as the world's reserve currency. It will take another catastrophe or two to realize this outcome. TheParanoidCow anticipates that those catastrophe's will be forthcoming.

But I don't think that new "world monetary base" will be the physical commodities gold or oil. Rather I'm wagering (albeit hedged) that it will be a carbon credit base, aka energy credits or fossil fuel rights.

Unless the Banksters trying to run this show lose their grip (a possibility not to be ruled out), the basis for the world's monetary system will be an increasingly legal, political, bureaucratic and regulatory determined construct, not something you can hold in your hands.

We will see more "research" results and reports this year, 2010, that advocate "going green" for the sorts of reasons Al Gore called forth in his latest New York Times Op-Ed, linked above.

[GRG55]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

...In the op-ed We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change in The New York Times on February 27, 2010, Al Gore wrote:Observe that there are more reasons than AGW to "go green." These include (in Gore's view) national security, peak oil, trade imbalances and important sources of jobs...

EJ's made the point several times that the USA must reduce its imported fossil fuel energy intensity before there's going to be any sustainable economic growth.

Whether that "alternate energy" should be, or needs to be, "green" is another matter...but in an environment where the domestic currency needs to continue to be devalued in order to deal with the still mounting debt, buying large amounts of increasingly expensive imported energy to fuel the economy is untenable.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

EJ's made the point several times that the USA must reduce its imported fossil fuel energy intensity before there's going to be any sustainable economic growth.

Don't confuse necessary change with the use of fear and panic to steal greater centralized control.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

On the imperative to reduce oil imports from the Middle East, I agree with Al Gore, for once in my life. That being said, why did the Obama Administration--- lest we forget that Al Gore is an influencial Democrat---snub Alberta and nix the importation of up-graded heavy oil and tar sand from Alberta?

Actually, Gulf Coast refiners in America are importing Alberta tar sands and heavy oil now, and they are refining the light oil from these tar sands and heavy oils. But this is in spite of the Obama Administration, and not with any help from the Obama bunch in Washington.

What do I conclude from this snubbing of Alberta by the Obama Administration? What do I conclude about Al Gore?

Finally, the Obama Administration co-signed for the Southern Company in the South, the loans necessary for the construction of six new nuclear power plants. Finally! But America needs hundreds of new nuclear power plants, not just six. Again, the same question: What do I conclude about the Obama Administration and Al Gore?

[c1ue]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

It also helps to keep in mind that human beings are corrupt, without exception, and that we are seeing the result of what Tocqueville wrote of when he said that even American Democracy would fail as soon as the masses realized that they could vote themselves goodies from the public treasury.

I just would like to point out that the present is hardly a case of the masses voting themselves goodies from the public treasury. Certainly the masses' fiscal situation has not improved in several decades.

More a case of the elites plundering the future...

[Raz]

Re: Stiglitz - Fed system corrupt

I just would like to point out that the present is hardly a case of the masses voting themselves goodies from the public treasury. Certainly the masses' fiscal situation has not improved in several decades.

More a case of the elites plundering the future...

If we look at the last 15 years - and especially the last ten - you are certainly correct about the FIRE Oligarchs plundering the future.

Yet that doesn't change the fact that the fruit of Tocqueville's warning has been operative and ongoing since the 1960s.