Greece, Italy, France, UK, Latvia, Austria, Spain, Ireland…
As austerity hits it’s almost banker’s bonus time and people are a tad miffed.
Is cutting state spending the way out of sovereign debt crisis or should we be getting keen on Keynes again?
Has anyone been taking part in protests, did you poke Camilla with a stick or are you keen to cut, cut and cut again?
Interested in hearing folks’ thoughts on the ongoing crisis and the response to it.
I always thought Europe was kind of an OK place. I never found it revolting.
You’ve never been to Slough, have you?
Feels like there’s a huge political and financial black cloud over the whole of Europe right now. We need something to cheer us up…Cameron and Thatcher on a funeral pyre might help! 
That’s what happens when you visit with a stuffy nose.
Take a whiff of a subway car in Paris and you’ll change your tune.
States however are not going to stop following Keynes because they like it. It’ll eventually end in the biggest bust ever and it won’t be pretty.
I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist!
I ain’t much of a fan of the Austrian School - seems to be used mostly to provide intellectual cover for expansion of the neo-liberal policies that have caused the problems we have today of stagflation and wealth/income inequality.
Nor am I a fan of Keynes though. To my mind no amount of welfare provision can make a form of capitalism that doesn’t exploit people and planet.
I’d dispute the notion that states are actually even following Keynes at the minute - at least not those states that have been giving bail-outs to the banks i.e. nearly all of the G20. What’s being followed is a neo-liberal agenda of wealth accumulation based on the trading of abstract financial instruments and the marketisation of anything n’ everything.
Keynes would be having the screaming ab-jabs at the policies being carried out in his name.
Doc Doo: With increasing fuel prices we’re going to need some means of keeping warm on the cheap.
Here’s a pretty good video arguing against austerity measures:
You clearly don’t have any idea what the Austrian School is. It has nothing to do with the neoliberalism you mention.
It’s not that hard to fix, USA doesn’t have to go bankrupt
1 Cut military spending 80 %.
2 End SS payments to people who earn > 50 K $/yr .
3 Tax estates (death tax) of more than 5 M $ , at 50 %.
4 Abolish the private profit corporate prison system, and legalese drugs, like has been done in Portugal. The fact that the USA imprisons more % of it’s citizens than any other country, for corporate profit (Wackenhut), most for drug possession offenses, is obscene.
OK… I’ve stopped holding my breath. Gasp… gasp, it’s just a fantasy…I am sorry to lie to you all . Actually, the USA is controlled by nuts and will surely go bankrupt on it’s present course.
I’m with you up to this point.
Any tax… ANY TAX… on money or goods that have already been taxed is outrageous. It’s illegal for citizens to “double-dip” like this, why should it be okay for the government to do so?
If we’re going to allow things like this to continue, we might as well hand all of our money to the govt and forget about having any personal wealth.
You are a slave. The State owns you. They have claim to all of the fruits of your labor. They allow you to keep some of it only because it makes you more productive.
Adding to #2 of feel the light’s list. Let people opt out of that ponzi scheme.
How is this unusual ? If a uni company imports unis, they pay a tariff. When they sell it they pay sales tax, as well as property tax on the shop. The profit is taxed as LLC profit. Then the owners pay an income tax when they get their dividend.
Perhaps you are confusing this with the constitutional prohibition against being tried twice for the same crime ? It is common to have one item taxed at multiple levels. So someone inherits 10 million, and they only get 7.5 M $. Cry me a river.
SS is not a Ponzi scheme. The books are open and there is no false claims to be making profitable investments ala Madoff. 60 million people depend on SS payments. What do you suggest Gilby, do we shoot them or just let them starve ? I would hate to see Gilby have to pay to feed a veteran of Normandy beach. What did that worthless old goat do to deserve any of precious Giby’s income? The injustice ! Freedom should be free !, just like it always was, right Gilby ?
My suggestion is that we end SS benefits for the wealthy, a concept known as means testing. Warren Buffet donates his SS check to charity every month, because by law, they have to send him one if he wants it or not.
The people who produced that wealth should be able to choose what to do with it. What right does anyone else have to steal that $2.5m?
So, if Madoff forced everyone to participate, and opened his books, it would no longer be a Ponzi scheme? That’s the only difference between social security and what Madoff did.
Resort to a voluntary participation on everything. Freedom isn’t being forced to do something at gunpoint. Mathematically, social security doesn’t work long term, because it’s just like a ponzi scheme. The sooner it’s converted to a voluntary non-fraudulent investment, the less people you’ll have to shoot or starve later.
More class warfare. Now that’s a real solution!
But how to make that work in real life? Say you opt not to spend anything on roads, yet you own a car. And you didn’t put in for national defense, and then a war comes. What do we do with you? Or if you get injured, let’s say, riding on a trail, are paralyzed and can no longer work. What then?
If I am not going to use the roads, then I shouldn’t have to pay for roads, even if I do own a car. If I choose to use a road, then I pay the toll associated with using that road.
If there were ever a legitimate war to be a part of, then there will be plenty of people to voluntarily pay or volunteer to participate in it.
Let people choose the causes they want to support.
I have insurance, family, and friends, plus there are many compassionate people who may or may not know me that are charitable. There is no need for anyone to rob people at gunpoint to pay for the care of the disabled.
What a ponzi scheme is
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp
" What Does Ponzi Scheme Mean?
A fraudulent investing scam that promises high rates of return at little risk to investors. The scheme generates returns for older investors by acquiring new investors. This scam actually yields the promised returns to earlier investors, as long as there are more new investors." - investopedia.com
SS is more of a mandate to buy an annuity with a payroll garnish. Low income workers who live to 100 get an excellent return, die at 64 and you get nothing. It is an annuity, actuarially sound, and has no resemblance to a ponzi scheme at all. It’s purpose is to guarantee old folks a check to live on. Ask any old person in society, they feel much more secure with that lifetime check. There are different kinds of freedoms. Perhaps some may not appreciate the freedom from fear of themselves or parents becoming old and broke. However, the law mandates all workers pay in, so we can afford to cover everyone. Otherwise it wouldn’t work and we would have starving old people again.
I am not confused.
Fraud is (or was) common practice in the banking industry, does that make it right? Your “it is common” argument only convinces me you haven’t really thought about this subject.
Under the current scheme, the state can make more money on a good than its actual value. In effect, a tax greater than 100%. It doesn’t happen often, but that’s the way the deck is stacked right now.
Taxing money merely for the fact that it changed hands is even more ludicrous. Whether the amount taxed is $2.50 or $2.5M makes no difference. Either way it’s highway robbery.
What next, a tax for depositing money in your own bank account, followed by a tax for withdrawing it? Sounds like you’d be okay with that…
Sure fits the definition you gave.
Annuities are something that you can easily get in the market. Stealing from others is not necessary to get a decent level of financial security for your old age.
Social security doesn’t provide security. It can be changed at any time on the whims of the political class. They don’t invest the funds, but just spend it as part of the general government trough. It’s just a bunch of IOUs. Even the governments own numbers show that there will not be enough funding left by the time I reach retirement age.
Gilby hates inflation
Why doesn’t he love SS ? It is the only inflation protected annuity. As long as the treasury of the USA doesn’t fail, inflation has no impact on the SS annuity.
You can;t find a comparable, inflation protected annuity on the private market, can you?
There are lots of IPAs: inflation protected annuity - Google-haku