I think you missed the significance of this part of the earlier section, though:
It appears that Keynes was applying this “utility of wasteful expenditure” idea not only to projects financed from existing surpluses (“savings”), but also to ones financed by deficit spending (“loan expenditure”).
If this “big pile of stones” project is making the difference between jobs and no jobs, wages and no wages, food and no food, for the peasants, then I’d bet that the peasants would cheer it.
So…in BobLibDem world, two wrongs make a right?
elucidator, thanks for the reply. Not sure I understand that. The peasants in my example work their fields. They are taxed. Their taxes are used to hire them to pile rocks. I do not see any gain in this situation.
So rather than say “but our situation is different”, could you answer my question? Keynes says that piling rocks is a net gain. I don’t see how. You have not explained how, you’ve just said “our situation is different”. Perhaps it is … but that doesn’t answer the underlying question.
w.
No, but an ardent rightwinger criticising the left for supposedly doing what the right did is hypocritical. It’s the standard “it’s OK when we do it” that is a centerpiece of Republicanism.
Then I don’t understand. If
but
Who gets this additional credit? It sounds like a family earning $3000 and paying taxes will now get to claim a tax credit. How many families are in that situation?
That is a genuine question, btw.
Your cite (if I understand it correctly) seems to be saying the opposite of what you are saying, specifically that the “additional child tax credit” is refundable, but the basic is not. So the example in your cite says:
If I understand you correctly, you were saying that nobody will get more of a subsidy from the government than they do now. Is that correct?
Regards,
Shodan
No, just the opposite, in fact. You are alleging that it is OK when Democrats do it.
:shrugs:
A mindless, knee-jerk response of “Bush lied about Iraq!” in a thread about economic policy. How refreshing.
Let me guess what’s next - Republicans want to make poor babies into dog food, because Clinton lied about a blowjob.
Was I right?
Regards,
Shodan
Then it seems to me that the problem is that your example is simply inappropriate. If the peasants are essentially self-sufficient in a flourishing agricultural/mercantile economic system, what do they need stimulus for in the first place?
An example closer to the current situation, ISTM, is one where a large proportion of the peasant class has been working for, say, the wealthy grain and cotton merchants and other titans of commerce, which have just taken a serious financial hit.* (Bad storm season in the Mediterranean, say, and a lot of valuable cargoes are now resting on the bottom of the sea; throw in a few crop failures and defalcations while you’re at it.)
The merchants can’t get capital to finance new ships and are firing workers. The peasants who had savings and/or loans against the value of their farms and huts invested in lost cargoes are suddenly much poorer, and many are losing their homes; some are starving. Decreased consumption and fears of further instability are contracting economic activity further.
Somebody runs to the harem and wakes up the Pharaoh and explains the situation to him. The Pharaoh decides he needs some new pyramids and will put the starving peasants to work building them, paying them out of the royal treasury, which he will replenish with increased taxes when and as the economy gets back on its feet.
Voila, a stimulus package! The peasants are working (and eating) again, and they can afford to buy new sandals and loincloths so the leatherworkers and weavers are working (and eating) again, and so on and so forth. And there’s a bunch of big new piles of stones in the desert.
Yes, in the long run the populace as a whole is just going to end up paying for the functionally useless recovery project out of future taxation. (Of course, once they realize they can market the pyramids as a tourist attraction, the project becomes significantly more cost-effective, but let’s leave that out of our scenario.) But in the short run, a whole lot of starvation and misery has been averted, and that was the point.
*No claims are made for the historical validity of any part of this scenario, beyond the fact that pharaohs built pyramids.
And it is just as hypocritical for the left to behave in a way/support actions that they have criticized the right for doing/supporting.
Kimstu nailed. Pie hole shut.
I wonder how many of those voting in favour or against the bill read any significant portion of the 1300 pages it had.
(kinda like some other bill in some other dire (US) national crisis that HAD to be approved).
They never read ANY bill. Their staffers skim them and give them summaries. Their eyes glaze over just as quickly as the rest of us with this stuff. Most of these guys – for all their bloviating condescension – aren’t really that bright.
That’s nice except we were discussing the additional people added to the welfare rolls under this bill.
DSeid, I am nothing if not a realist. What I say is that we take it on as a goal to have a pork-free stimulus bill. Yes, this being the real world, we won’t necessarily get to the goal, but at least we can say we did our best … instead of just opening the door and saying “Soooeee, pig, pig, pig” like we used to do at pig feeding time on the ranch.
And your point is what? That we should continue to feed the Congressional spider monkeys our daily bread? News flash, they’ve moved on to eating the seeds for next years crop.
Right, your claim is their staffers read all 1,430 pages of the bill in 12 hours and gave them the summary … don’t think so, Diogenes. This is one of my largest complaints about how Obama handled this. He said he would give us (and Congress) 48 hours to read the bill before the vote, and it turns out he lied. Hey, I’m a stron Obama supporter and a lifelong Democrat, but that was old-style Chicago politics, not the “change” he sold during the campaign.
In THIS case, I doubt it, but what I stated was SOP. My point was that the complaint that nobody read it is specious since they NEVER read their own bills.
He was supposed to delay signing an urgently needed bill for two more days just so he could post it online?
I wasn’t defending them. I think they’re as worthless as you do. I was just saying there’s nothing out of the ordinary about them not reading the bill. I don’t think most of them ever read anything longer than a wine list.
Oh, I’m sure they’re brighter than the average American. They’re just not bright enough.
Like W – smarter than the average American (how many have a Harvard MBA?) but much, much dumber than the average POTUS.
No, I did not miss that section. I specifically questioned whether he was right in that section. That section is why I used “pyramid building” in my example. Referring me back once again to that section does not prove he was right. You and Keynes appear to be saying that there is no difference if the funds are from savings or are borrowed. I doubt that very much.
If that were the case, we’d all cheer. But taking money from the peasants to employ the peasants, unless you know something I don’t, is not going to make anyone cheer. It particularly won’t make them cheer if the Pharoah borrows a million bucks from the peasants, puts $500,000 into purchasing stones, and pays the other half million back to the peasants to stack up the stones … the peasants end up with half the money they started with, plus a big pile of stone. I see no reason for anyone cheering in that case … except the Pharoah.
In fact, you seem to be the one overlooking what Keynes said, you only quoted half his idea. In full it reads:
He’s making a very big leap here. He says that a man who has a job after being long unemployed has received a “positive utility”. No question there.
But to jump, as you and Keynes do, to the idea that a “positive utility” for one man is perforce a positive utility for the society as a whole is a non sequitur. What is good for one man is often bad for society as a whole. So this whole argument of his, about the utility of borrowed funds, rests on the idea that what is good for one is good for everyone … I don’t think so.
Which may be why Keynes wrote “if this is accepted” … 'cause he knew there were holes in the logic.
Oh. Your comment about “what Keynes actually said” having been “misinterpreted” led me to think that you had missed the relevance of section 10.VI to the “digging holes” comment, which you seemed to be associating solely with section 16.III. AFAICT, looking at both sections together makes it clear that the “digging holes” type of project could, in Keynes’ view, be valuable in the context of both surplus-financed spending (“paid for out of savings”) and deficit spending.
I didn’t assert that he was. I just think you were incorrect in saying that Keynes has been “misinterpreted” concerning the “digging holes” quote.
So where is the peasants’ million bucks in the current situation? If the peasants are so wealthy that they don’t need government spending tax money on them, why are we hearing at present about so many peasants losing jobs, losing homes, losing savings? Why isn’t that million bucks producing unchecked abundance for the peasants without inefficient government interference?
Again, I think the problem is that your example just isn’t a very good analogy to the current situation.
As I asked before, what is a clear, specific, and unambiguous criterion for distinguishing between stimulus and pork?