debt

The LA Times editor says they are publishing this letter, so I'm posting it in case anyone else may want to send something like it to their paper. Feel free to rewrite, improve, expand, whatever you like. But as Ralphbon notes in the comments below, cut-and-paste copying is probably not the best idea. If it starts looking like a form letter, it'll be trashed.

The Times only accepts pieces under 150 words, so this one is short. It's in response to an editorial entitled "Debt and Taxes in DC."

And here's the letter:

RE: Debt & Taxes in DC (9 November, 2012)

We, the Enemies?

Read below the fold...

There are no operational or legislative constraints which prevent the Federal government from eliminating deficits and debt forever.

Cynical subversion triumphs in the national debate on tax policy. Ezra Klein's review of the Tax Policy Center's report further dissects Romney's Tax Plan so that the regular guy can appreciate just how much worse off he will be with Romney. But what none of these analyses of the Romney or the Obama Tax Plans question is the fundamental rationale for taxation and borrowing to generate revenue in the first place. Read below the fold...

I originally wrote the following essay in late 2009, almost three years ago. I never got it published, though I did circulate it privately. At the time I theorized that debt was the common element of oppression in American life across ages, ethnic groups, geography, etc.. Debtors were the largest oppressed group in the US if only they would recognize it. Therefore teachingpeople to recognize that fact would be a way of organizing people against the current system. Read below the fold...

House leaders have agreed on a compromise continuing spending resolution at the same level as before from October 2012 through March 2013. It's likely now that the President(s?) will probably try to make the money available for deficit spending, as of today, last through the time period of the continuing resolution so that one deal including both the budget and raising the debt limit can be made by March of 2013. Read below the fold...

It's hard to listen to the doomsday rhetoric of Austerians like Paul Ryan and intermittently the less hysterical, but equally mythical narratives of the President when he talks about deficit/debt reduction, when you know better; when you know that both are talking about a bogeyman that doesn't exist. Here's Ryan, the Republican wunderkind:

“We face a crushing burden of debt. The debt will soon eclipse our entire economy, and grow to catastrophic levels in the years ahead.”

Read below the fold...

This one is a message intended for all progressive organizations, especially those who have worked so hard to derail the drive for cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, or are working hard to protect other valuable discretionary programs.

There's another hostage-taking coming in the next three months over the 2012 Budget legislation. You know it! I know it! Everyone knows it!

So ask yourselves these questions:

1. Would Congress and the President be trying to cut Federal spending if the Treasury General Account (TGA) at the Fed had more than $50 Trillion in it?

Read below the fold...

How can the President win a victory for the people in the coming hostage-taking over the budget? Here's a scenario!

1. Mint a platinum coin with face value big enough to cover pay-off of the national debt, and the gap between tax revenues and Government spending for many years to come. For example, $60 Trillion in face value would generate enough electronic credits in the Treasury General Account (TGA) at the Fed to last for about 20 years or through 2030. Result: $60 Trillion in the TGA, none of it spent, so no possibility of inflation. Read below the fold...

Over the past year, in an attempt to head off the austerity program gaining steam in Washington, DC, I've blogged the truth about the deficit/debt problem on many occasions. That truth is that there is no deficit/debt problem, and that deficits and debts, no matter how large they may be, don't affect the ability of the United States to create more money.

So, there is not and cannot be a solvency problem, unless Congress refuses to do its duty and appropriate dollars to pay the Government's bills. Of course, if the Government spends beyond what's necessary to add enough aggregate demand for the US to get to full employment, then demand-pull inflation will result from the excess spending. But 1) we've got a long way to go until we reach that point; and 2) the inflation issue not a debt/deficit/solvency issue.

So, the solvency issue needs to be taken off the table for discussion, and certainly as a basis for action, and austerity programs and long-term deficit reduction plans like those of Paul Ryan and the Administration. In addition, our erstwhile leaders need to all get off their high horses about fiscal responsibility, fiscal sustainability, "biting bullets," "having adult conversations," and other such nonsense, and face up to their real responsibility which is spending enough, in the right way, to give every American who wants to work a job at a living wage with decent fringe benefits. Until they do that, they are the ones who are being fiscally as well as morally irresponsible. Read below the fold...

A national teach-in on "Austerity, Debt, Corporate Greed, (and what YOU can do about it)."

Hosted by Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West, livestreamed, followed by local teach-ins and DIY strategy session. Over 180 campuses participating.. Read below the fold...

In a beautifully simple post that should crystallize everything for you, Professor Stephanie Kelton of the University of Missouri at Kansas City crystallizes the logic of the Sectoral Financial Balance Model for President, Obama, the Catfood Commission, the deficit hawks and doves and you and me. She says:

In a 'closed economy' (one without foreign trade), the government's budget position is, by accounting logic -- the negative of the private sector's (firms and households combined) position. Thus, a public sector DEFICIT is equal to the private sector's SURPLUS. To the penny.

So, in a closed economy, a Federal Government budget deficit adds to private sector financial assets, while a Government surplus represents a leakage and subtracts financial assets from the private sector. Or more briefly, Government deficits make private individuals richer; Government surpluses make private individuals poorer. Read below the fold...

Earlier this month, Thomas Geoghegan wrote a piece for The Nation telling the Democrats the ten things they could do to really get the base excited, and at the same time do good things for the country. Here's his list.

1. Raise Social Security to 50 percent of working income.

2. Let's extend Medicare to people 55 to 65.

3. Make it a civil right to join, or not to join, a labor union.

4. Put in a usury cap of 16 percent.

5. Set up small government banks like the German Sparkasse.

6. Give everyone the right to six days of vacation -- six consecutive paid working days.

Read below the fold...

Orszag's maiden voyage at the New York Times entitled “One Nation, Two Deficits,” is full of myths, and that's the polite way to say it. I'll review these and comment on each of them one-by-one. Read below the fold...

This is probably the wrong time to post this, but I just discovered this blog and the angry posts about education, employment and debt there. Don't get me wrong; I can wax plenty angry on those subjects and the way they interact today in this country. But I'm disturbed. It seems to me more and more people are giving up on the idea that education, the real and good kind, is of value in and of itself. I could never believe that. Read below the fold...

These last couple of days, I happened to see a couple of pieces by Robert Borosage. The first of these called “Kick the Old and Disabled to Show We're Serious About Deficits,” is about organizing and fighting back against the deficit terrorist movement to cut Social Security, and reported that Borosage's organization, the Campaign for America's Future, “has joined with 50 other organizations (and growing) representing 35 million Americans to form a coalition”, called “Strengthen Social Security.” He also refers to a panel on Social Security at Netroots Nation that will be “inviting the bloggers across the country to help fend off the assault on Social Security, and join the debate about priorities over the next years.” Then he ends with this: Read below the fold...

Well, maybe not fine, since the global economy is completely, totally, and irredeemably fucked (only a household debt jubilee can save us!). As we've been saying for a while around here, the future holds two decades, or more!, of deflation, defaults, bankruptcy, sovereign restructuring their social program obligations (Note that in the lingo of dominant creditor class, this is called "austerity" instead of "default" because the people they're fucking are poor and middle class). But let's start with a comment from the Economist magazine: Read below the fold...