Smith's work is indeed impressive except for one thing: There is no such thing and can be no such thing as free or free flowing markets...so long as we do not effectively deal with the current monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only as the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of money. This economic factor underlies and under cuts every other theoretical consideration. Deal with it and we thrive and survive. Ignore it and, as history has shown us, empires eventually disintegrate. And with climate change thrown in even the possible end of civilization and species survival.
Deal with and change the monetary and economic pattern. It's the real problem.
The idea of Free Markets sounds good, but there has never been a free market. All markets are manipulated by the Big Money Interests or only they can participate because they have access to huge amounts of capital or financing mechanisms.
You're quite right. That's why we need to end the biggest money interest's monopoly paradigm, namely finance's Debt Only pattern. No one else but me is apparently aware of this specific underlying problem. MMT, Steve Keen, Michael Hudson, Ellen Brown...all the leading reforms all dance around the money issue, but they have not cognited on the specific new paradigm concept and the most efficacious policies implemented at the most strategic places in the economic process. All of these reforms could more quickly and easily accomplish their goals if they simply became an integrated mass movement that communicated the benefits of Wisdomics-Gracenomics whose goals are theirs...and more.
I think Michael Hudson does and I also believe Michael's correct that debt that can't be paid, won't be paid therefore that debt needs to be written-off. I believe MMT doesn't believe the latter which I believe is an error. MMT dances around this and my POV they just play games with this debt.
Yes, treasury bonds are "debts" only because of an act of prestidigitation where the money created is transformed into bonds, most of which are snapped up by the private banks because they are a guaranteed profit making investment. But government debt is really just a side show anyway. It's private debt that is the real threat. Private debt is what overwhelms economies and empires and the solution to that is integrating monetary gifting directly and reciprocally into the economy at the point of retail sale with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy and the rest of the policy program of the new monetary paradigm. A 50% discount at retail sale effectively and macro-economically implements beneficial price and asset deflation into profit making economic systems because it is a continuously and universally participated in aspect of the economic system. When you've terminatedly resolved inflation you've ended the major mental hurdle for most people regarding government spending and shut the mouth of every conservative and libertarian pundit who continuously gripes about its so called effects. It also opens up all manner of additional potential beneficial effects that integrate the economic and political agendas of opposing interests like payroll and income tax reductions and economic democracy and the end of poverty via a universal dividend. Finally, it enables the kind of mega-project fiscal funding necessary to confront climate change.
Paradigm changes are always huge steps forward, and mega paradigm changes are mega.
Depends on what your definition of paradigm change is. I would say all genuine paradigm changes are beneficial evolutions because their effects are always an aspect or aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace like 1) conscious increase in truthful temporal and/or mental reality (Copernican cosmological paradigm change) 2) increased abundance and more secure survival (change from nomadic hunting gathering to agriculture, homesteading urbanization 3) increased awareness of self awareness and hence a) the human and cosmological reality of morals/ethics, b) the essential psychological sameness and hence brotherhood of every other human (the change from mere survival to homo sapiens/wise and discerning man).
By the way and as an aside, conscious awareness of self and time/process is an aspect of grace and the cosmos is utterly embedded in process/time. That's why all of the world's major wisdom traditions suggest we contemplate and look directly at what is in the moment...because that is where the experience of god/grace (not necessarily the various orthodox beliefs about god) ...exists...when you/your self awareness actually sees it.
I believe that lesser phenomena like revolutions/"fourth turnings", are mistaken for paradigm changes. Their effects are chaos leading to change...but not evolution. This is the message of Steve Bannon and the historical demagogue Donald Trump. The "Fourth Turnings" book has a reasonable amount of scholarship to it, but it ignores the fact that empires prior to Rome routinely utilized debt jubilees (forgiveness/grace as in monetary gifting) to renew their social contracts and their domestic economies, and when they stopped doing this their march toward instability and collapse was assured.
I believe there is an intentional misuse of the term Liberal by Conservatives and unwittingly by most of the media and throughout society. It's Orwellian Doublespeak and Doublethink.
Most folks when they use the term liberal mean progressive or open-minded. But as y'all know in economics there are Bedrock Assumptions about Liberalism.
According to John Mearsheimer these Bedrock Assumptions are;
1. It is individualistic at its core. It assumes the individual takes precedence over the social group.
2. It assumes individuals cannot reach universal agreement over first principals. Those differences are sometimes profound and can lead to violence.
So the conservatives, media and others will say liberals meaning they are on the so-called left or progressive. Or they will say Pelosi liberals, the liberal media, so on & so forth.
This isn't what the U of Chic or conservatives really mean when they say liberal, they are referring to Mearsheimer's Liberal Bedrock Assumptions.
So there is confusion throughout society regarding the term liberal, which may be intentional or not. I believe it’s intentional and calculated.
Either way, I believe this is extremely pernicious and detrimental to a rational discussion of economics.
Ask anyone what’s more important, a few thousand people or the earth and the rest of humanity? Therefore, the community/social group does take precedence over the individual.
Regarding the bedrock assumption of not reaching universal agreement over first principals... whose first principals?
The only principal ‘liberals’ care about is their unlimited accumulation of wealth, assets, cashflow and income. AND there will be violence as the Big Money Interests will not willingly surrender their wealth, power, control and influence. We need to take it from them at the ballot box.
I believe that’s why the US has 800 military bases throughout the world with the remaining 100 or less foreign bases mostly comprised of our allies. That’s also why they have privatized all local, state and federal Treasuries, except the publicly owned Bank of North Dakota.
The Ruling Elite want to privatize everything they can that has cashflow like utilities, healthcare, insurance etc.
Currently, the bedrock basis of their wealth is gov’t spending/cashflow and all other natural monopolies that they own, or want to own, which all work together to undergird capitalism.
This review brings back memories of reading Adam Smith and the other founders of political economics as an undergraduate at MIT in the 1960's. It is great to see again the contributions of original thinkers in political economics.
"We read Smith’s iconic book, The Wealth of Nations, but we also read his Theory of Moral Sentiments."
That's quite ambitious for an undergraduate course. Back in the day at the New School, you would have read those in Robert Heilbroner's *second-year graduate* course!
Last I looked, Michael Hudson & Richard Wolff were on the PBI board or advisory board.
We need to get rid of compound interest which Michael clearly explains & preaches ie simple interest but there'd have be something added in for admin and loan losses. Example Medicare has 2% for admin, not 18% or so for private insurance companies. I don't think that 18 takes into account exorbitant salaries, stock options, company jets, cars, expense accounts etc.
Smith's work is indeed impressive except for one thing: There is no such thing and can be no such thing as free or free flowing markets...so long as we do not effectively deal with the current monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only as the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of money. This economic factor underlies and under cuts every other theoretical consideration. Deal with it and we thrive and survive. Ignore it and, as history has shown us, empires eventually disintegrate. And with climate change thrown in even the possible end of civilization and species survival.
Deal with and change the monetary and economic pattern. It's the real problem.
The idea of Free Markets sounds good, but there has never been a free market. All markets are manipulated by the Big Money Interests or only they can participate because they have access to huge amounts of capital or financing mechanisms.
You're quite right. That's why we need to end the biggest money interest's monopoly paradigm, namely finance's Debt Only pattern. No one else but me is apparently aware of this specific underlying problem. MMT, Steve Keen, Michael Hudson, Ellen Brown...all the leading reforms all dance around the money issue, but they have not cognited on the specific new paradigm concept and the most efficacious policies implemented at the most strategic places in the economic process. All of these reforms could more quickly and easily accomplish their goals if they simply became an integrated mass movement that communicated the benefits of Wisdomics-Gracenomics whose goals are theirs...and more.
I think Michael Hudson does and I also believe Michael's correct that debt that can't be paid, won't be paid therefore that debt needs to be written-off. I believe MMT doesn't believe the latter which I believe is an error. MMT dances around this and my POV they just play games with this debt.
Yes, treasury bonds are "debts" only because of an act of prestidigitation where the money created is transformed into bonds, most of which are snapped up by the private banks because they are a guaranteed profit making investment. But government debt is really just a side show anyway. It's private debt that is the real threat. Private debt is what overwhelms economies and empires and the solution to that is integrating monetary gifting directly and reciprocally into the economy at the point of retail sale with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy and the rest of the policy program of the new monetary paradigm. A 50% discount at retail sale effectively and macro-economically implements beneficial price and asset deflation into profit making economic systems because it is a continuously and universally participated in aspect of the economic system. When you've terminatedly resolved inflation you've ended the major mental hurdle for most people regarding government spending and shut the mouth of every conservative and libertarian pundit who continuously gripes about its so called effects. It also opens up all manner of additional potential beneficial effects that integrate the economic and political agendas of opposing interests like payroll and income tax reductions and economic democracy and the end of poverty via a universal dividend. Finally, it enables the kind of mega-project fiscal funding necessary to confront climate change.
Paradigm changes are always huge steps forward, and mega paradigm changes are mega.
Certain paradigm shifts are beneficial, all are tricky, but mega shifts are disastrous!
Depends on what your definition of paradigm change is. I would say all genuine paradigm changes are beneficial evolutions because their effects are always an aspect or aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace like 1) conscious increase in truthful temporal and/or mental reality (Copernican cosmological paradigm change) 2) increased abundance and more secure survival (change from nomadic hunting gathering to agriculture, homesteading urbanization 3) increased awareness of self awareness and hence a) the human and cosmological reality of morals/ethics, b) the essential psychological sameness and hence brotherhood of every other human (the change from mere survival to homo sapiens/wise and discerning man).
By the way and as an aside, conscious awareness of self and time/process is an aspect of grace and the cosmos is utterly embedded in process/time. That's why all of the world's major wisdom traditions suggest we contemplate and look directly at what is in the moment...because that is where the experience of god/grace (not necessarily the various orthodox beliefs about god) ...exists...when you/your self awareness actually sees it.
I believe that lesser phenomena like revolutions/"fourth turnings", are mistaken for paradigm changes. Their effects are chaos leading to change...but not evolution. This is the message of Steve Bannon and the historical demagogue Donald Trump. The "Fourth Turnings" book has a reasonable amount of scholarship to it, but it ignores the fact that empires prior to Rome routinely utilized debt jubilees (forgiveness/grace as in monetary gifting) to renew their social contracts and their domestic economies, and when they stopped doing this their march toward instability and collapse was assured.
Anyone that made it through all 950 pages of The Wealth of Nations and understood it, must be a genius! I couldn't do it.
The Misuse of the term Liberal
I believe there is an intentional misuse of the term Liberal by Conservatives and unwittingly by most of the media and throughout society. It's Orwellian Doublespeak and Doublethink.
Most folks when they use the term liberal mean progressive or open-minded. But as y'all know in economics there are Bedrock Assumptions about Liberalism.
According to John Mearsheimer these Bedrock Assumptions are;
1. It is individualistic at its core. It assumes the individual takes precedence over the social group.
2. It assumes individuals cannot reach universal agreement over first principals. Those differences are sometimes profound and can lead to violence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrE_RPNogG4&t=527s
Slide starts at 7mins 45secs
So the conservatives, media and others will say liberals meaning they are on the so-called left or progressive. Or they will say Pelosi liberals, the liberal media, so on & so forth.
This isn't what the U of Chic or conservatives really mean when they say liberal, they are referring to Mearsheimer's Liberal Bedrock Assumptions.
So there is confusion throughout society regarding the term liberal, which may be intentional or not. I believe it’s intentional and calculated.
Either way, I believe this is extremely pernicious and detrimental to a rational discussion of economics.
Ask anyone what’s more important, a few thousand people or the earth and the rest of humanity? Therefore, the community/social group does take precedence over the individual.
Regarding the bedrock assumption of not reaching universal agreement over first principals... whose first principals?
The only principal ‘liberals’ care about is their unlimited accumulation of wealth, assets, cashflow and income. AND there will be violence as the Big Money Interests will not willingly surrender their wealth, power, control and influence. We need to take it from them at the ballot box.
I believe that’s why the US has 800 military bases throughout the world with the remaining 100 or less foreign bases mostly comprised of our allies. That’s also why they have privatized all local, state and federal Treasuries, except the publicly owned Bank of North Dakota.
The Ruling Elite want to privatize everything they can that has cashflow like utilities, healthcare, insurance etc.
Currently, the bedrock basis of their wealth is gov’t spending/cashflow and all other natural monopolies that they own, or want to own, which all work together to undergird capitalism.
This review brings back memories of reading Adam Smith and the other founders of political economics as an undergraduate at MIT in the 1960's. It is great to see again the contributions of original thinkers in political economics.
Looks like a good book. I look forward to reading it
"We read Smith’s iconic book, The Wealth of Nations, but we also read his Theory of Moral Sentiments."
That's quite ambitious for an undergraduate course. Back in the day at the New School, you would have read those in Robert Heilbroner's *second-year graduate* course!
Last I looked, Michael Hudson & Richard Wolff were on the PBI board or advisory board.
We need to get rid of compound interest which Michael clearly explains & preaches ie simple interest but there'd have be something added in for admin and loan losses. Example Medicare has 2% for admin, not 18% or so for private insurance companies. I don't think that 18 takes into account exorbitant salaries, stock options, company jets, cars, expense accounts etc.