You weren’t supposed to see that
thereformedbroker.com
thereformedbroker.com
If by winning the author means artificially living without constraints and if losing means retaining some restraints then the conclusion might be valid but that is not how this paragraph reads. Winning in life is removing restraints, improving conditions, not trying to drink from the firehose of irrational exuberance. It is absolutely possible to have almost no real losers economically in the current US economic system albeit with unequally positive outcomes. The fact that we do have (economic) losers is a scandal because it’s unnecessary.
+1, Uncomfortable Truth.
So it's not the same.
Also other traits are not selected for either as modern medicine saves us.
That's a danger of persistent inflation. There are others. It must be stopped.
I'm with the author for the majority of the article and agree with most of what they say, but they end with a conclusion that doesn't follow in any way the information delivered.
I agree with the perspective on the 'employment crisis' - a media driven message that disguises the real issue: businesses are unwilling to adequately pay employees.
I would have much rather seen the government give far more money directly to people rather than to businesses to then dole out. Somehow that 2nd step is always forgotten by most businesses.
Where the author is incorrect is that despite the fed rate rises and the wealth creation (housing, equities) that is now being destroyed, unemployment is still extremely low and inflation is still very high.
The 'wealth' being destroyed is also fake wealth - it's housing and portfolios.
Your house is going up in value at the same time as everyone else's. You have to buy a new house when you sell your current and that new house is also going to be inflated - you can't really move up this way, only laterally.
Same with your portfolio - try getting margin loan today to pay for your life. You won't have a 2, 3 or even 4 percent interest rate that the market can easily beat. Instead you'll face a margin call as your portfolio plummets 20%. But this run up, like the housing, was fake. If you're not gonna own stocks what else are you gonna do. Bonds? Real Estate? Cash? Foreign Currencies?
Any of those decisions would have been terrible today as well. Every asset type has crashed and cratered. There's no where to 'hide'. Bonds are finally looking good but if you had bought bonds a few months ago they'd be trading at a big discount today. Will that be the case in another few months? No one knows - certainly not myself or the author of the article.
doesn't money leave the economy when it is taxed?
Surely if a government takes money in tax, that money is no longer in the economy. Isnt it in the one place we can say that the private sector cannot access?
Is the US federal government required to immediately respend all tax takings?
The article already establishes that the maximum money the federal government can spend is not limited by tax takings.
Is the minimum money it can spend somehow limited by tax takings?
I'll give you an example: the city where I live supplies clean water to the citizens. For this service they charge a fee to everyone who is hooked up to the city water supply. If that was a private company providing the same service, would it suddenly count as part of the economy where before it didn't? The same people would be providing the same service for the same fee. It doesn't make any sense to say that the service the city provides is not part of the economy.
The same goes for every service the government provides. It employs people, takes in money, and spends money. It's part of the economy. No different from any corporation except that it has the right to do certain things that private corporations can't, and also it's run democratically whereas private corporations are not.
And yes, they spend every penny they take in, because it makes no sense for them to do otherwise unless they are trying to intentionally reduce the amount of money circulating for some reason. Private corporations could do that too, if they wanted, they just don't.
Your city doesn't issue currency though, so it's still different. Neither do corporations.
> they spend every penny they take in, because it makes no sense for them to do otherwise unless they are trying to intentionally reduce the amount of money circulating for some reason
I am specifically talking about doing that. The article claimed that the stimulus money would never come out of the economy. I suggested it can. I think we're in agreement.
Perhaps we're just disagreeing on a finer detail: you say taxing alone does not remove money from the economy - the government needs to then not spend it again. Which I think is a fair way of looking at it but implies some things I'm not sure are definitely right. It's not like there is a vault with gold in it.
That's just it, it was not attained it was subsidized and given for a moment. Not that it can't be earned, it just wasn't. Yeah the rich got richer like they always do, but they would have been fine with a great depression as well, look at lebanon and venezuela, it would be much worse in the US.
Worker shortages are no joke, there are $20/h+ jobs that people aren't willing to do. The thing is the rich own the companies and they only do that so they can get richer. If they barely make a profit it isn't worth the hassle. Even six figure jobs are very hard to fill in many industries. Short of making everyone millionaires what is the solution?
It's almost as if a crash and a depression has to happen because of human psychology. When you remember starving then you kill the rich or fall back in line.
Just keep in mind that even in communism the rich party members ran things. Money rules this terrible world and that will not change by any political measure.
You can arbitrarily choose any wage level and complain that people are not choosing these jobs. The wage is not the point - the purchasing power is.
$800 a week is not a whole heap of purchasing power when you throw in things such as housing, medicals, etc, etc, especially if the person is time poor (due to commuting, schooling or other committments).
> It's almost as if a crash and a depression has to happen because of human psychology.
False choice. There are other paths that do not lead to a crash and depression, but these might force the upper classes to take a haircut on their expected wealth growth. Then again - for many people the rich becoming slightly less rich is pretty much the end of the world, I suppose.
Of course you have on the extreme mainstream politicians who advocate for simply taking away rich people's money or how billionaires shouldn't exist. As if no one raised them to lnow taking others stuff for no reason is theft and wrong.