laws only function insofar as they are enforced.
and, systems only have as much power as the body politic allows them to have.
the individual remains paramount in enacting systemic change.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
if you think that anti-social behaviour is truly in your self-interest, you haven't really thought it through very well.
at
18:28
the health care debate in the united states - and the broader services debate in the post-industrial world - is not about funding, it's about what kind of a society it is that we want to live in.
at
16:09
so, if you don't need taxes to fund services, why is it such a struggle to get services?
this isn't an argument about resources.
it's ideological.
services providers make more money when services are private. some people think services are better when they're more expensive and/or private. and, there are fascists out there that want you to work hard to pay for your health care.
reducing the issue to a debate about the budget is actually conceding the issue on two levels. first, it constrains the debate to an acceptable discourse in the neo-liberal paradigm - this is a debate that conservatives like to have, because it's about accounting, rather than about ideas. second, it concedes that services are expensive, and we have to make sacrifices to have them - despite the fact that government services are actually more efficient, and there's no reason we have to sacrifice to have them at all.
if you let them define the terms as an accounting debate, you're going to lose this argument. and, so, you might wonder if that's why you're being herded into it.
this isn't an argument about resources.
it's ideological.
services providers make more money when services are private. some people think services are better when they're more expensive and/or private. and, there are fascists out there that want you to work hard to pay for your health care.
reducing the issue to a debate about the budget is actually conceding the issue on two levels. first, it constrains the debate to an acceptable discourse in the neo-liberal paradigm - this is a debate that conservatives like to have, because it's about accounting, rather than about ideas. second, it concedes that services are expensive, and we have to make sacrifices to have them - despite the fact that government services are actually more efficient, and there's no reason we have to sacrifice to have them at all.
if you let them define the terms as an accounting debate, you're going to lose this argument. and, so, you might wonder if that's why you're being herded into it.
at
16:07
so, no - you can't print money to pay off the debt.
you print money to create the debt; you destroy money to pay off the debt.
the problem is really in the language we use. what we call "government debt" isn't actually debt in the way that people understand it, but when we use the language we use, we create a broad misunderstanding around it. i've brought this up repeatedly in the past - we should be talking about creating and destroying money, not borrowing and repaying debt. by using the language we use, all we're doing is confusing ourselves.
you print money to create the debt; you destroy money to pay off the debt.
the problem is really in the language we use. what we call "government debt" isn't actually debt in the way that people understand it, but when we use the language we use, we create a broad misunderstanding around it. i've brought this up repeatedly in the past - we should be talking about creating and destroying money, not borrowing and repaying debt. by using the language we use, all we're doing is confusing ourselves.
at
14:38
and, i don't see any particular reason why we should be concerned with the government crowding out private investment, whether it's a reasonable complaint, or not.
but, i think we should have more public ownership of things, and less private ownership of things, too.
because i'm a communist, not a neo-keynesian.
but, i think we should have more public ownership of things, and less private ownership of things, too.
because i'm a communist, not a neo-keynesian.
at
14:32
the correct answer to the question of "how do we pay for this?" is that the answer is incoherent - government doesn't pay for things, it funds them by creating as much money as it wants. you can't actually answer the question, because it doesn't actually make any sense - which is why so many people get stumped by it. rather, it's an opportunity to teach the questioner a little bit about how government creates and distributes money.
"how are those squirrels going to save enough red meat to last them through the winter?"
there is actually no reason that you can't cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy and pay for universal health care at the same time. the debt produced by the budget deficits that would result from creating this money would merely be an accounting note: we created this much money to pay for that.
"repaying this debt" would mean collecting the money that was created and destroying it. you're not repaying anybody, you're just destroying the money - which, nowadays, means little more than changing a number on a screen.
repaying government debt is quite literally the destruction of public wealth. broadly speaking, it's a bad thing that should be avoided and vigorously fought against.
there are other reasons why we might want to increase taxes on the rich, specifically at the subnational level. a state or provincial or municipal government has to borrow money like any other entity. we may have a moral problem with runaway inequality. and, there are reasons why we might want to prevent the money supply from expanding out of control.
but, the idea that you fund public spending with tax money is completely economically illiterate, and when you hear people state this - whether it's as an argument to reduce spending, or as an argument to increase taxes - you can safely deduce that they're either completely ignorant or completely dishonest.
as an aside, universal health care is actually a way to save money, not a way to waste it. but, for the sake of this particular argument, that's a cursory fact.
"how are those squirrels going to save enough red meat to last them through the winter?"
there is actually no reason that you can't cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy and pay for universal health care at the same time. the debt produced by the budget deficits that would result from creating this money would merely be an accounting note: we created this much money to pay for that.
"repaying this debt" would mean collecting the money that was created and destroying it. you're not repaying anybody, you're just destroying the money - which, nowadays, means little more than changing a number on a screen.
repaying government debt is quite literally the destruction of public wealth. broadly speaking, it's a bad thing that should be avoided and vigorously fought against.
there are other reasons why we might want to increase taxes on the rich, specifically at the subnational level. a state or provincial or municipal government has to borrow money like any other entity. we may have a moral problem with runaway inequality. and, there are reasons why we might want to prevent the money supply from expanding out of control.
but, the idea that you fund public spending with tax money is completely economically illiterate, and when you hear people state this - whether it's as an argument to reduce spending, or as an argument to increase taxes - you can safely deduce that they're either completely ignorant or completely dishonest.
as an aside, universal health care is actually a way to save money, not a way to waste it. but, for the sake of this particular argument, that's a cursory fact.
at
14:22
seems like democrats want to run on reducing the deficit, now.
yeah. that's what the country needs - less spending.
fuck.
it's an unavoidable consequence of a two-party system - you don't get any kind of dialectic, you just get this constant pull in one direction or the other. so, you end up with the democrats trying to position themselves to the right of the republicans.
i was concerned that trump would collapse the state by reducing the size of the government, which is the reason that the soviet union collapsed. thankfully, he's not actually doing that. is it what the democrats want?
vote democrat for perestroika?
yeah. that's what the country needs - less spending.
fuck.
it's an unavoidable consequence of a two-party system - you don't get any kind of dialectic, you just get this constant pull in one direction or the other. so, you end up with the democrats trying to position themselves to the right of the republicans.
i was concerned that trump would collapse the state by reducing the size of the government, which is the reason that the soviet union collapsed. thankfully, he's not actually doing that. is it what the democrats want?
vote democrat for perestroika?
at
13:45
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