Tag: recession

The one step that immediately would cure inflation (and no, it isn’t raising interest rates).

Inflation is a general increase in the prices of goods and services. But what factors determine prices?

Cost-plus Pricing | Definition | Example | Advantage - Accountinguide
Economic growth: To lower prices, cut business costs. Recession: To lower prices cut business profits.

Sellers determine prices by answering the question, “What price would provide the most long-term profit?”

If pricing aims to maximize long-term profit, how is profit determined?

Profit is the difference between income and costs. The two ways to increase profit are to increase dollar sales and/or to decrease costs. This is all quite basic.

Pricing is constrained by costs, competitors, customers, and/or laws. 

Costs generally set the lower boundary for pricing, as businesses only temporarily can allow costs to exceed total income.

The old joke, “We lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume” is just that. A joke, at least in the long term.

Competitors, customers, and/or laws set the upper boundary for pricing. Sellers set prices between the lower and upper boundaries by estimating where long-term profits are maximized.

Generally, sellers don’t cut costs just to be nice guys. Their sole purpose is to maximize long-term profits. If long-term profits were not a goal, sellers would have no motivation to cut costs.

This is all basic economics 101, yet economists seem to have forgotten that inflation is price increases and recession is economic growth decreases, and the two are unrelated. The opposite of inflation is not recession. The opposite of inflation is deflation.

You can have price increases with growth decreases, and that’s called “stagflation (stagnation and inflation).

And that is what the Fed and Congress are creating: Stagflation.

There are two ways to cut prices:

  1. Cut business profits, which causes a recession, or
  2. Cut business costs which encourages economic growth.

The best way to fight inflation, i.e. to cut prices, is to cut costs because higher costs lead to higher prices. An important component of most business costs is the cost of labor.

What if I told you there is a simple way to cut the cost of labor without cutting the number of employees or cutting pay scales? 

Well, there is, and it is dead simple: Eliminate the FICA tax and provide free, comprehensive Medicare for All.

FICA costs employers 15,3% of all salaries under $143,000. This means, that for every salaried employee you, as the employer, pay as much as $22 thousand dollars per employee to the federal government. Those are dollars that come directly out of your profits.

They are non-productive dollars that must be made up with higher prices. They are inflation dollars.

And don’t think the employees pay any those dollars. If you, the employer, told your employees they no longer would have FICA deducted from their paychecks, you could lower gross salaries and still leave them with the same net salaries. 

Employers pay the full 15.3% to the government.

As for health care, why has this become a financial burden for businesses? Why does your business pay for any part of health care insurance when the federal government can provide it? Those are lost, non-productive dollars.

And no, federal taxpayers do not fund federal spending. The government could provide Social Security and Medicare to every man, woman, and child in America without collecting a single dollar in taxes.

The federal government cannot run short of dollars. Not ever. Being Monetarily Sovereign, it has the unlimited ability to create U.S. dollars. It neither needs nor uses tax dollars.

The federal government’s trillions of tax dollars extracted from the economy are lost forever. Unlike state and local tax dollars, federal tax dollars are not recirculated back into the economy. They are destroyed upon receipt.

The federal government always has infinite dollars, and adding tax dollars to that does not change how many dollars the federal government has.

IN SUMMARY

  1. Inflation is a general increase in prices.
  2. This increase always is caused by shortages of key goods and services, not by so-called “excessive government spending.”.
  3. The Fed increases interest rates to ease those shortages by reducing demand, but reduced demand is the definition of recession. Thus, the Fed tries to cure higher prices by causing a recession.
  4. The non-recession way to reduce higher prices is to reduce shortages and business costs.
  5. Shortages can be reduced by more federal spending to acquire or encourage the production and distribution of scarce goods and services.
  6. Business costs can be reduced by reducing employment and business taxes. When a business pays less in taxes, its prices can be lowered while generating the same desired long-term profits.
  7. The instant solution to inflation is to eliminate FICA taxes and to provide free Medicare to every man, woman, and child. This will reduce business costs, allowing businesses to lower prices.
  8. The long-term solution to inflation is for the federal government to address shortages by investing in the production and distribution of scarce items: Renewable and nuclear energy, shipping (roads, ships, railroads, airplanes), food, water, computer chips, lumber, and lower federal taxes on businesses and individuals below the upper-income group.

Federal taxes and interest rate increases are recessionary and do not prevent inflation.

Based on the Fed’s reliance on interest rate increases to combat inflation, I predict we will have a long period of stagflation until business profits increase sufficiently to cause business growth.

Tell this to your Congresspeople.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Exactly the wrong way to cure inflation, but the best way to cause a recession.

On May 20th, we posted, “”First do no harm.” How ‘Dr.’ Jerome Powell will worsen the inflation and cause a recession.”

Bingo! 

No problem. You haven’t hit the  ground yet, so we won’t call it a “fall.” We’ll say it’s a step in the plan.

Today, Powell and his cronies debate whether to call where we are “a recession.” He’s worried about semantics as the economy tanks.

Please let me know if there is a more damaging, less effective way to fight inflation than what Powell now is doing.

Consider this: What action should the government take when there is a food shortage, causing food prices to rise?

  1. Government price controls over food? Or,
  2. Reduce federal benefits to the poor, so they will buy less food, thus curing the shortage. Also, reduce farm aid, so there will be even less food produced? Or, 
  3. Fund federal aid to farmers so they can produce more food and give people money so they can buy food?

Number 1 never works. It always leads to more shortages and a reduction in Research and Development, forcing even more shortages.

A classic example is rent controls, which reduce the number of new apartments and cause existing apartments to fall into neglect.

Yet politicians without knowledge of history or economics often turn to price controls.

Number 2 leads to recessions and depressions. Today, we have shortages of oil, food, housing, computer chips, and labor, and these shortages are causing prices to rise, what we call “inflation.” All those who are not rich starve.

Amazingly, the Federal Reserve has chosen solution #2. Raising interest rates makes many goods and services even less affordable, starving the poor and middle classes to cure inflation. Higher interest rates also make increased production more difficult, exacerbating shortages.

The federal government should provide aid to industries whose products are in short supply and to consumers so they can afford those products. Approach #3 is the only correct approach. Cure the shortages, and you cure the inflation.

    • Shortage of food: Federal aid to farmers. Education. Equipment. Insurance. Tax breaks.
    • Shortage of oil: Aid to drillers. Aid to electric car/truck makers. Support for R&D alternative energy
    • Shortage of labor: Eliminate FICA. Reduce tax rates on salaries. Provide Medicare for All.
    • Shortage of lumber: Aid growers. R&D for alternatives. Tax breaks for alternatives
    • Housing shortage: Aid home & apartment builders. Cut interest rates. Tax breaks for renters.
The Enduring Appeal of Leeches | historyrevealed.com
Powell: If she lives, I cured her. If she dies, I did everything I could.

Notice how curing inflation, i.e., fixing shortages, requires more federal spending, not less.

Of course, the expenditures must be targeted toward eliminating the scarcities.

Powell’s interest rate increases only make reducing shortages more difficult.

Those higher rates impoverish consumers and hinder the ability of suppliers to produce.

Powell has found the ultimate way to increase shortages, worsen inflation, and cause a recession.

In effect, Powell is applying leeches to cure anemia.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

  1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
  2. Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics. Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:

  1. Eliminate FICA
  2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
  3. Social Security for all
  4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
  5. Salary for attending school
  6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
  7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 
  8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
  9. Federal ownership of all banks
  10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

How to prevent and cure inflation. (It’s not what the “experts” tell you.)

Two related philosophies about federal finances are MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) and MS (Monetary Sovereignty). You now are reading an MS blog.

MMT and MS agree on the following principle that was expressed by MMT’s L. Randall Wray in his paper “WHAT ARE TAXES FOR? THE MMT APPROACH” 

“Taxes are not needed to ‘pay for’ (federal) government spending. The logic is reversed: government must spend (or lend) the currency into the economy before taxpayers can pay taxes in the form of the currency. Spend first, tax later is the logical sequence.”

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The U.S. government cannot run short of dollars.

U.S. federal taxes are not needed. The U.S. government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.

The U.S. government never unintentionally can run short of dollars. Even if all federal tax collections totaled $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever.

The articles you read about the “unsustainable” federal debt are, very simply, wrong. There is no level of U.S. dollar obligations the federal government cannot easily sustain.

Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

Alan Greenspan: “Central banks can issue currency, a non-interest-bearing claim on the government, effectively without limit. A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

St. Louis Federal Reserve: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets (borrowing) to remain operational.

Professor Wray’s paper continues:

Some who hear this for the first time jump to the question: “Well, why not just eliminate taxes altogether?” There are several reasons.

First, it is the tax that “drives” the currency. If we eliminated the tax, people probably would not immediately abandon use of the currency, but the main driver for its use would be gone.

We disagree with the “taxes drive the currency” notion. Contrary examples abound. Professor Wray’s own “Roobucks” are not “driven” by taxes. They are driven by the discounts they provide. Bitcoin is not “driven” by taxes.

However, the real point is contained in the following paragraphs from Wray’s paper:

Further, the second reason to have taxes is to reduce aggregate demand. If we look at the United States today, the federal government spending is somewhat over 20% of GDP, while tax revenue is somewhat less—say 17%.

The net injection coming from the federal government is thus about 3% of GDP. If we eliminated taxes (and held all else constant) the net injection might rise toward 20% of GDP.

That is a huge increase of aggregate demand, and could cause inflation.

Ideally, it is best if tax revenue moves countercyclically—increasing in expansion and falling in recession.

That helps to make the government’s net contribution to the economy countercyclical, which helps to stabilize aggregate demand.

The implicit assumption of the above paragraphs is that the private sector’s money supply drives inflation, and the way to control inflation is to reduce the private sector’s money supply.

In a similar vein:

A Wikipedia article says, “Low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in the real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the consensus view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth.”

We disagree with Wray and with the Wikipedia author. A “long sustained period” of money supply growth cannot exceed a “long sustained period” of economic growth.

The money supply cannot grow faster than economic growth. The two are interdependent in the formula for GDP:

Real GDP = Real Federal Spending + Real Non-federal Spending + Real Net Exports

A decrease in taxes would increase the “Non-federal Spending” factor and GDP by the same amount. By formula, tax decreases increase GDP.

Inflation usually is defined as a general increase in prices. Another way to say it is, “Inflation reduces the purchasing power of each unit of currency.”

There are two levels of inflation: Intentional and unintentional. The intentional form is the amount that the central bank believes is helpful for a growing economy. The U.S. Federal Reserve has as its target rate, 2% inflation.

When annual inflation drifts above or below the 2% target, the Fed quickly raises and lowers interest rates, i.e. raises to rates combat inflation; lowers rates to stimulate inflation.

(The Fed also lowers interest rates to stimulate economic growth, which follows the common myth that stimulating growth and stimulating inflation require the same actions.)

The Fed’s target rate of inflation is maintained by interest rate control, which controls the demand for, and purchasing power of, U.S. dollars. Increasing the demand for dollars reduces inflation; decreasing the demand for dollars encourages inflation.

But what about high inflation, say of 50% or 50,000% annually or more. Such hyperinflations always are caused by shortages of food and/or energy (oil).

The famous Zimbabwe hyperinflation is a typical example. The government took farmland from white farmers and gave it to blacks who did not know how to farm. The inevitable food shortage caused hyperinflation.

In response, rather than trying to cure the food shortage, the Zimbabwe government began printing more currency.

This provided the illusion that currency printing caused the hyperinflation, when in fact, the hyperinflation caused the currency printing.

Think of a typical scenario this way: The inflation-adjusted money supply goes up. Where does the additional real money go? The vast majority goes to spending, which by definition, increases real GDP.

One might argue that some is saved, but since saved dollars are not spent, they cannot contribute to aggregate demand.

All increases in the real money supply increase real GDP.

Further, and most importantly, all decreases in the real money supply (because of taxes) decrease real GDP. Thus taxes, rather than being effective moderators of inflation, actually are recessive.

Recession is not the opposite of inflation. The two can occur simultaneously. The opposite of inflation is deflation. Taxes do not cause deflation. Deflation, i.e. price decreases, is caused by excess supplies of goods and services.

Thus, removing currency (via taxes) from the economy would have done nothing to cure the inflation, though it would have reduced real (inflation-adjusted) GDP economic growth, while it impoverished the populace.

There are several ways to prevent or cure inflation, but taxation is not one of them. Taxation merely takes dollars from the private sector and delivers them to the federal government, where your tax dollars are destroyed.

Taxation does nothing to address the fundamental cause of inflation: Shortages.

Imagine an inflation caused by a food shortage, and the automatic response is an increase in taxes. How would leaving fewer inflation dollars in the pockets of the people eliminate the food shortage?

It wouldn’t, of course.

Consider again, Zimbabwe: Rather than taxing, designed to reduce the currency supply (while impoverishing the people), or printing currency to increase the currency supply (thereby reducing the already diminished value of Zimbabe’s money), the Zimbabwe government should have taken steps to increase the food supply.

This might have included paying to educate Zimbabwe’s farmers and/or paying experienced farmers to manage farms or paying to import food from other nations.

These steps would have required the Zimbabwean government to spend more money to correct inflation — a counterintuitive response, but the only one based on financial reality.

In Summary
Any time a nation experiences an unwanted level of inflation, the correct early step is to increase interest rates, thus increasing the demand for, and the value of, the nation’s currency.

If the inflation has grown beyond interest rate increases as a sole solution, additional steps are needed:

  1. Determine what exactly is causing the inflation
  2. If the cause is a shortage of food or energy the government must either import the needed food or energy, or fund ways to increase the domestic production of food or energy.
  3. If the government is monetarily non-sovereign (a euro nation, for instance), and cannot afford to fund imports or fund domestic production of the scarce commodities, it immediately should begin the process of issuing its own sovereign currency, i.e. it should make itself Monetarily Sovereign.

Raising taxes is exactly the wrong step since that will worsen the inflation problem, while adding recession to the burden.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The most important problems in economics involve:

  1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
  2. Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded Medicare — parts a, b & d, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Provide a monthly economic bonus to every man, woman and child in America (similar to social security for all)

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The failure of common sense in economics. How the President and Congress ignore economic facts and play Russian roulette with our lives.

Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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There is something of a rule in problem-solving that questions beginning with “How” are to be preceded by a thorough examination of questions beginning with “Should.” President Bush II failed to do that when he asked his advisors questions like, “How do we fight a war in Iraq and Afghanistan” and “How do we arrest Saddam Hussein.” The correct questions were “Should we fight a war in Iraq and Afghanistan” and “Should we arrest Saddam Hussein.”

A football coach does not begin with “How can we increase our passing yardage?” He begins with “Should we increase our passing yardage?” A company does not begin with, “How can we increase the number of our stores?” It begins with a thorough examination of “Should we increase the number of our stores?”

Sadly, President Obama, Congress, the media and the old-line economists work feverishly to answer the question, “How can we reduce the federal deficit?” They believe a thorough examination of “Should we reduce the federal deficit?” is unnecessary. They already “know” the answer, despite massive evidence to the contrary.

When you ask the wrong question, you find the wrong answer. Congress and the President can’t agree on an answer, because the question is wrong. It’s akin to asking, “How should we sail a ship without falling off the edge of the world?”

The correct question is, “Should we reduce the federal deficit?” Many people give perfunctory, knee-jerk answers, such as, “The deficit is not sustainable” or “Our children will pay for it.” But no answers have been based on the one, overriding, undeniable fact:

Federal deficits = net non-federal saving

Cut deficits and you cut saving. Cut saving and you cut economic growth. Cut economic growth and you enter recessions and depressions and the unemployment that accompanies them. The facts are that simple and undeniable. But, the President and members of Congress do not work from facts; they work from what each believes is common sense.

Common sense consists of beliefs most people consider obvious and sound, things “everyone knows.” Yet, your common sense may be different from my common sense, because it is affected by our different personal experiences, as well as by analogy, religion, social mores, history, logic, teaching, folklore, aphorisms, leaders and every form of information transfer, all of which vary from person to person.

The earth must be flat, not round, else the oceans would pour out. Nothing can be in two places at the same time – except in Quantum Mechanics. Running fast does not make your watch run slower – except in Relativity. If a roulette wheel lands on red five times in a row, it is more likely to land on black the next spin. Common sense.

Because common sense does not require research, it allows for fast decisions and is powerfully built into our genes. We have great difficulty departing from our common sense beliefs, because they are evolutionarily valuable. We experience and use common sense every day of our lives. We do not need research to tell us to avoid walking blindly into a street or reaching into a fire. Anyone who intentionally does these things is a “fool.”

So powerful is common sense, we angrily consider all those who depart from of our visions of common sense to be fools. Here are examples of common sense for most Americans:

1. Debt is a burden on the debtor; the more debt, the greater the burden. Debtors can be forced into bankruptcy by creditors.
2. A deficit is worse than a surplus. Outgo requires income. Taxes and borrowing pay for government spending.
3. Everything has a cost and a limit. Nothing can be created from nothing. Nothing goes on forever. There is no such thing as a free lunch. No pain; no gain. If it sounds too good, it is.
4. The greater the supply, the less the value. “Printing” money causes inflation. You can have too much of a good thing.
5. Dollars are real and scarce. They can be held, stored and moved.

Every one of these common sense beliefs either is always false or often false, when applied to the U.S. federal government, because:

1. Federal debt is not a burden. Unlike state and local governments, the federal government cannot be forced into bankruptcy (except by Congress). It can service any debt of any size, any time.
2. Federal deficits stimulate the economy while surpluses cause recessions and depressions. The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses taxes or borrowing to pay its bills.
3. The federal government creates money by marking up the bank accounts of creditors, in a cost-free, pain-free, limit-free process. To the federal government, money is a “free lunch.”
4. Increasing the supply does reduce value, unless demand increases more. Money demand is increased by interest rates. Since we went off the gold standard, there has been no relationship between federal deficit spending and inflation.
5. Dollars have no physical reality. They are nothing more than numbers in bank accounts. Even dollar bills are not dollars; they are receipts or titles for dollars. Dollars are not scarce to the federal government.

These truths are counter to intuition, counter to common sense and counter to the beliefs of most Americans, yet they are truths, nonetheless.

Very soon, Americans will face the cold reality of recession or depression, caused by Congress’s and the President’s following their “common sense,” rather than economic fact. Federal spending for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and many other vital federal services will decline. We will suffer “invisible” pain from the loss of scientific and medical research, declining infrastructure, a weaker military, poorer schools, less food and drug inspection, and worse investment protections. Our standard of living will decline. Unemployment will worsen. Destitution will increase. Our children and our grandchildren will lead meaner lives. Their futures will be impoverished.

And most Americans will not realize what has been done to them.

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


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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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY