AI-Jane Forums

[jt]

John, I have no idea which will go first, since they are so inextricably linked. If the Left invents a new substitute for Keynesian economics, it will go first.

I've long wondered how about the origins of leftism. The best I can come up with is Rousseau, and his emphasis on "reason" as being what should guide mankind. The 1800's were a hotbed of leftist inventiveness.

Why it is still so virulent today after the great failed "social experiments" of the 20th century is beyond me. Perhaps Codevilla would say it is just due to social or intellectual inertia (i.e. the "ruling class has not died out yet).
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Jefferson: I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

[John L]

"Jt", as long as there are people lusting for power, and large numbers of people, who are miserable, and eternally angry at their lot in life, Collectivism will exist, and success will be hated. After all, if others are economically successful, the above will usually be left out, and found wanting. And envy is part and parcel of envy and anger.

Collectivism, under the guise of leveling all playing fields, will always have large numbers of adherents. The goal is to minimise those numbers. As long as there are several million disaffected souls, who lack moral anchorage, we will be stuck with them, just as we have at least one here. It's like a bad case of gonorrhea. It's easy to contract, yet difficult to eradicate.
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The Political Spectrum Explained

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. - Thomas B. Macaulay

[WmLambert]

Interesting train of thought.

I think that all of those Ivy Tower elitists who live to publish meaningless papers are about do for another Marx or Keynes to come up with some new way to bugger the rest of us.

Global Warming is just a sample of how a leftist ideology takes root, and is the latest -ism that they have used to create the need for carbon-taxes and carbon-offsets. Green Environmentalism may be the successor to Marx and Keynes, but something else may well come to fruition - just as we get a handle on the old stuff.

[mr_yak]

I made a grievous error earlier ... I indicated federal spending will be $1.4 trillion this year.

... actually it will be closer to three and a half trillion (we'll have a better idea once we get the invoice) ... the $1.4T is only the part that we are financing on the come.

But, the basic premise of my point is still true. The 'financed' part is going up, because the revenue part is going down, while the spending part is going up. In fact, fed revenue is plummeting. Again, I'd still like Fred to explain to me how a 'growing' economy can result in declining fed receipts. My thinking is that it can only happen with a federal government that is expanding ... and a private economy (with all those juicy taxable transactions) that's shrinking. ... and that ain't good ... Check out the graphs in the last link of each of the components of GDP ... from that standpoint, our bulging deficit is contributing exactly bubkiss. (and based on 2010-Q2/3 ... maybe even negative bubkiss)

... in a variation of my earlier argument with jt ... you can come up with a higher GDP number by ratcheting up government spending ... but it's not a very meaningful number. We've increased fed spending by 4% to achieve a 2.5% economic 'growth' rate. On a sensible planet, this would be called a fiscal 'contraction'. In other words, if you replace the word 'multiplier' by the word 'divider' ... the Keynesian math actually starts to work.
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"A government that can give you everything can take everything away." Bob Novak (Apparently stolen from Gerald Ford)

[jt]

John, I have read that the ancient Greeks, at one point in their history, had problems with a strong inequality of the distribution of wealth. However, they did not lapse into collectivist pinings. This was the time many able bodied men joined Greek mercenary armies.

The disaffected French peasant in their revolution was not lured into collectivism, but the intellects who lead the revolution were committed to rule by the "intelligent elites" in spite of Rouseau's praise of "democracy". He also praised "rule by reason", a natural plea for "rule by the intelligent". The leadership would decide which issues the common man could vote on.

Before Rouseau, IMHO, the disaffected would not speak of collectivism, which really wasn't invented until the 1800's, as far as I can tell. It would be interesting if someone would research this and write a book on it. However, I think Rousseau was the originator of "rule by the educated elite", which is the real driving force behind collectivism. The masses are supposed to be obedient to the wisdom of their betters.
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Jefferson: I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

[John L]

"Jt", perhaps the wording wasn't invented until the 19th century, but the concept has been around for a long, long, time. Collectivism is quite simply the belief that the State takes precedence over the Individual.
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The Political Spectrum Explained

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. - Thomas B. Macaulay

[mr_yak]

For modern collectivism to work, you really have to have a 'working' (working defined as actually generating 'real' revenue ... rather than just debt) modern economy to bleed from in novel and abstract ways. It's one thing for peasants to support a monarch and a few court elite. It's another to support a plurality of peasants with the work of 'other' peasants. Who the hell would want to be the 'other' peasant? If Obama had been elected in '92 he could have got a lot further. There was plenty more funny money to bleed off with novelties and abstractions. During a revenue vacuum ... not so much.

... again is anybody going to tell me how it's possible to 'grow' an economy by planting 4 of something and extracting 2 or 3?? Right now, the Chinese populace are the 'other' peasant ... how long does anybody think it will take for them to really wake up ... even with bayonets pointed at their bellies?
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"A government that can give you everything can take everything away." Bob Novak (Apparently stolen from Gerald Ford)

[jt]

Ah yes, mr_yak, you have hit on the nub. That is, modern peasants wind up subsidizing other modern peasants. This is truly a recent innovation. It seems to fit in with "democracy" and the political "party system" very well, i.e. it is a wonderful means of vote purchasing.

The red herring is "the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes". Since the rich have tax advisors to help them dodge taxes and lobbyists to help them create loop holes, it is unlikely they will ever "pay their fair share of taxes". It just means that the definition of "rich" will be pushed down to $250K, which is clearly ridiculous as a definition of rich.
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Jefferson: I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

[quadrat]

[Ron Lambert]

Q--What, you don't like the Boy Scouts?

[John L]

[John L]

Oh, here we are: pionierlieder - der kleine trompeter. east german youth song

I was right. It was the "Young Pioneers", the FDJ(Freie Deutsche Jugend] which means "Free German Youth.

And note two things: the part about Religion, and the picture of the salute, which may not be exactly like the Nazis, but still close enough. "Q" was taught from childhood that religious beliefs were 'verboten' because there was no G-d, other than the State. Obviously he has taken the lessons well, even though DDR is now history.


Figure 1.--These East German Pioneerrs are saluting the East German leaders, including Eric Honecker in 1976. Notice how the Pioneers salute, similar to a NAZI salute, but with the hand held differently.
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The Political Spectrum Explained

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear. - Thomas B. Macaulay

[quadrat]

doesn't matter where i grew up. i don't care about your silly god, or a silly country like yours, and i don't give a crap about other people. try to top this on the anti-collectivist chart, or do not talk about stuff you know nothing about.
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The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true.

[ghoullio]

Sounds like you hit a nerve, John.
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[Fredledingue]

[mr_yak]

[jt]

Yep, nothing that has been done has worked. I see nothing proposed by the powers that be that might work. The fed is in a real box, not being able to lower interest rates and sitting on all that bad debt they bought. The vast $ they pumped into the economy sits at banks, making the banks rich. Eventually it will emerge and inflation will rise.
_________________
Jefferson: I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

[Fredledingue]

Yak, governement (Fed and States) revenues + debt is not spending eventhought everybody calls it so.

Revenue and debt is cash inflow.
Then this cash is used, if you will, in various fashions, a small part being spendings, the other being giving (or lending).

Revenue and debt are not component of the Gross Domestic Product, which is the total production of goods and services in the country. The value of it may be equivalent in dollars to 25% of GDP and this has to be watched with attention, but it's not a 25% part of the GDP.

The acronym DGP only represents a metric by which one can see whether a sum is reasonable, huge or atronomical given the economic size of a country.

What I don't consider as spending (because they produce nothing per se) are:

- Social security, unemployement benefit, social progams and subsidies. (It's not the governement who spend the money it's those who recieve it)

- Tax cuts. (It's considering as a spending because it's taken from a budget allocated to various programs. In fact it's a volontary cut in revenues compensated by an automatic reduction of this budget.)

- Treasury bounds buyback (Your governement has been buying back T-bounds for half a trillion since O' is in office. The debt increased, but part of this debt increase has been used to decrease it. It's complicated but they do save billions buying old notes while selling new ones.)

- TARP (same as unemployement benefit, the recipients spend the money -and they don't-, not the governement)

What I consider as spending, thus participating in the GDP factors:

- Healthcare

- Military

- Administration and governement workers paychecks

- Building projects

Most of what is produced hence belonging to the Gross Domestic Product still come from the private sector, with private money on private initiative. Yes, even under Obama-the-leftist!
GDP grew thanks to private businesses.

TARP allowed the system to function to make it possible despite the crisis but has never been part of GDP.

[jt]

Fredle..., I am a bit perplexed about definitions.

Gummint salaries should not be counted as part of GDP, according to your argument, because the employees spend the money (the same as welfare or Social Security payments) and not the gummint.

Health care payments by the gummint should not be counted in GDP because the doctors receiving the money have already had the value of their services counted as part of GDP.

One could say the same about the military purchases by the gummint. The money will be listed as revenue by the company (therefore part of GDP), and if it is counted again as an expense by the gummint, then it is double counted.

Maybe Brooklyn can help us out with definitions.
_________________
Jefferson: I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

[Fredledingue]

jt:
Gummint employees, doctors, pharmaceuticals, defense contractors etc are producing a service or a good, they are paid directly by the governement to do these things. These things can be accounted as [i]Products[/i] which are used to calculate the total of the Gross Domesticn Products.

Unemployed, TARP-funded banks, home buyers benefiting from a tax cut etc aren't doing anything for the gummint. They only recieve money. The act of giving them this money is not creating any [i]Products[/i] and therefore doesn't influence the GDP total.

Thus the gummint is not spending this money, it's redistributing it.

When you, jt, personaly speaking, give some money to a charity or to a beggar in the street you don't feel as you have spent this money. Do you?