Charles citing David Graeber the anthropologist that the growing public debt appoaching 100% of GDP is not a problem:
"1. The U.S. government can charge its employer (the taxpayer) pretty much anything it wants to." Other than democracy, human nature and public choice theory tell us that the people are willing to borrow and spend but not tax themselves, so no, the US government cannot collect whatever taxes it wants. "2. When households owe money, they owe it to other people. The U.S. debt is owed mainly to ourselves.Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. debt is not mainly owed to China. In fact, roughly 70% of it is owed right here at home. Even more remarkably, the vast majority of that is owed to the government itself mainly to the Federal Reserve or other government accounts. Granted, the Fed is a semi-independent entity, but the President appoints its chairman and its purpose is to serve the U.S. public. Money owed to a bank you ultimately control is simply not the same as money your family owes to Citibank." People on this list keep on telling me that the bonds in the Social Security trust fund are no different than the bonds held by the Chinese. Apparently Graeber disagrees. "3. When households owe money to other people, they can't just print it. The government can. . . . The only real limit is the danger of inflation: If we flood the economy with too many dollars, the dollar itself might begin to lose its value. This is the scare story the deficit hawks always trundle out. The irony is that at the moment we have exactly the opposite problem: Not enough money is circulating, so the Fed right now is printing dollars with reckless abandon." How does Graeber, or the Federal Reserve, "know" not enough money is circulating? Commodities from gold to oil to food have skyrocketed. The Fed seems fixed on (1) housing prices and (2) job growth, because apparently the Fed is reliant on the position papers prepared by the National Association of Realtors and Homebuilders that the economy will collapse if we don't do everything to reignite the housing bubble, build homes people can't afford and ensure that people use their homes as ATMs. Why doesn't Graeber simply suggest that the government send every home a check for $100,000 written on a Fed account? Wouldn't that solve all problems? David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
