Warren Buffett Says America Is "So Rich" It Can Afford Single Payer

[piezoe]

Use the term you want... It doesn't matter, you're in favor of government controling your and other people's lives: This is SOCIALISM.
As Ayn Rand said: "Communism seeks to enslave men through force, Socialism seeks the same thing through vote." Therefore, their goal and final result are the same. This is what matters.

I am heartened that you've read Friedrich Heyak's "The Road to Serfdom"; now you owe it to yourself to read Robert Skidelsky's "The Road From Serfdom" as well. And here for you is a beautifully written and finely argued essay by Alan Binder (Economic Advisory Counsel Head, and Fed Governor) that i can't recommend too highly to anyone arguing that "the way to fix things is to reduce the size of government." The essay is in the public domain, so it is free for you to access. At the risk of going overboard, I consider it among the most insightful essays on government written in the past 20 years -- certainly of the ones i've read. The title is: "Is Government Too Political." It can be found here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1997-11-01/government-too-political. I was unaware of Binder's essay until recently when a well-known economist friend put me on to it.

At a Christmas milk punch gathering (I'll have the recipe for you if you'd like it.) I was chatting with a freshly minted, Brown, political science graduate. He astounded me when he said he'd read John Quiggin's book, "Zombie Economics," as an undergraduate! This is a book I have recommended many times to my ET colleagues with an interest in comparative economics, as you obviously have. There is hardly any better, nor more entertaining, review of late twentieth century economic fads than this. As Chicago "fresh water school" economics comes in for some good-hearted merry making, I know that you, as a stalwart Friedman fan, would enjoy it as much as I did, assuming you've not read it already. And, if you have, please let me know your thoughts.

 

[SunTrader]

Buffett's Berkshire stands to gain $37 billion windfall from tax plan
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/08/buf...37-billion-windfall-from-tax-plan-report.html

 

[SunTrader]

And while we are all recommending books to each other to read I'd like to add:

Where Keynes Went Wrong - And why world governments keep creating inflation, bubbles and busts by Hunter Lewis.

Aaaaand

Fed Up - An insider's take on why the Federal Reserve is bad for America by Danielle DiMartino Booth (formerly of the Dallas Fed)

 

[piezoe]

Anthem was much shorter and more science-fiction-y. I was a wanna be philosopher in highschool. I read a lot of her non-fiction essays as well and I agree with you.

What's curious to me is that our good Dr. Greenspan is (was?) a Rand Devotee. The defects in her "philosophy" seem so painfully obvious that I can't imagine any well-read person lining up with her. Does that mean Alan was not well-read? Perhaps he had no time, what with all that Sax playing. It could explain his need to fall back on mumbo-jumbo. In any case, it seems his faith in Objectivism, and firm belief that markets left alone would self-correct relatively harmlessly was at the bottom of his failure to step in when repeatedly warned of excesses in the mortgage markets, despite his being the Chief Regulator.

 

[piezoe]

And while we are all recommending books to each other to read I'd like to add:

Where Keynes Went Wrong - And why world governments keep creating inflation, bubbles and busts by Hunter Lewis.

Aaaaand

Fed Up - An insider's take on why the Federal Reserve is bad for America by Danielle DiMartino Booth (formerly of the Dallas Fed)

I think I am already sufficiently versed on the former topic, but very interested in having a look at the Booth book. Thank's for the recommendation!

 

[newwurldmn]

What's curious to me is that our good Dr. Greenspan is (was?) a Rand Devotee. The defects in her "philosophy" seem so painfully obvious that I can't imagine any well-read person lining up with her. Does that mean Alan was not well-read? Perhaps he had no time, what with all that Sax playing. It could explain his need to fall back on mumbo-jumbo. In any case, it seems his faith in Objectivism, and firm belief that markets left alone would self-correct relatively harmlessly was at the bottom of his failure to step in when repeatedly warned of excesses in the mortgage markets, despite his being the Chief Regulator.

WAS.

I thought I read somewhere that he gave up on all that stuff long ago.

 

[SunTrader]

What's curious to me is that our good Dr. Greenspan is (was?) a Rand Devotee. The defects in her "philosophy" seem so painfully obvious that I can't imagine any well-read person lining up with her. Does that mean Alan was not well-read? Perhaps he had no time, what with all that Sax playing. It could explain his need to fall back on mumbo-jumbo. In any case, it seems his faith in Objectivism, and firm belief that markets left alone would self-correct relatively harmlessly was at the bottom of his failure to step in when repeatedly warned of excesses in the mortgage markets, despite his being the Chief Regulator.

LOL Money Printer Greenspan (also Bernanke, Yellen and soon Powell) went off the track after he .... stopped following Rand, Friedman, Hayek.

 

[piezoe]

LOL Money Printer Greenspan (also Bernanke, Yellen and soon Powell) went off the track after he .... stopped following Rand, Friedman, Hayek.

I think it is a bit complicated. The Fed does "print". But the decision to do so is largely dictated by combined fiscal and tax policy which is the bailiwick of Congress. The Fed has to respond to economic conditions, sometimes of their own making but far more often Congress'. And occasionally, external factors beyond the control of either Congress or the Fed dictate. The common wisdom has it that the Treasury borrows when its receipts don't match expenditures. But in actuality the Treasury spends independent of both borrowing and tax revenues. I.e., they can spend before they borrow, and do. (The Treasury pays its bills when due regardless of whether the receipts from taxes and bond sales have arrived. Bonds are issued by the Treasury, but are largely a tool of the Fed. Bonds provide both an interest paying alternative to cash and a means of maintaining reserve accounts at their target level. The bottom line is that the Treasury spends money into the economy and taxes it back out. If it spends more in than it taxes out the difference is the deficit. The best the Treasury can do in the long run is to balance spending and taxing, but in reality the U.S. will always run a net deficit over time. Deficits increase the amount of money in the private sector that available for savings and investment. When money grows faster than population and productivity grows the result is usually inflation. However there is another factor, and that is how the additional money is distributed. This I think should play a role in how rapidly inflation advances. The important thing for all of us to understand is that deficits per se are not necessarily bad. They can be both too big and too small. We are probably looking at way too big. But we are blazing new ground because we have seldom had this much stimulus so close to full employment before, with the exception of when the entire nation was on a war footing. In war time, demand is hugely boosted. And too, how do you stimulate an economy where demand is already near peak levels by putting more money on the supply side? The massive Reagan 1981 tax cuts came on the heels of a recession. That's not true of these Trump era cuts. Equities of course move up with inflation. Is the market anticipating outsize inflation down the road, or are we dealing mainly with "irrational exuberance?" The Fed will try to counter by raising the funds rate. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. In any case, monetizing the debt will, in effect, pass a large part of the debt on to Treasury holders. I think this is probably what Lord Skidelsky had in mind when he said, "the people that own the debt pay the debt."

 

[Martinghoul]

How about a real counter-argument, instead of a meaningless personal opinion?

I have offered you a variety of counterarguments already. Moreover, as I mentioned before, better people than I have done the same, if you only bother to look. Since you appear to be a bit of a student of American History, you may want to read what some of the Founding Fathers opined on the subject (e.g. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, etc).

 

[NeoTrader]

I have offered you a variety of counterarguments already.

The one's you did, I already answered and you conveniently ignored what you couldn't counterargue.
which happened after my last post: You were not able to say anything against the fact that your ideas need to force others to go against their will to work and my ideas are compatible with anything, including yours, as long as you are able to convince a certain number of persons to voluntarily join your ideas and the ones who don't want to be a part of it, simply don't and live their lives the way they want without being forced to do nothing.

Your answer to that was just a meaningless opinion: that I'm being silly, which shows your lack of arguments against the reality of what I said.

So, like the other guy, there is no point in argueing with people who insist in defending their ideas with mere personal opinions not relating to the subject or other ways to disguise the fact that they can't sustain their ideas through logic, facts and reason. It's just a waste of my time, so I'm done with you too. Bye.