Originally Posted by Exile 67'

The working folks. Today, we have working folks serving welfare recipients. Welfare recipients are pretty common and you don't have to travel very far to meet one. BTW, you don't have to travel very far to meet a worker who doesn't like them, doesn't identify with them and doesn't support the idea of their tax dollars going to support them either. You also don't have to go very far to meet a struggling parent who can't afford the expense their childs babies who support raising taxes to provide more social programs.

Indeed, but you will likely meet someone who was "right-sized" and has been looking for work for two years on your journey.

Originally Posted by Aramea

The phrase "I was born a poor black child" was running through my head during the coverage of the RNC last week.

edited to fix quote.

Why???????

Originally Posted by Exile 67'

I think people most on public assistance have become accustomed to the idea of having government cake and eating it too.

I think most people on public assistance want to get the hell off and get a decent job. But they'd rather take the government nickel than starve and be homeless.

Originally Posted by Aramea

Indeed, but you will likely meet someone who was "right-sized" and has been looking for work for two years on your journey.

I can call a few of them.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

If it does, I don't know what it would be. Maybe Medicaid; that's about it.

The biggest program is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, serving about 46 million Americans. Most of people on SNAP are either children, workers with low wages, elderly, or disabled. A bunch are unemployed and would love to get a job and get off SNAP.

Medicaid is another biggie. However, there is Medicaid providing basic health insurance for the poor and then Medicaid covering nursing home expenses for elderly people who used up all their savings on nursing home expenses.

Finally, there is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This is cash welfare, and what people usually think of. In 2010, only 4.4 million Americans received TANF; about 1.5 percent of the entire population. You can only receive TANF for a total of 5 years during your lifetime; some States have made it as short as two years.

There are a bunch of smaller programs such as housing subsidies, childcare assistance, and the like, but those are the big three.

Originally Posted by Galen

It is nice to know that when it comes to economics you still remain as clueless as ever. When the Federal Reserve buys assets as it has in QE 1 and QE 2 it does so with money it has created out of nowhere. This printing of money is inflationary which has a range of consequences that depend on how far the Fed goes in its actions. The usual consequence is the boom bust cycle with effects we are all familiar with even if most people, especially playwrite, are clueless about the cause. Hyperinflation is what happens when whoever prints the money gets really stupid, Wiemar Germany and Zimbabwe come to mind

The only bright spot in this rather nasty recession has been getting people to ask the right questions about the business cycle.

The FED exchanges non-interest bearing "printed money" securities (i.e. dollars) for the banks interest-bearing securities (T-bills, mortgages). How does that printed money the banks now have from the exchange get into the economy? It has to be lent out; do you think that is happening?

This is one of the three or four big fatal mistakes of the Austrian School. It is related to the myth of fractional reserve lending - i.e., bank lending is dependent on the size of the bank's reserves. That simple is not the case. From that fallacy comes the notion that too much bank reserves lead to too much money supply in the economy and then to inflation. That is the cause-and-effect mechanism that the Austrians latched onto years ago.

However, in the last 30 years, particularly amplified since the 2008 financial meltdown, that relationship has been shown not to exist. Rather than accept that fact and remove much of the reason for their ranting, the clever Austrians, using their praxeology method (known to most others as bullshitting), decided to just redefine the cause (bank reserves) as the effect (inflation), and screw the mechanism. And thus, all one needs is increased bank reserves and abracadabra, you have inflation (I understand they now also throw in free magic ponies to get the kids to vote Ron Paul).

Now to explain this to Exile lets use the analogy of him first observing that men in the presence of women often create babies.... and he starts jumping up-and-down about there being too many men and we will soon be knee-deep in babies. Problem is all the women decided that men are jerks and they all went shopping. Exile however is still jumping up and down with concern because using his praxeology insight he has decided men ARE babies and too many men ergo too many babies.

Originally Posted by Exile 67'

Why???????

I always think of that quote when I hear over the top bootstrapping. What I wouldn't have given for someone to say "My grandfather was an oil tycoon; we didn't want for shit" or something. I understand that people seem to think that Romney needs to "relate" to the commoner, but he can't, dining off of an ironing board aside. All of the main speakers did it. I hope Dems don't fall into that trap this week. Who cares if your clothes were made of flour sacks?

Originally Posted by Aramea

I always think of that quote when I hear over the top bootstrapping. What I wouldn't have given for someone to say "My grandfather was an oil tycoon; we didn't want for shit" or something. I understand that people seem to think that Romney needs to "relate" to the commoner, but he can't, dining off of an ironing board aside. All of the main speakers did it. I hope Dems don't fall into that trap this week. Who cares if your clothes were made of flour sacks?

Maybe before November someone will claim to have been born in a log cabin :

It was a big winner for much of the 19th century. :

Originally Posted by Exile 67'

Aren't you a 1%'er? How does a manipulating blue krohny like yourself become a 1%'er and remain a 1%'er? Are you any different than them? Do you really believe the nation getting a bit darker (presumably dumber, less educated and more easily manipulated due to their internal fear/hatred of whites) is going to add that much to your political advantage in the future or add a great deal to the American future? Do you really believe a culturally advanced modern day blackman is going to vote to sacrifice half his profits/extra earnings to support his f-d up cousin and provide for his f-d up girlfriend and their soon to be f-d up kids?

What I believe is that it is too easy to distract and manipulate people like you by playing on your fears of becoming even more incapable of dealing in the real world.

I believe it is much too easy to get you to believe there are bogymen keeping you from obtaining your fantasyland of magic ponies pooping out gold nuggets and freedom fries.

And I know you won't change. BUT, your current ability as a group to stymie progress will.

Tic, tic, tic....

Originally Posted by Exile 67'

The working folks.

Then you should say "they," not "we." You're a business owner. You employ working folks; you AREN'T one of them.

Originally Posted by Exile 67'

... Today, we have working folks serving welfare recipients. ..

So now you want to take incomes away from working folks???

This is what the dumb-as-dirt folks don't get - one person's spending is another person's income. The funds that the federal govt injects into the economy - by either buying goods and services directly or by paying some one (e.g. welfare, SS, Medicare, military, govt workers) - provides incomes to 100s of millions of people who then in turn spend to provide incomes to 100s of millions of people.

The question is whether the govt is spending too much or too little into the economy and, in combination with the spending by the private sector, causing prices to rise or fall. That depends on the current economic situation.

Tell me, Sherlock, do you think there's too much or too little demand in the economy right now? Because if you think like most people there’s too little, then why do you want to take further income away from hard working people by reducing the spending done by people on welfare? Seems just a little… well, how can I say this, oh yea…. seems more than just a little STUPID!

Originally Posted by The Rani

You must have missed the exchange where both Odin and Exile agreed that they'd rather not have to work.

Anyone would rather not HAVE to work. Most people would prefer a more comfortable lifestyle than public assistance affords, though, to say nothing of escaping the scrutiny and hoop-jumping that seems to accompany it most of the time. In order to achieve that, they DO have to work, whether they want to have to or not.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nice attempt at distortion, but that's not what they said.

It wasn't an attempt at distortion; if it distorted their conversation that was inadvertent.

In any case, what I said fits with what Jenny said whether it fits with what they said or not. And she's still right.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Then you should say "they," not "we." You're a business owner. You employ working folks; you AREN'T one of them.

Business owners are working folks.

Originally Posted by playwrite

So now you want to take incomes away from working folks???

This is what the dumb-as-dirt folks don't get - one person's spending is another person's income. The funds that the federal govt injects into the economy - by either buying goods and services directly or by paying some one (e.g. welfare, SS, Medicare, military, govt workers) - provides incomes to 100s of millions of people who then in turn spend to provide incomes to 100s of millions of people.

The question is whether the govt is spending too much or too little into the economy and, in combination with the spending by the private sector, causing prices to rise or fall. That depends on the current economic situation.

Tell me, Sherlock, do you think there's too much or too little demand in the economy right now? Because if you think like most people there’s too little, then why do you want to take further income away from hard working people by reducing the spending done by people on welfare? Seems just a little… well, how can I say this, oh yea…. seems more than just a little STUPID!

What you arer describing is a perpetual motion machine. What you're forgetting is that, someday, someone gets to pay for that "injection."

Or are you going to give us another heaping helping of MMT?

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

Business owners are working folks.

If you re-define "working folks" to mean "anyone who performs any labor under any circumstances," everyone is working folks and the phrase loses all meaning.

In the normal usage, no, they're not.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

What you arer describing is a perpetual motion machine. What you're forgetting is that, someday, someone gets to pay for that "injection."

There are a lot of beliefs of that nature running around. For example, at the heart of capitalism is a belief that returns on investment can be maximized forever, even though doing so undercuts consumer demand and hence removes the ability to have a return on investment.

Capitalism is an attempt to eat one's cake and have it, too. Perhaps that's why MMT emerged in a capitalist economy.

"Working folks" is a phrase that, in actual usage, means people who work for a wage, serving the profits of someone else. It implies a status as someone's employee.

It's true that one could twist the phrase into meaning something else based on the meaning of the two words "working" and "folks" in isolation, but it would be a different phrase that just happens to sound and spell the same. Sort of like saying that Mr. Obama's predecessor in the White House is a small, tree-like plant.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If you re-define "working folks" to mean "anyone who performs any labor under any circumstances," everyone is working folks and the phrase loses all meaning.

In the normal usage, no, they're not.

Perhaps in your dictionary. From my perspective, a guy who owns and works in his own gas station and many a farmer on a family owned farm are working folks. Again, you are not Noah Webster.

Now, many a capitalist owns a share in lot of places he profits off of and never sets foot in. I don't see that either the self employed gas station owner nor the absentee capitalist are totally anathema. One just can't let anyone at any level rig the system to work for their own benefit only, not allowing those filling other slots to do well.

You have the idealist's perspective of seeing things in black and white. There are lots of shades of grey. Those who have set their monitor to 24 bit color do have a better view than those using one bit grey scale.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

What you arer describing is a perpetual motion machine. What you're forgetting is that, someday, someone gets to pay for that "injection."

Or are you going to give us another heaping helping of MMT?

I realize that with your closed mind, this is pretty useless to try to explain; however, what the heck...

By "injection," I believe you mean federal govt spending, and more specifically federal deficit spending which is the spending that exceeds federal revenues.

It terms of taxes, you are not paying for it now, because as noted above, this is spending beyond current taxes.

Will taxes pay for it later then? No because the feds don't use tax money to payoff federal debt. Instead, they roll the entire federal debt over about every three months through the bond market. The feds pay off old bonds, issue new bonds, and bond buyers that just got their old bonds paid off then re-stash their non-interest bearing securities (i.e., money) back into interest-bearing securities (i.e. new T-bills). That's the way it's worked since the country was founded and that's the way it will work into the future.

So, how can we eventually, if ever, pay for the govt "injections" of money into the economy? The answer is that we could pay through higher prices for everything in the economy. That is called demand-pull inflation and it occurs when there is too much demand for the economy to supply. "Injections" (i.e. govt spending) can tip the economy into demand-pull inflation if there already is sufficient demand from private sector spending - the best sign that such a situation exist is that there is full employment.

Is there sufficient demand from private sector spending today? No.

Will there be sufficient private sector spending in the future (i.e. full employment) that would make govt "injections" inflationary? No one knows the future.

What we do know is that the global economy is getting better and better at supply with less and less need to pay people. At a minimum, that means full employment is very unlikely. It also means that there is substantial potential for DE-flationary pressure on the economy; perhaps enough so that govt injections are the only way to keep up demand in order to maintain, let alone grow, the economy.

People who want less federal spending essentially want less income for a vast number of people. And with less income, those people are going to be spending less and reducing the incomes of other people, and so it goes - keeping the economy mired if not putting it into a deflationary spiral.

This is not rocket science. One just needs a mind open enough to learn something, but like I said earlier that is basically a problem with you.

Originally Posted by playwrite

I realize that with your closed mind, this is pretty useless to try to explain; however, what the heck...

By "injection," I believe you mean federal govt spending, and more specifically federal deficit spending which is the spending that exceeds federal revenues.

It terms of taxes, you are not paying for it now, because as noted above, this is spending beyond current taxes.

Will taxes pay for it later then? No because the feds don't use tax money to payoff federal debt. Instead, they roll the entire federal debt over about every three months through the bond market. The feds pay off old bonds, issue new bonds, and bond buyers that just got their old bonds paid off then re-stash their non-interest bearing securities (i.e., money) back into interest-bearing securities (i.e. new T-bills). That's the way it's worked since the country was founded and that's the way it will work into the future.

So, how can we eventually, if ever, pay for the govt "injections" of money into the economy? The answer is that we could pay through higher prices for everything in the economy. That is called demand-pull inflation and it occurs when there is too much demand for the economy to supply. "Injections" (i.e. govt spending) can tip the economy into demand-pull inflation if there already is sufficient demand from private sector spending - the best sign that such a situation exist is that there is full employment.

Is there sufficient demand from private sector spending today? No.

Will there be sufficient private sector spending in the future (i.e. full employment) that would make govt "injections" inflationary? No one knows the future.

What we do know is that the global economy is getting better and better at supply with less and less need to pay people. At a minimum, that means full employment is very unlikely. It also means that there is substantial potential for DE-flationary pressure on the economy; perhaps enough so that govt injections are the only way to keep up demand in order to maintain, let alone grow, the economy.

People who want less federal spending essentially want less income for a vast number of people. And with less income, those people are going to be spending less and reducing the incomes of other people, and so it goes - keeping the economy mired if not putting it into a deflationary spiral.

This is not rocket science. One just needs a mind open enough to learn something, but like I said earlier that is basically a problem with you.

This is extraordinarily difficult to explain to a Randian true-believer, but I give you props for trying. I, myself, have given up. I did get it through to my step-father, at which time he said "so, we still have to reduce spending because of the deficit". Four sentences don't go by until he says "Obama is bad because unemployment is still over 8 percent". Those are two opposing concepts in today's economy. They cannot tie that knot and I am tired of saying it. Reducing the deficit will increase unemployment, and to-the-moon unemployment is A-OK as long as a Republican is in charge. It is an urgent problem when a Dem is in charge.

Originally Posted by Exile 67'

The working folks. Today, we have working folks serving welfare recipients.

So far as I can tell most working people do not care what sorts of people that they are 'serving', whether as health-care workers or grocery-store checkers. What matters more is the steady paycheck. As far as employers are concerned, Wal*Mart, Safeway, Kroger, Meijer, and Southland are as glad to receive payments as SNAP or WIC as cash or charge-card payments.

Sure, as a customer I might find it aggravating that someone buys sodas, sweet rolls, cookies, or potato chips on welfare payments; if anything I would prefer that they avoid highly-processed foods and prepare their own lasagna from scratch and as a result learn to do something fairly complicated. (As compensation I would allow them to buy detergents, toothpaste, toilet paper, and the like -- so that is not an issue of money). But there might be some reason for people buying a hot barbecued chicken from the deli section -- such as that the power has been cut off. So perhaps I am in no position to make judgments.

Welfare recipients are pretty common and you don't have to travel very far to meet one.

No, it is POOR PEOPLE who are so common. Poverty in a culture that humiliates anyone deprived is a bad thing. Where full employment is seen as giving our economic elites inadequate freedom to wield the lash, poverty implies the degradation of working people who are consigned to poverty.

Can we really afford mass poverty?

BTW, you don't have to travel very far to meet a worker who doesn't like them, doesn't identify with them and doesn't support the idea of their tax dollars going to support them either. You also don't have to go very far to meet a struggling parent who can't afford the expense their childs babies who support raising taxes to provide more social programs.

...and you don't need travel far to find someone who hates classical music. So do we shut down non-profit NPR and college stations and mandate that they give us more country music or right-wing propaganda?

The working people of America deserve more dignity than to be treated like the proles of the nightmarish 'Oceania' of Orwell's 1984... the trend should we end up with Hard Right government. The super-rich and executive elites want it that way because they are exempt from the pain.

Originally Posted by Aramea

I always think of that quote when I hear over the top bootstrapping. What I wouldn't have given for someone to say "My grandfather was an oil tycoon; we didn't want for shit" or something. I understand that people seem to think that Romney needs to "relate" to the commoner, but he can't, dining off of an ironing board aside. All of the main speakers did it. I hope Dems don't fall into that trap this week. Who cares if your clothes were made of flour sacks?

Who are the commoners in todays America? I tell you one thing, it is quite obvious and very clear that the libs have completely lost touch with the working mans mentality. Funny, when a liberal speaks, I think of children who were born with silver spoons in their mouths. I do agree with Playdude, the working class Dems are a dying breed and I'm glad that I'm not one of them.

Originally Posted by The Rani

You must have missed the exchange where both Odin and Exile agreed that they'd rather not have to work.

Holy out of context Batman!

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nice attempt at distortion, but that's not what they said.

The only one doing the distortion is YOU. I am getting sick of your trollish behavior.