"Economist" Jared Bernstein's credentials: Bachelor of Music Masters in Social Work Doctor of Social Work(non PhD.) Lol
I was saying this prior to Covid, but Covid spending kind of pointed out the problem when taken to the extreme. I would have thought that would have squelched some of their chattering. Inflation popped up, and 2 years later we are still fighting it. Plus politically people HATE inflation, and unchecked inflation can lead to political instability.
Actually, I don’t think she recommends increasing taxes as a means to combat inflation in her book, just interest rates. And she argues the purpose of taxes is not really to raise revenue (since you can magically raise the revenue as much as you want through unlimited printing) but rather strictly to put a limit of how rich people can get. In the same book, she also advocates (with all of this free money) declaring universal employment by fiat without respect to the conduct or performance of employees. In her support of her arguments, she cites that Bernie Sanders and AOC (who has declared that inflation is also not real, just like money) both agree with her. Frightening that people like her exist and politicians listen to them.
You may be right, I haven’t studied it closely. But even if she is advocating the sledge hammer of interest rates, we have basically been running an MMT experiment. High interest rates reduce inflation but they have negative side effects. If it’s bad enough you have to go full Volcker and crash the economy.
There were other factors like supply issues but there definitely demand side impacts due to the high deficits, which also exacerbated the supply issues.
Love to. Should I apply to be Biden’s economic advisor? The Fed sets interests rates as it lends money to banks. This controls monetary policy and addresses short term needs of the banks, along with creating revenue for the federal government. Why doesn’t the Fed just continue to print more money instead of borrowing? The country would not able to consume more because there is more money. Printing too much money would devalue the currency and create inflation in the country. Why does the government borrow money? When the federal government runs a deficit, the Department of the Treasury borrows money to make up the difference between spending and revenue. Then, if special funds like the Medicare trust fund have surpluses, the “extra” revenue is lent to the rest of the federal government. Government bonds are issued by governments to raise money to finance projects or day-to-day operations. The U.S. Treasury Department sells the issued bonds during auctions at regular intervals throughout the year.
I don't know man. Looking at turnover it seems like Biden's presidency is a MASSIVE improvement over the last one. Do you think that Trump just hired a bunch of morons? Or they all got tired of working for a moron? At this point in the previous administration—March of 2020—President Trump had already seen 10 of his cabinet members in the line of succession depart. He would go on to see 14 total of the agency heads leave by the time his term expired. That was an unusual figure, with the former president’s mercurial nature and public humiliations of his top officials contributing to the tumult of his administration. Last week, then-Housing and Urban Development Department Secretary Marcia Fudge retired. By contrast to his predecessor, that marked just the second cabinet member in the line of succession that President Biden has lost. Since President Reagan, that is tied for the lowest total for a first-term administration with President George W. Bush. The Biden administration has far less turnover than Trump. Does that impact agency performance?
That's very much the point, though. A once-in-a-generation pandemic (I hope) caused anomalous and massive global supply chain disruptions. Energy was also impacted in significant ways by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I'm just saying that it was a more nuanced issue than the government spending a lot. Certainly, spending played its part, though. Yet, none of this answers the question she asked. The government prints the money. When it runs a deficit, why does it need to "borrow" money? You're saying that the Treasury "borrows" money to make up the difference between spending and revenue. Why? When it borrows money against those special funds, the federal government is borrowing money from itself. Why does it need to engage in this fiction? Why not just spend the money without "borrowing" it? That's what my understanding of the question was. I don't know the answer. The best I could come up with was that it's an accounting practice to track long-term spending. But there are other ways to do that. So I have no idea.
Your reading comprehension is worse than Biden’s. I answered all of her questions to the point. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.
Throwing a temper tantrum because you can't answer the question either is certainly one way you can react.
Where have you been? It’s always been about Trump as soon as people are asked to answer legitimate questions about our current leaders in Washington.
I answered the question. The government is no different than any other person or entity. It borrows money when expenses exceed income. The Federal government does not have one large pot of money to withdraw funds from. Money is allocated by federal law. The money is maintained separately whether it is for the department of defense, interior or whatever. Medicare is its own separate trust fund, along with other social security and etc. If one department has excess funds, it can lend to another department. The Interior department cannot dip into defense funds just because it needs the money. I know you love Trump so much. He tried to build the wall but the democrats kept arguing there were no funds allocated to building the wall. Instead Trump dipped into the defense budget, as he argued it was for national defense. The federal government cannot continue to print money it doesn’t have. If it does, it devalues the dollar and creates inflation. Printing more money has consequences. Do I need to go more basic than that? By devaluing the dollar, trade deficits increase, which increases the cost of foreign goods and services. Which in turn increases the costs of domestic goods. If inflation goes up and the dollar is devalued, there is less profit for domestic exports. Which creates another spiraling effect. I am not going to write a novel on this. You can purchase a text book Economy 101 which explains this.
