The private sector creates hundreds of trillions out of thin air, with no resulting hyperinflation. Why shouldn't government? Inflation is psychological, not a physical necessity.
I believe that words and reason will win over emotion. The key is to strip away the excuses that emotional arguments present as necessity. Economics is one such excuse. Eliminate the artificial scarcity of money so that no one can use "but we can't pay for it!" as an excuse to limit freedom.
For example, Lincoln argued for compensated emancipation as a way to end slavery by paying slaveowners for their "property". The emotional arguments used economics against this proposal: "we can't afford it!" But the Civil War ended up costing at least as much as compensated emancipation would have, and had the added effect of killing some three-quarters of a million people and destroying a lot of infrastructure.
So it's of paramount importance to expose economic-based arguments of artificial scarcity for what they are: excuses for an emotional position, not the physical necessity they are presented as.
"In fact, we have evidence from repeated past experiences, that educating our enemies invariably causes them to use their educations against us."
What are you talking about?
I think the problem only arises when you educate only those that the enemy's government has hand-picked to become educated. When you make the education available for free to anyone in the country, including the government's opposition, without restriction, the results will be as good as the quality of the education you're providing.
So provide the best education you can, to anyone, without restriction.
"they'll take that knowledge back to train their gang and will use it against the local civilian population."
But a MOOC is available to anyone, including the local civilian population. So the local civilian population can use the knowledge to fight the government.
"No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist those regimes."
No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist the people under those regimes.
There was a guy from Syria in the first AI MOOC, who kept complaining in the irc chatroom that his internet was getting throttled or shut down by Assad. Banning that guy is helping Assad.
"If you limit the amounts of an individual donation to N, that means, my talking on behalf of a candidate will be limited to N/minimum-hourly-wage hours."
"By limiting the amount of money I can spend on an ad, you are infringing my Free Speech."
Is the government physically putting tape across your mouth, or putting you in handcuffs so you can't type?
I don't see how your speech is limited by restricting the amount of money you spend. You can still talk, you can still write. Your words have not been banned. You can express them freely.
That being said, I think the answer to money in politics is to create more money and give it to everyone, so that it becomes pointless to try to outspend anyone. Then you have to argue with your words alone, since money doesn't give you any advantage.
NASA's not taking advantage of public interest. They've obviously failed to communicate why they think it's so boring, and what the "far more interesting" goals are. They're acting like authoritarian school marms telling you what to be interested in.
Responding to things that are interesting to the public is one way to increase funding. Instead, they come off as a bunch of prissy know-it-alls deciding that our interest is not worthy of their time.
I think the emotion betrayed by the language in your post (absolute syntactical constructions such as "nothing but", "exactly the same"; the prejudicial pejorative "claptrap") clouds your reasoning.
First, the Quantity Theory of Money doesn't hold for empirical data: the money supply in the US has increased at an exponential rate for data available from 1959, but the "inflation tax" has always been less than flat tax proposals.
Second, why not deal with inflation by indexing? This scheme worked for Israel for a few decades. With automation, indexing can be seamless so that we don't even notice inflation; it's handled automatically. Compare Brazil's experience creating the Real, quoting prices in it, and ending their hyperinflation in a very short period. Inflation is psychological. There are tested ways of dealing with the psychology.
Third, federal deficits did not cause the most recent Wall Street crash; private mortgage-backed instruments created out of thin air and booked as assets today on presumed risk-free cash flows decades into the future were the instigation. The government's deficits helped to get us out of the resulting recession; but the government hasn't spent enough. Instead, the Fed created tens (or hundreds) of trillions of dollars and gave it to the banks, which haven't been making loans.
Deficits are the way to increase home ownership. Instead of bailing out the banks, the government should have bailed out homeowners.
The issue is that utilities are run for profit, but they shouldn't be. They should be run by engineers making decisions about safe and sound infrastructure maintenance and development, not by financiers trying to squeeze out as much profit as possible.
Private utilities, also called investor-owned utilities, are owned by investors.
Utilities should not be run for profit. They should not have to balance their books. Government should make up any deficits in their accounts with created money (perhaps by the Fed, which loans it to the government at zero cost). Utilities should be run by engineers, not accountants or profit-hungry bosses.
The solution I want is for government to pay for the repairs and monitoring of the infrastructure without regard to distractions like debt. It's a good idea, it's in the public interest, it's in the General Welfare for infrastructure to be maintained; the tactic of using economics to subvert that idea is wrong.
The problem is that private companies create messes that government then has to clean up. The most recent example is the West Virginia Elk River contamination.
Another is the Butte, Montana toxic lake that has so contaminated the city's water supply they have to pipe in water from another watershed.
The point is that utility companies are operated for profit. They should not be; they should be operated in the public interest, and financing should not be a concern. Government can operate in such a manner by creating money (or getting it from the Fed at zero borrowing cost).
Engineers should be in charge of making decisions about the safety of the infrastructure, not Chief Financial Officers.
The company apparently did a poor job of supplying water, using hollowed out tree trunks for pipes and digging wells in congested areas where there was the danger of raw sewage mixing with the water.[2] After a multitude of cholera epidemics a water system was finally established 1842 in NYC with the building of what is now known as the Old Croton Reservoir.
Government should be investing in alternative, clean energy sources. China's government is. The US govt created hydroelectric dams such as Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee. So the story you've constructed about the govt's incompetence and lack of innovation is not really accurate. Government can and should fund investment in energy research. Carter had the right idea in creating the Department of Energy and installing solar panels on the white house; Reagan turned us down the wrong path by ripping out the panels and defunding DOE (source: http://proposalexponent.com/nondefense%20trends-2013.jpg).
Hoover Dam's a failure? National parks are a failure?
The point is not to regulate away the free market, but to provide a Public Option that each of us is free to choose. Let the financiers play with money, but provide a Basic Income to all who want it so that we can choose to opt out of the moral hazards and perverse incentives of the free market.
But those with lots of money are creating money all the time, as we speak. Loans are created out of thin air, the financing to pay for toxic assets are tricks of accounting, the valuations of a rising stock market are money creation. Where's the tax on existing money, why haven't the tens or hundreds of trillions that have been created out of thin air in the past five years resulted in this "tax on existing money"?
Conclusion: the quantity theory of money must be revised, because empirical data doesn't support it. Inflation is psychological, not a physically necessary consequence of increasing the money supply. Psychology is flexible.
The difference between the free market and government is that the market wants to be free to make mistakes and then maybe pay for them after (unless they go bankrupt). The government, in areas of public safety such as utilities and other infrastructure, should try to build it right the first time, cost be damned. The government should not be profit-motivated. Profit drives the free market and results in putting money over people. The government should put people over money.
The government can create money to do the right thing with infrastructure and other things in the General Welfare. Or the government can borrow it from the Fed at zero cost. Finance should not be the concern of government when it comes to public safety.
The point of disentangling the free market from utilities is that you want engineers making decisions about infrastructure repair and maintenance, not accountants.
Central to this point is that the government does not have to limit itself to spending only what it takes in. The government can and should create money (or borrow it at no cost from the Fed) to do things in the public interest.
Get good engineers out examining the lines, and do not limit them with budget constraints. Let them make decisions based purely on engineering, not finance.
Why can't government create the money, or have the Fed create it and give it to the government at zero borrowing cost, for infrastructure maintenance?
The idea that government can only spend what it takes in is feudal, and has been disproved over and over again by history, including the United States which started out with a national debt that the naysayers predicted would make things worse for their grandchildren. But their predictions have been continually disproved for the life of the nation.
Slashdot Mirror
Replicate studies if you don't trust them.
The private sector creates hundreds of trillions out of thin air, with no resulting hyperinflation. Why shouldn't government? Inflation is psychological, not a physical necessity.
I believe that words and reason will win over emotion. The key is to strip away the excuses that emotional arguments present as necessity. Economics is one such excuse. Eliminate the artificial scarcity of money so that no one can use "but we can't pay for it!" as an excuse to limit freedom.
For example, Lincoln argued for compensated emancipation as a way to end slavery by paying slaveowners for their "property". The emotional arguments used economics against this proposal: "we can't afford it!" But the Civil War ended up costing at least as much as compensated emancipation would have, and had the added effect of killing some three-quarters of a million people and destroying a lot of infrastructure.
So it's of paramount importance to expose economic-based arguments of artificial scarcity for what they are: excuses for an emotional position, not the physical necessity they are presented as.
"In fact, we have evidence from repeated past experiences, that educating our enemies invariably causes them to use their educations against us."
What are you talking about?
I think the problem only arises when you educate only those that the enemy's government has hand-picked to become educated. When you make the education available for free to anyone in the country, including the government's opposition, without restriction, the results will be as good as the quality of the education you're providing.
So provide the best education you can, to anyone, without restriction.
The Georgia Institute of Technology Physics class has practical labs.
"they'll take that knowledge back to train their gang and will use it against the local civilian population."
But a MOOC is available to anyone, including the local civilian population. So the local civilian population can use the knowledge to fight the government.
"No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist those regimes."
No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist the people under those regimes.
There was a guy from Syria in the first AI MOOC, who kept complaining in the irc chatroom that his internet was getting throttled or shut down by Assad. Banning that guy is helping Assad.
"If you limit the amounts of an individual donation to N, that means, my talking on behalf of a candidate will be limited to N/minimum-hourly-wage hours."
"By limiting the amount of money I can spend on an ad, you are infringing my Free Speech."
Is the government physically putting tape across your mouth, or putting you in handcuffs so you can't type?
I don't see how your speech is limited by restricting the amount of money you spend. You can still talk, you can still write. Your words have not been banned. You can express them freely.
That being said, I think the answer to money in politics is to create more money and give it to everyone, so that it becomes pointless to try to outspend anyone. Then you have to argue with your words alone, since money doesn't give you any advantage.
NASA's not taking advantage of public interest. They've obviously failed to communicate why they think it's so boring, and what the "far more interesting" goals are. They're acting like authoritarian school marms telling you what to be interested in.
Responding to things that are interesting to the public is one way to increase funding. Instead, they come off as a bunch of prissy know-it-alls deciding that our interest is not worthy of their time.
Why are those procedures in place? It's public data, why can't the public see it as soon as NASA gets it?
I think the emotion betrayed by the language in your post (absolute syntactical constructions such as "nothing but", "exactly the same"; the prejudicial pejorative "claptrap") clouds your reasoning.
First, the Quantity Theory of Money doesn't hold for empirical data: the money supply in the US has increased at an exponential rate for data available from 1959, but the "inflation tax" has always been less than flat tax proposals.
Second, why not deal with inflation by indexing? This scheme worked for Israel for a few decades. With automation, indexing can be seamless so that we don't even notice inflation; it's handled automatically. Compare Brazil's experience creating the Real, quoting prices in it, and ending their hyperinflation in a very short period. Inflation is psychological. There are tested ways of dealing with the psychology.
Third, federal deficits did not cause the most recent Wall Street crash; private mortgage-backed instruments created out of thin air and booked as assets today on presumed risk-free cash flows decades into the future were the instigation. The government's deficits helped to get us out of the resulting recession; but the government hasn't spent enough. Instead, the Fed created tens (or hundreds) of trillions of dollars and gave it to the banks, which haven't been making loans.
Deficits are the way to increase home ownership. Instead of bailing out the banks, the government should have bailed out homeowners.
And college can be free online now.
The issue is that utilities are run for profit, but they shouldn't be. They should be run by engineers making decisions about safe and sound infrastructure maintenance and development, not by financiers trying to squeeze out as much profit as possible.
I've seen the CNBC interview where they fawned over Allen Stanford: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtRkZ3i1ERQ
"Sir Allen, is it fun being a billionaire?"
Note: Stanford is now serving a 110-year prison sentence for running the Ponzi scheme that CNBC was so in awe of.
From wikipedia:
Utilities should not be run for profit. They should not have to balance their books. Government should make up any deficits in their accounts with created money (perhaps by the Fed, which loans it to the government at zero cost). Utilities should be run by engineers, not accountants or profit-hungry bosses.
The solution I want is for government to pay for the repairs and monitoring of the infrastructure without regard to distractions like debt. It's a good idea, it's in the public interest, it's in the General Welfare for infrastructure to be maintained; the tactic of using economics to subvert that idea is wrong.
The problem is that private companies create messes that government then has to clean up. The most recent example is the West Virginia Elk River contamination.
Another is the Butte, Montana toxic lake that has so contaminated the city's water supply they have to pipe in water from another watershed.
The point is that utility companies are operated for profit. They should not be; they should be operated in the public interest, and financing should not be a concern. Government can operate in such a manner by creating money (or getting it from the Fed at zero borrowing cost).
Engineers should be in charge of making decisions about the safety of the infrastructure, not Chief Financial Officers.
We tried that in New York with Aaron Burr's Manhattan Water Company:
Government should be investing in alternative, clean energy sources. China's government is. The US govt created hydroelectric dams such as Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee. So the story you've constructed about the govt's incompetence and lack of innovation is not really accurate. Government can and should fund investment in energy research. Carter had the right idea in creating the Department of Energy and installing solar panels on the white house; Reagan turned us down the wrong path by ripping out the panels and defunding DOE (source: http://proposalexponent.com/nondefense%20trends-2013.jpg).
Hoover Dam's a failure? National parks are a failure?
The point is not to regulate away the free market, but to provide a Public Option that each of us is free to choose. Let the financiers play with money, but provide a Basic Income to all who want it so that we can choose to opt out of the moral hazards and perverse incentives of the free market.
But those with lots of money are creating money all the time, as we speak. Loans are created out of thin air, the financing to pay for toxic assets are tricks of accounting, the valuations of a rising stock market are money creation. Where's the tax on existing money, why haven't the tens or hundreds of trillions that have been created out of thin air in the past five years resulted in this "tax on existing money"?
Conclusion: the quantity theory of money must be revised, because empirical data doesn't support it. Inflation is psychological, not a physically necessary consequence of increasing the money supply. Psychology is flexible.
The difference between the free market and government is that the market wants to be free to make mistakes and then maybe pay for them after (unless they go bankrupt). The government, in areas of public safety such as utilities and other infrastructure, should try to build it right the first time, cost be damned. The government should not be profit-motivated. Profit drives the free market and results in putting money over people. The government should put people over money.
The government can create money to do the right thing with infrastructure and other things in the General Welfare. Or the government can borrow it from the Fed at zero cost. Finance should not be the concern of government when it comes to public safety.
The point of disentangling the free market from utilities is that you want engineers making decisions about infrastructure repair and maintenance, not accountants.
Central to this point is that the government does not have to limit itself to spending only what it takes in. The government can and should create money (or borrow it at no cost from the Fed) to do things in the public interest.
Get good engineers out examining the lines, and do not limit them with budget constraints. Let them make decisions based purely on engineering, not finance.
Why can't government create the money, or have the Fed create it and give it to the government at zero borrowing cost, for infrastructure maintenance?
The idea that government can only spend what it takes in is feudal, and has been disproved over and over again by history, including the United States which started out with a national debt that the naysayers predicted would make things worse for their grandchildren. But their predictions have been continually disproved for the life of the nation.