🙁
‘The Dollar Is Going to Go to Hell’: Trump
By Justin Menza
July 17 (CNBC) — The U.S. needs to pay down its debt, and that won’t happen if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “goes wild” with more stimulus, Donald Trump told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday.
“The fact is that the country owes $16 trillion, and we just can’t keep doing this,” Trump said. “The dollar is going to go to hell.”
Trump said the artificial Fed stimulus has done nothing, and the only way to get the country back on track is to start paying down debt.
this is interesting and a bit related:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/on-the-curious-persistence-of-inflationary-obsession/
sounds so close to MMT 🙂
Trump, the master of real estate bankruptcy, telling the government to pay down debt. Squawk Box is appropriately named.
Now that Krugman wrote it, perhaps the obstinate on our side will pull their heads out of the clouds and listen. Inflation concerns are the root problem to our economy. I’ve been writing this in comments of various blogs for months only to have most turn a deaf ear and blind eye.
If you want the country to regain its economic footing, we need to beat the drum on two fundamental points:
1. We need to exlicitly say to people we need to print money. Direct, clear, unequivocating, adamant insistence on printing money. Yes, people realize we have the ability, but they don’t believe we have the opportunity because of,
2. Inflation. The populace at large believes money creation is intrinsically inflationary. They believe any amount of money creation will lead to some proportionate rise in prices. The argument goes, “Sure, we could print, but we don’t have the opportunity. The dollar will tank if we do, i.e. hyperinflation will set in, and we’re all going to self-implode.”
We need to remove the underlying objection. We need to answer the unanswered argument. Rebut this nonsense vigorously, and we can make real progress.
@Robert Rice,
Apparently the following was too offensive to make it into the comment section of the NYT:
Listen to some of you blather on about austerian obstinance. “Why bother refuting them, they don’t like facts?” Are you kidding me? Someone should have let MLK Jr. know he should have closed his mouth since his opponents were fact-phobic (I can’t think of any more readily observable fact than black people deserve the same rights as everyone else).
Quit your whining and argue the rebuttal. Money printing is the antidote, not the poison. We have an insufficient supply of it in the hands of the 95% to support and maintain sufficient demand to support healthy employment levels. You want more employment? You want jobs? You want the glory days? Print money, lots of money, and disseminate it fairly to the 95%.
And no, inflation will not be a problem unless we print to excess. A simple analogy: When your mommy and daddy recommended you drink water when you were thirsty, the fact that drinking excess water can kill you, did not prevent you from consuming it in the appropriate moderation to satiate your needs. When grammy and grampy insisted you should stop eating nothing but candy and eat wholesome foods instead, the fact that you might eat what is healthy to excess and turn yourself into a gluttonous turd, does not suggest one should not consume such in reasonable quantities. We need some money printing, a lot frankly, but not to fatty fatterton excess.
@Robert Rice,
I always counter the “if you print money, inflation will follow” by getting the individual to admit, even through their flawed logic, that if too much money = inflation, then therefor, there MUST be a RIGHT amount of printed money. They will usually sign off on this. Then you ask them “How do you know that the right amount of money is currently out there right now?” There’s never an answer offered for this, just a sheepish and confused look. The conversation can be ended with “the right amount of money leads to full employment, productive growth, and stable prices.” While everyone worries about the 3rd point, while the first two have gone to hell.
@Broll The American,
I think you’re onto something good here.
“My dear austerian friend, do you believe money should exist?”
“Yes.”
“Well given this and given your concerns about inflation, you must believe there is some quantity which is not too much and not too little, right?”
“Sure.”
“How do you know when the right amount exists? More importantly, how do you know we are at that ideal amount currently? I would contend we are not in the ideal range, as evidenced by insufficient demand and excess unemployment. This is why I’m suggesting we should print.”
I have tended to focus on the fact they do not understand the inflation causing mechanism. They tend to believe there is some mechanical, direct, proportionate effect money creation has on prices. This is false, but it results in a much longer discussion. Your strategy seems as though it might be much more to the point. I’m glad you mentioned this.
We are stronger as a unit.
@Broll The American,
Yeah thats the way I go when I debate MMT with non-MMT’ers. Been doing it that way for years. All money is printed and de-printed (as Warren has said) electronically so how do we decide how much?
good!!!
well said
@Robert Rice, There’s plenty of money around. The problem is that it’s moving through the economy like oil sludge or molasses. Not to mention that a goodly portion of what is moving is moving in the underground. It’s not just the unbanked who are relying on cash and barter to get along.
At least the Greeks took a look at the problem and came up with an estimate of 40% of GDP escaping the official accounts.
The last time the U.S. shadow economy was objectively assessed was about the year 2000. Some states are doing something about it. California wants to regulate yard sales and limit how often they can be held.
Germany discovered that an employment downturn prompted improvements to the housing stock and neighborhood amenities — additions to capital assets that didn’t get registered.
For some reason, economic analysis keeps getting more and more divorced from reality. You’d think that people looking at material quantities wouldn’t get distracted by angels dancing on the head of a pin.
We’ve moved from conspicuous consumption to vicarious exchange and trade.
@Monica Smith,
In my judgment, velocity is more a lagging indicator of sorts. This is to say, velocity is much about confidence, and confidence is largely determined by income relative to obligations. An “out of wack” ratio between income and obligations tends to sour confidence slowing money velocity. Velocity thus tends to exacerbate an insufficient supply. Increasing the supply has the effect of also increasing confidence and hence velocity. Printing money to increase incomes would increase confidence, and the rest of the dominoes would follow.
In aggregate, perhaps sufficient money does exist. But it is clearly poorly distributed, as evidenced by the fact the 99% are having to hit Warren up for cans of soup 😉 All kidding aside, the evidence is the insufficient demand which is evidence of insufficient income, you get the idea.
People are survivors. If they can survive on barter as a poor substitute for trade via currency, hey, can’t say I blame’m, particularly when their government isn’t implementing the income enhancing policies they need. Then again, that isn’t all government’s fault since it was the people who voted them in. The buck stops with us as they say.
@Robert Rice, Rice what do you think of this, buying and selling citizenships:
http://www.cuca.org.uk/2008/10/19/radically-reforming-welfare-part-2-tradable-citizenship/
More “sacred cows” that most don’t even THINK of trying to change, why, why bust up 500 people in congress, why bust up the currency bloc, why buy and sell citizenships to help immigration reforme, why give a jobs gaurantee, why give money on a per capita basis, etc etc
Erickson, hickey, a few others, warren on some issues, there just aren’t enough people talking about all the options we need to be exploring, all the sacred cows that must die, we need more ericksons, we need faster creative destruction of all our systems, government, currency, judicial, technology, patent system, god the list goes on and on, and it aint happening, in fact Rice it looks like we are going in reverse in many ways, this is no way for human beings to get to stargate atlantis cities, but in the end they made a bunch of nano creatures that killed them, so maybe we dont need to progress so much? 😉 LOL!
@Robert Rice,
Good lord SA, are you sure you don’t want to chat about sacred cows in physics and religion too? 😉 I’m not sure you’ve given me enough ground to cover.
To be perfectly honest, I’m exhausted from writing all day long. We can solve all the worlds problems in one day on another day 😉
Remind me in the future, and perhaps we can all have a round table on your concerns with Warren as host.
Pleasure chatting today.
i call velocity a residual
If Trump thinks public spending makes no difference, why would he think reducing it would?
If something’s irrelevant, it makes no difference positive or negative.
Translation: Trump’s irrelevant.
@roger erickson,
“Translation: Trump’s irrelevant.”
Of course he is. So why is Warren posting his comments? Was it that slow a news day?
It was in the context of a possible vp slot
@WARREN MOSLER,
LOL. I looked him up on Intrade for the VP spot. 4429 shares offered at a price 0.01 (which is 0.1% chance, and the lowest possible price). Roughly similar to Mitt Romney’s chances of being the VP actually.
@ESM,
Very cool! Never heard of that site before.
@roger erickson,
Good observation. Trump makes his money by licensing his face and name to real estate developers, as pre-paid owners of a luxury abandoned project in Baja found out in 2008 (or thereabout). The developers didn’t have, or couldn’t find, the dough to finish. The owners tried to sue Trump to get their money back. He had to admit he was just the PR face of it, not the financial part. The builder/developers license his name, Trump admitted in court papers, and he makes appearances as the ‘owner’ for a fee. Just about every Trump project is Manhattan is the same. Trump lives in the Trump Tower, where he got an apartment there as part of the deal.
Translation: Trump’s irrelevant.
Even if he has 300 million TV ZOMBIES repeating his ignorance?
Sorry i forgot the 12 people who read this blog 299,999,988 TV ZOMBIES…..lol
@Dave Begotka,
If an irrelevance trumpets in an asylum, and primarily the poorly educated hear him, do they still have to listen?
Philodoughosophy 101
@D Begotka,
Exactly; even if several thousands of people read all of the MMT (and related blogs) and even if several thousand relatively quiet economists sympathize with the MMT point of view, the MSM is the ‘authoritative source’ of finincial/economic points of view for the masses.
Unless, the MMT advocates can figure a way to break into the big leagues, the MMT blog-comments could more profitably avoid repetitious references to mistakes in arguments/claims of the MSM talking heads.
@wilwon3,
“Unless, the MMT advocates can figure a way to break into the big leagues, the MMT blog-comments could more profitably avoid repetitious references to mistakes in arguments/claims of the MSM talking heads.”
Try cross pollenating with competing economic schools of thought to turn up the heat in debate on the blogosphere and in that way focus more eyeballs on MMT.
@Ed Rombach, When there’s new information, it takes three exposures for the brain to even register the input. More to contemplate the implications. If the new information contradicts a prejudice, who knows how many exposures are required?
That’s why repetition is important. Not to mention that repetition is habit forming and habitual behavior is what most people prefer. It’s more efficient, and less risky.
@wilwon3,
You’re onto it. MMT needs to reframe their presentation in a concerted effort to break into the MSM. I mean for goodness sakes, we ought to be able to do better than Peter Schiff and Donald Trump. MMT can achieve this end by discontinuing writing publically to each other (academics writing in highbrow language to other academics) and instead focus on provocative, easily understood arguments which fixate on the root objections to MMT’s policy proposals.
In Sept 2011 he started to accept rental payments in gold. Tenant was APMEX, a precious metal dealer. Seems he did not learn much from that.
wonder how that appeared in his tax return…
@WARREN MOSLER, Wonder in general why he worries about the dollar ‘going to hell’, while having all that real estate financed with borrowed dollars.
good point!!! 😉
@WARREN MOSLER,
“wonder how that appeared in his tax return…”
As teardrops, I would imagine.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Obama has just renewed his call for sacrifice from business owners–they need to pay their fair share. I guess he’s worried we’re going to become the next Greece. More like Trump than either realizes.
@Vincent,
Pay what to whom? Contribute their part of an increasing Output Gap to … uh, … some enemy of the state? That don’t make no sense!
You have to understand, Bill, politics as is won’t scale up.
But isn’t it the case that if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “goes wild” with more stimulus, he will be buying back debt held by institutions and individuals to place it as an asset in the Fed’s books – meaning the debt will have become a case of the government (the Treasury) owing to itself (the Fed)? In plain English, extinguished?
So, more Fed “stimulus” equals less debt outstanding.
A case of Trump being trumped by his own argument, perhaps?
yes, and less interest paid to the economy as well