–The one Big Question in economics: We continually ask the wrong questions so we get the wrong answers

Mitchell’s laws: Reduced money growth never stimulates economic growth. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Economic austerity causes civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================================================

In economics, there is one Big Question we often neglect to ask, but instead we ask many, small and wrong questions, which is why we arrive at the wrong answers, this recession being one of the wrong answers.

Economics either is very complicated or very simple, depending on how you approach it. If you slip into economics’s many formulae, or argue the details of positive, normative, rational, behavioral, macro, micro or heterodox economics, you quickly may find yourself drowning in abstruse terminology and hypothetical argument, from which you never will emerge nor be seen again.

But economics can be simple if you look at the big picture which leads directly to the Big Question. The big picture in economics revolves around the fundamental purpose of economics, which I submit is to improve our lives.

Now you may believe economics has another purpose or purposes, and that’s all right. I won’t argue, so long as somewhere in your belief statement are the words, “improve our lives.” That’s what economics is really about. That’s why people devote their careers to economics. They wish to understand how to improve our lives.

But strangely, this often is forgotten, when people discuss economics. In our ongoing, historical effort to improve our lives, we have created our greatest invention: Government. All social animals have some sort of government, and as the most sophisticated social animal, we have created the most sophisticated governments, rife with labyrinthine and intertwining laws and interpretations of laws, and elaborate systems for interpretations of interpretations.

To guide our detailed, complex social structure we need such intricacy in our government, or at least, such intricacy is inevitable. For each problem we devise a solution, which we add to all the other solutions previously devised – solution upon solution upon solution, growing ever larger, until what millennia ago began as a few, small shrubs has evolved into a great, expanding jungle of giant trees, which no one could hope to understand in it entirety.

The economic jungle, this Government, has become so big it has acquired a life of its own, a living organism separate from those of us who created it. It demands that we support it and care for it, and that is where we have lost our direction. Remember, government was created to “improve our lives,” but because government has become so large and powerful, the purpose often is perverted to “improve the government’s life.”

Thus, we have invented such initiatives as federal debt reduction, federal spending reductions, firing of federal workers, taxes and austerity. Consider this October 4, 2011 article in the Huff Post:

Should the federal government concentrate on paying off its debt, even if it comes at the expense of a more robust economic recovery? Or should it focus on stimulating the economy, even if that means running up more costs?

According to a poll published Wednesday, 59 percent of Americans want the government to make national debt reduction its top priority, even if it comes at the expense of kick-starting the economy. Only a third think the focus should be on stimulation.

Talk about a perversion of purpose! We have become so confused by the complexities of government, we have forgotten why government exists at all. We have been led to believe caring for a tool we created and can modify in any way we choose, is more important than caring for ourselves. We have been led to believe we must sacrifice for the sake of the tool rather than re-making the tool to work for us.

The Big Question we repeatedly should ask is this: Does this improve our lives, now?

When someone tells you to pay more taxes, because the government needs taxes, ask, “Is my taking money out of my pocket and sending it to the government the best way to improve our lives, now?” Or should I change the government so it doesn’t need my taxes?

When someone says to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, ask, “Does providing lower benefits to humans, while reducing government costs, improve our lives, now?” Or should I change the government so it can pay me these benefits?

Does firing federal human workers, so the government can pay less, improve our lives now? Does reduced federal purchases of goods and services, to save the government money, while hurting the human vendors of those goods and services, improve our lives, now? Or should I change the government so it can hire us and buy from us?

We are asked to sacrifice for the “greater good,” but is it for the greater good of human people or the greater good of the government? We own the government. We created it and we can change it. It is our lump of clay. We can make it taller or shorter, fatter or thinner. We can make it walk or run or jump or sit. It can create money, stop inflation, prevent recessions, facilitate education, eliminate poverty. It can do or be anything we want. Government is infinitely malleable. It is our creation.

When we are told to provide for this lump of clay, we should refuse. The lump of clay should be molded to provide for us. If government wants more taxes, change the government. If government wants to pay less benefits, change the government. If government wants to fire people, change the government.

The right wing wants smaller government. They want us to be forced to be self-sufficient, to do with a weaker, less effective tool. Exactly wrong. Self sufficiency is not a goal; it is one means to a goal, and a terrible means it is. We created government specifically so we would not have to be self sufficient. We created government to improve our lives. We created it and we can modify it, not be enslaved by it.

Yes, the Big Question we must ask is, “DOES THIS IMPROVE OUR LIVES, NOW?” not later, not eventually, not someday, but now. Life is short and death is forever. We cannot wait for a distant, unknowable, unpredictable future. We cannot wait for politicians’ promises or guarantees. They know nothing. Ask the question, “Does this improve our lives, now?”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. The key equation in economics: Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The real twist on “Operation Twist”: A great deal of sound and fury signifying ignorance

People have asked me whether Ben Bernanke “really” understands Monetary Sovereignty, or whether he is playing ignorant because that currently is politic. Judge for yourself.

Time Magazine: Stocks Fall as the Fed Launches Operation Twist
Posted by Stephen Gandel Monday, October 3, 2011

On Monday, Ben Bernanke launched his latest effort to boost the economy. The stock market, for one, seems skeptical it will work.

The plan, which has been dubbed Operation Twist, is for the Fed to cash out of $400 billion worth of its short-term bonds and replace them with long-term debt. The first move came Monday morning when the Fed bought $2.5 billion worth of long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. The Fed has been buying U.S. Treasury bonds ever since the financial crisis in an effort to drive down interest rates and boost lending and hopefully the economy.

Note that line: “The Fed has been buying U.S. Treasury bonds ever since the financial crisis in an effort to drive down interest rates and boost lending . . . “

Is this classic debt-hawk ignorance, or what?. They want the federal government, which can afford anything, to borrow less. But they want the private sector, which is struggling to pay its bills, to borrow more.

Federal deficit spending creates money. Private sector deficit spending (aka borrowing) also creates money. But, federal deficit spending is far more stimulative than private deficit spending. (See: Is federal money better than other money? > In fact, there is a serious question as to whether private deficit spending is stimulative at all.

So, why would any sane person want the private sector to borrow more and the federal government to borrow less?

I award Mr. Bernanke one dunce cap for this effort. Why just one? Because he has been put in the impossible position of trying to grow the economy without having the tools to do so, while Congress, which does have the tools, is doing everything it can to shrink the economy.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–You never will know what you have lost. Part II

In the post titled, “You never will know what you have lost,” I describe how deficit cutting invisibly reduces our standard of living.

Here is yet another example of how eliminating the federal government’s ability to enrich the economy will affect us all:

Top federal watchdog faces budget cuts
Washington Post, By Ed O’Keefe, 10/03/2011

(The Government Accountability Office), the nation’s most prominent federal watchdog, often credited with identifying potential taxpayer savings, may soon fall victim to steep government spending cuts.

(This agency) stands to lose up to $50 million in funding this year that its defenders say would force widespread layoffs and the closure of its regional offices. Current budget proposals also would force the agency to detail the costs and manpower used to publish each of its reports, a task that supportive lawmakers fear could politicize the nonpartisan office.

More people on the unemployment rolls. That should “help” the economy.

GAO publishes more than 1,000 reports and audits annually, and agency officials frequently testify before congressional committees to detail their findings. Despite its relatively spot-free reputation and the billions of dollars in potential savings it has identified in recent years, House and Senate appropriators responsible for drafting the legislative branch budget seem determined to force the GAO to reduce, as part of a 5.2 percent drop in all congressional spending.

As Washington seeks ways to cut back, “the buck shrinks here,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch. He said his proposed cuts “are real and will force Congress and the agencies on Capitol Hill to live with less.”
[…]
His proposed budget also would require GAO to include detailed spending reports with each publication it releases that account for how many employees worked on the report, the total hours spent producing it and a tally of related travel expenses.

Nelson’s proposals are infuriating several of his Senate colleagues, particularly Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a frequent critic of government spending who often relies on GAO to help him root out cases of waste, fraud and abuse.

Requiring detailed spending reports would “be an overly burdensome mandate that would further consume GAO’s dwindling resources without providing any obvious cost benefit,” Coburn and four other colleagues wrote last week in a letter sent to Nelson’s subcommittee. No other congressional office — including the Congressional Research Service, which also publishes thousands of reports — is required to provide detailed spending totals, they said.

Day by day, we die the death of a thousand invisible cuts, at the hands of people who know not what they do – like doctors who would cure anemia by bleeding the patient with leeches.

As I said in that earlier post:

The list goes on and on: The lame who might have walked. The blind who might have seen. The children who might have given to America. The tornados and hurricanes and earthquakes that might have been foreseen or stopped. The money that investors might have saved. The inventions never invented. The recessions and depressions that might have been avoided. The wars that might have been won or prevented. The life-saving drugs that might have been developed. The people who might not have died too soon. The beauty never created. The ideas lost. The better world that might have been. You never will know.

And we trade all this potential for the reality of a meaner, uglier, less elegant life, especially for the lower classes, who will be affected most by deficit reduction, though we all will be affected. What a waste, given the tools we’ve been given, that we intentionally should deprive ourselves and our children and our grandchildren of the benefits a society can offer, and instead retreat toward the days of hardscrabble anarchy.

What have we lost? What will we lose tomorrow? You never will know.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–What is the one thing no one will believe?

Science buffs probably enjoyed reading the many articles appearing recently in newspapers and magazines all over the world, exemplified by today’s editorial:

Was Einstein wrong?

The latest in a long line of challengers (to Einstein): scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Last week they startled physicists around the world – and a few nonphysicists, too – by declaring they had recorded subatomic particles called neutrinos treveling saster than the speed of light. . .

. . . A cornerstone of Einsteinian theory is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, about 186,000 miles a second. . . .

“It would be amazing, everyone would be jumping up and down like crazy,” Cal Tech theoretical physicist Sean Carrol told us. “It would certainly be the most surprising discovery in the last 100 years.”

Reality check: The CERN experimenters are probably wrong.

This editorial goes on about how unlikely this speculative finding is, but despite this low probability, the editorial warrants a full 1/3 page space in a major market newspaper, the – you guessed it – Chicago Tribune.

The point of this blog post: A one-time, low probability, almost-sure-to-be-found-wrong finding, by one group of scientists is given prominent space, while a high probability, almost-sure-to-be-found correct, decades-long finding by dozens of respected scientists worldwide is never given even a mention in the same paper. I’m talking about Modern Monetary Theory / Monetary Sovereignty.

Why the difference?

Is it because the Tribune’s editors, and like minded editorial writers, realize they know nothing about physics, and so will print anything that physicists send around? Is it that the editors have no solid beliefs or background in physics, and don’t want to look like idiots by disagreeing with physicists?

Contrast physics with economics: The editors know economics, or believe they do. After all, economics is just money – spending, saving, earning, borrowing, owing, paying, investing, losing. While the Tribune editors know nothing about neutrinos, they surely know everything about dollars. So while they will accept almost anything the physicists say about neutrinos, the editors will accept nothing about money that differs from what they already know.

So that’s it? That’s why news about a complex, unknowable (to the editors) subject receives the respect news about a familiar subject doesn’t. Right?

No, I don’t think so. I think the real problem is the Tribune’s and virtually all newspapers’ editors have too much, as the saying goes, “skin in the game.” Before 1971, the end of the gold standard, they spoke of the need to reduce deficits, and never changed after 1971. They have preached the same “debt-is-a-ticking-time-bomb” sermon since at least 1940, and are so committed they cannot bring themselves to admit to the world they have been wrong, wrong, wrong. Even worse than admitting you’ve been wrong is admitting your errors have forced politicians to pursue schemes damaging to America.

If Monetary Sovereignty just were counter-intuitive, I suspect curiosity would drive the editors to look at the data. They are, after all, newspaper people, accustomed to seeking out hidden facts and bringing them to their readers. That is their world. It’s why they delight in writing editorials about neutrinos.

But they don’t seek the unfamiliar facts about our economy. They turn away. They close their eyes. They scream “Na, na, na, I can’t hear you,” and that only could mean, “I don’t want to hear you.” In the Chicago Tribune’s case, even the man who is President, Publisher and CEO has his hands clapped tightly over his ears.

Throughout history, it always has been hard to convince honored doctors their favorite treatment has been killing people. Call it the Semmelweis syndrome.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: