In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On October 30 2014 14:08 oneofthem wrote: hardship isn't the standard. it's a distorting and undue burden.
What does this post mean?
When you know all the arguments in and out, but more so "right and wrong", you are bored and discuss things on a meta level from time to time.
But I have not thanked him for the INETeconomics link yet, so thanks one!
well this is not a meta comment lol. i was just saying introvert keeps focusing on "hardship" when it's too high of a standard. an undue burden is to get an id so close to the elections, and it is distorting politically.
True, but you are in the habit of doing that from time to time nonetheless ;p
"I'll debate you any time you like".... "How about tonight?"... "There's 1000 things I'll do tonight, dinner (debating) you won't be one"
Hard to give him points for 'straight talk' when he is saying he would discuss the issue anytime quickly followed by completely blowing off the idea of discussing it.
a lot of things happened in japan and it's hard to see which ones he likes because he did not specify. but this passage should be a hint.
Policies that would ordinarily be prudent and virtuous, like balancing the budget or taking a firm stand against inflation, become recipes for a deeper slump. And it’s very hard to persuade influential people to make that adjustment — just look at the Washington establishment’s inability to give up on its deficit obsession.
What theyre doing right according to pail krugman is the boj monetizing literally every bond issues by the treasury. Money is free and deficits dont matter amirite
Krugman isn't apologizing to Japan at all. He's just smugly arguing that he was right about Japan doing stupid shit, and now he's right about the US and Europe doing the same-but-worse stupid shit.
On November 01 2014 04:07 bookwyrm wrote: What theyre doing right according to pail krugman is the boj monetizing literally every bond issues by the treasury. Money is free and deficits dont matter amirite
it does not matter when japan is experiencing no inflation. their sales tax raise fucked them hard.
On November 01 2014 04:14 xDaunt wrote: Krugman isn't apologizing to Japan at all. He's just smugly arguing that he was right about Japan doing stupid shit, and now he's right about the US and Europe doing the same-but-worse stupid shit.
Well basically he's saying that what he advised Japan to do didn't help because they didn't do enough of it. And if it isn't going to work again he's probably going to say the same.
Ive stopped believing anything people with econ backgrounds say about inflation, you are all living in some kind of fantasy world but its not worth trying to understand. If you are funding a government with a mint, you are fucked somehow, it doesnt matter what your 'indicators' say - its just common sense
So therefore... its okay for governments to finance themselves by printing scrip? That is totally cool and not at all an unstable situation? I dont see your point
but dont listen to me, im just the idiot who doesnt realize that everything has changed because of the industrial revolution and modern finance and the problems that have plagued literally every state in human history dont exist anymore because weve figured it all out
On November 01 2014 05:01 aksfjh wrote: It is an unstable situation, which is why you don't do it permanently. You can still do it in stints around a crisis though. I'll explain more later.
He has a point tho, its the same with debt. You gain it during crisis and replay it during property, its often that second part tho that often falls by the wayside when the time is there.
On November 01 2014 04:51 bookwyrm wrote: So therefore... its okay for governments to finance themselves by printing scrip? That is totally cool and not at all an unstable situation? I dont see your point
but dont listen to me, im just the idiot who doesnt realize that everything has changed because of the industrial revolution and modern finance and the problems that have plagued literally every state in human history dont exist anymore because weve figured it all out
japan's expansive monetary policy is not an effort at financing anything. it was to introduce inflation to fight balance sheet debt(as in, the private actors are taking money out of the economy by paying down their substantial debt, while their assets yield little) and discourage parking. the boj buys the bonds so private japanese investors would move to invest in higher yield assets and not be so risk averse. however, their demand is turgid and their IS curve is vertical. the sales tax largely cancelled the expansionary monetary policy.
their government debt is largely a reflection of unproductive investment decision made by their people. it's not a foreign debt problem so the debt denominated in their own currency does not threaten the 'solvency' of japan.
On November 01 2014 05:30 bookwyrm wrote: How many years can you keep saying that and people still believe it? Im still waiting for jesus to come back also
if youre just going to give me keynesianism for dummies you can save your thumbs. I get it. Really. I get it.
You really don't get it. Apparently, anything after Dutch tulips has you so dumbfounded that you just lock up and refuse to believe it.
The "apology" comes from those that heavily criticized Japan's government after their banking crisis in the 90s. They have/had all the same symptoms and problems we have now, with aging demographics, falling demand, and record low borrowing rates. They finally had solid growth, but then cut back slightly and the growth faltered. Krugman and others criticized that the cut back undermined the progress that was occurring.
When the "West" had it's chance to solve the same issues at home, we did spectacularly worse. The US hardly even did anything to begin with (in relation to the size of the crash), while Europe has consistently taken steps to make the situation worse (like increasing rates at the smallest whiff of progress). Unlike Japan, there has been widespread suffering and under-utilization of labor force. Like he says at the end of the article, what many economists had believed to have been a cautionary tale of what "not-to-do" in that situation, instead, became the best example of what to do after the US and Europe took a shot at it.
As for the Keynes aspect of it, the discussion has actually evolved in the past 6 years since the crisis. The crudely simple application is still relevant, "deficits in bad times, balanced in good times." However, there has been mounting evidence that there are indicators of when/if you hit that window for when to shift weight from one to the other. With proper monetary policy, inflation should kick up before you start pulling on the purse strings and interest rates. Inflation is easy to control, if it gets too high, pull a Volcker and increase rates. If government borrowing becomes a large burden at that point (as in, yields on TBonds are HUGE) then you focus on the budget and collection aspects. Everything is marketed at this point and it gives ample data of what to do and when to do it. All we need to do is pay attention to it from a macro standpoint and not try to beat/preempt it.
On November 01 2014 04:51 bookwyrm wrote: So therefore... its okay for governments to finance themselves by printing scrip? That is totally cool and not at all an unstable situation? I dont see your point
but dont listen to me, im just the idiot who doesnt realize that everything has changed because of the industrial revolution and modern finance and the problems that have plagued literally every state in human history dont exist anymore because weve figured it all out
japan's expansive monetary policy is not an effort at financing anything. it was to introduce inflation to fight balance sheet debt(as in, the private actors are taking money out of the economy by paying down their substantial debt, while their assets yield little) and discourage parking. the boj buys the bonds so private japanese investors would move to invest in higher yield assets and not be so risk averse. however, their demand is turgid and their IS curve is vertical. the sales tax largely cancelled the expansionary monetary policy.
their government debt is largely a reflection of unproductive investment decision made by their people. it's not a foreign debt problem so the debt denominated in their own currency does not threaten the 'solvency' of japan.
Exactly. The sales tax was supposed to offset their recent stimulative measures, as a self-fulfilling Ricardian Equivalence. It's no wonder that they began to stumble again until recently when they announced a delay in that tax and expanded monetary policy further. With all that's going on, it seems the powers that be in Japan are tired of groaning along and are finally resolving to do whatever it takes to get their economy growing again (at least per capita). It seems their bank is going to increase their "printing" until they literally fear inflation, instead of doing what has been done, which is to fear the fear of inflation.
On November 01 2014 05:30 bookwyrm wrote: How many years can you keep saying that and people still believe it? Im still waiting for jesus to come back also
if youre just going to give me keynesianism for dummies you can save your thumbs. I get it. Really. I get it.
To be fair you don't need a photo ID to buy anything one way or another legally in most states.
Then again to be fair I'd like to see Democrats try to argue against bringing our election standards up to mexico levels at the least. No one else in the world just takes your word that you are who you say you are when you vote. You don't even need a reason to vote absentee in minnesota this year. Election fraud is WAY too easy even if it doesn't happen as much as people would like to admit.
You just don't get that I don't believe in your assumptions about the ahistorical secular dynamics of the business cycle and the premise that what we should be doing is to even it out through government intervention in order to produce a perpetual boom. You just start talking again about how what we should be doing in order to "restart growth." So yeah, I get it. At least you're better than sub40, who recommends books he hasn't read and replies with one liners only. I give up. I can't communicate with you and you have nothing to teach me because you just repeat the same old dogma and refuse to critically examine your assumptions.
I need to learn how to stay unsubscribed from this thread. I keep popping back in thinking that something interesting might happen but the world is falling apart and nobody seems to even be noticing. They're literally just repeating the same banal shit they were saying 4 years ago.
Paul Krugman says that "we should be like Japan" and y'all just nod and go "oh yes, because I learned in econ 101 that when there's a depression you should print a lot of money and restart the business cycle. durrr" Yeah great idea let's turn into Japan. It doesn't even make sense how people can be that oblivious.
EPT
