Real World Event Discussions

Conservatives have no ideas what to do about recessions

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Monday, March 9, 2026 17:30
VIEWED: 29022
PAGE 8 of 25

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Thursday, January 2, 2014 10:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The point I keep making is that money is like blood: It doesn't do any good unless it's circulating.

The Dolly Levi Gallagher Theory of Economics: "As my late husband Ephriam used to say, Money is like manure. It doesn't do any good until you spread it around."

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, January 2, 2014 11:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh BTW- this sums up Keynes quite nicely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

If you use Wikipedia, please donate. I do.

I have a better and more accurate description, Courtesy of Michael Rivero.
(Reprinted with express permission)

Quote:
THE ELEVENTH MARBLE

by Michael Rivero

Any five-year old child knows that if you put ten marbles into a tin can, you can only take ten marbles back out. No amount of wishful thinking, dreaming, or praying, will yield that eleventh marble from inside that can. That eleventh marble does not exist. It never did, and it never will. All discussions about the eleventh marble are the product of imagination. The eleventh marble is a fantasy.

Private central bankers issuing the public currency as interest-bearing loans operate on the belief that they can put ten marbles (dollars) into a tin can (the world) and magically get 11 marbles back out. Thus, we may conclude that the bankers are dumber than five-year old children! But unlike five-year old children, the bankers will take your home, your business, and your nation when they don't get that eleventh marble! The spoiled child may cry and throw a tantrum, but that will be the end of their upset. The spoiled banker, however, in his or her arrogant rage that they cannot have the eleventh marble their imagination says must still be in that tin can, may start a war before they will admit that eleventh marble was never really there.

Economies are like tin cans. Before you can take a marble out, you must have put a marble in. Nobody can give you a marble that does not exist, yet this simple reality is lost to the priests of that fantastic religion called "economics" in that unholiest of temples called the Private Central Bank. Their religious doctrine seems to be that there must always be an eleventh marble inside the tin can, and that the tin can unfairly withholds that eleventh marble, indeed cheats them of their right to the eleventh marble, purely out of spite. That faith in the existence of the eleventh marble, unseen and improvable, is the article of faith the religion of banking rests on. It is far easier to burn the heretics than to question the dogma.

Today we see the bankers, having already retrieved their ten marbles from the tin can, flogging the world for that missing eleventh marble. Greece does not have that eleventh marble, so they turn to Germany and ask, "Do you have an eleventh marble", and Germany replies, "Sorry, but the bankers already took the ten marbles they put in our tin can, and we are searching for an eleventh marble ourselves. Try the Americans." The Americans, of course, have only just surrendered the last of their ten marbles back to the bankers and are looking under seat cushions for that missing eleventh marble nobody seems able to find.

But the eleventh marble will never be found. After all that mayhem brought down on the tin can there still will be no eleventh marble. It does not exist. It never did, and it never will.

The problem with all modern reserve banking systems is that the moment the first bank note goes into circulation as the proceed of a loan at interest, more money is owed to the banks than actually exists. Ten marbles have been put into the tin can, but the bankers see 11 marbles owed back to them. Sooner or later the non-existence of that eleventh marble will create a crisis of faith. People will stop believing in the religion called private central banking, and that crisis of faith will bring the system crashing down, as did the Temple of Baal in ancient times when the Syrians saw through the priests' trickery. This evil magic of creating money out of debt was a fraud all along, as fraudulent and silly as the idea that one can put ten marbles into a tin can, and take out eleven.

In ages to come economists will look back at this failed experiment in debt-based currency, and dump it into the same category of human folly as Tulip mania, The Nation of Poyais, Credit Mobi

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME

M52NICKERSON

Friday, January 3, 2014 12:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:
I have a better and more accurate description, Courtesy of Michael Rivero.
(Reprinted with express permission)
Quote:
THE ELEVENTH MARBLE

-F

The eleventh marble does not describe Keynesian economics. Hell it does not even discribe economics based on fiat currency. With fiat currency the government can create the eleventh marble out of nothing. That is kinda the point of Keyes, for the government to spend/create money to prvent the problem from not having the eleventh marble.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

MAL4PREZ

Friday, January 3, 2014 1:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A dollar bill can be used to power one exchange per year, or it can be used to power 1000. The higher the velocity, the more the economic activity. Adding more money to a moribund economy is a bit like infusing a corpse: unless that money is going to power purchases of goods, which powers employment, which creates further demand for more goods and services etc all you will do is bloat up the body. As long as money is being hoarded and sequestered by the wealthy, who really DON'T create demand, the stimulus will bypass the vast majority of people.

This is the heart of it.

A restaurant owner doesn't hire more staff because he/she suddenly has extra money lying around and figures: "Hey, I'll create jobs so I can share this!" The owner hires more staff when there are more customers. It's just so obvious.

Really, the trickle down idea is so blatantly wrong and has so hideously failed that I'm at a loss how anyone can still attempt to argue for it.

That's about all I have to add, since I lack the language to go into detail about economics. Enjoying the posts though.

Oh - the 11 marbles thing seems overly simple. Sure, I hate how our economy is largely controlled by those who make money from money, rather than actually doing or making something useful. But economics is not about counting stationary marbles. It's about how the marbles move about.

*-------------------------------------------------------------*
MAL4PREZ: Clearly [The Rap]'s doing nothing but trolling now.
STORYMARK: And not even cleverly.
RAPPY: [My trolling] did its job, did it not? Easiest marks in the 'verse.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57146
*-------------------------------------------------------------*

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, January 3, 2014 9:53 AM

Simplistic it may be, but the relevance of it here is that the Banksters hoard the marbles they have until they've picked the country clean and then start to squeeze, looking for the 11th one, and that almost inevitably leads to serious nasty.

As for the complete shell game of how the marbles move around, Sheldon Emry did a pretty good assessment on this.
http://liberty-tree.ca/research/Billions.for.the.Bankers
Mind you this has snowballed as more and more "money" is naught more than etheral and easily manipulated numbers in electronic banking systems.

And if you REALLY want to get into the very devil of the details, this RSA primer on why this bullshit is inevitable in a Capitalistic system is a pretty good breakdown.

Worth a note as well, I consider the so-called-science of Economics to be complete bullshit, a semi-religious pseudoscientific load of horseshit used as excuse/explaination/justification for the practice of usury in malicious fashion, cause just like that old shoveljob about how we all need a leash to protect us from ourselves, those espousing it (outside of fools taught it in school who never learned better/different) have nefarious intentions for advancing such a dangerous and destructive myth.

-Frem

SIGNYM

Friday, January 3, 2014 10:04 AM

One of these days economics might become a real science, but right now all it is is a long apologia for TPTB. Propaganda, masquerading as fact.

My take on it is not that 11th marble reflects Keynesianism, it reflects the problem Keynes was trying to solve.

Well, now that we're all (mostly) in agreement that conservatives have no ideas what to do about recessions, it seems to me that the trick is to figure out a system where money CAN'T get stuck in dead-ends. The problem that a lot of ppl have is the idea that money (and power) don't behave like water... money and power don't diffuse, don't flow from high concentrations to low. In fact, they naturally concentrate. Unless you have a system actively dispersing/ diffusing both, you'll wind up with what we have today.

The FF tried to do that with politics. They scattered power via the vote, and set up checks and balances between three competing systems. But they didn't imagine how money could concentrate.

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, January 3, 2014 4:43 PM

Ha, simple solution.

Perishable Currency.

Bonus points if it's edible.

-F

M52NICKERSON

Friday, January 3, 2014 5:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Simplistic it may be, but the relevance of it here is that the Banksters hoard the marbles they have until they've picked the country clean and then start to squeeze, looking for the 11th one, and that almost inevitably leads to serious nasty.

As for the complete shell game of how the marbles move around, Sheldon Emry did a pretty good assessment on this.
http://liberty-tree.ca/research/Billions.for.the.Bankers
Mind you this has snowballed as more and more "money" is naught more than etheral and easily manipulated numbers in electronic banking systems.

And if you REALLY want to get into the very devil of the details, this RSA primer on why this bullshit is inevitable in a Capitalistic system is a pretty good breakdown.

Worth a note as well, I consider the so-called-science of Economics to be complete bullshit, a semi-religious pseudoscientific load of horseshit used as excuse/explaination/justification for the practice of usury in malicious fashion, cause just like that old shoveljob about how we all need a leash to protect us from ourselves, those espousing it (outside of fools taught it in school who never learned better/different) have nefarious intentions for advancing such a dangerous and destructive myth.

-Frem

Emry states that the Great Depression was the result of bankers rufusing to issue new loans. She is making this up. The fact is the huge economic success of the twenties saw bank loans being paid off. In responce the banks lowered interest rates in encourage people to take out new loans. They did, which grew to a unsutainable level. Couple this with some housing market bubbles and suddenly banks are trying to call in loans because they are over extended, people can't pay the loans because they don't have the money and the system sprials out of control.

It's funny that you think economics is bullshit, but post an article that accuses bankers of using simple economics to control people.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

GEEZER

Friday, January 3, 2014 8:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
First of all, the national debt before FDR was small, so tripling it does not necessarily mean FDR spent massively. Secondly, again, look at the graph of debt/GDP -

FDR came in in 1933, and kept debt as a proportion of GDP steady. So although the debt increased in dollar amounts, FDR practiced fiscal restraint and kept the debt burden steady - against what Keynes recommended. So yes, I would say FDR didn't spend enough - the GD could've ended much sooner!

So national debt going from 18% of GNP in 1929 to 45% in 1939 is fiscal restraint? Just curious as to how much national debt as a percent of GNP you think is acceptable.

Quote:
Quote:
until WWII came along and bailed the Keynesians out.

Do you have your own, non-Keynesian explanation for how WWII ended the Great Depression? If not then wouldn't it have been much better if FDR had spent massively in 1933, instead of 1941, and pulled America out of the GD sooner?

My point is that it you are claiming that it takes something along the lines of a world war for the Keynesian remedy for depression to work. At that point it seems that the cure is worse than the disease.

Quote:
Another two points about Keynesian spending:

1. It's only ever practised when the economy is in a mess.
2. It's usually practised on a half-hearted scale, with too many people fretting about deficits

These two facts together mean that the result of stimulus spending is rarely resoundingly successful, and usually the economy will still be in a weak state afterwards (though better than it was, and would've been). So people will question whether the stimulus did anything at all. The answer is invariably yes, but the spending was not big enough.

That's because most folks have a very understandable aversion to running up massive national debt in the hope that Lord Keynes will come down from heaven and bail them out.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

GEEZER

Friday, January 3, 2014 8:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
So it was Hoover and Roosevelt who had no idea what to do about recessions?

They both did poorly. This shouldn't be a surprise - we're talking about the Great Depression here. A lot of FDR's policies promoted long term growth, which was good, but not the short term growth that was needed.

Yep. Need a good war to make Keynes work.

Quote:
[]b
Quote:
So Smoot-Hawley may have had an effect

Good. So no more talk about '10 years of liberal policies', as if there are no other variables.

Apparently there are no policies (short of world war) that are liberal enough for you.

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
2. Things started to improve around that time (until 1937, when FDR enacted austerity)

Because the Keynesians couldn't convince enough folks to bury jars of money?

That's a foolish statement, and a non sequitur.

Why? You proposed it. "Keynes proposed that a government could theoretically spend money digging holes in the ground, and then burying jars of banknotes inside, and then leave it to private enterprise to dig up the jars of money for their own profit - and that this would boost employment, and the economy."

But you couldn't sell that to the populace, so WWII was the alternative.

Quote:
Quote:
And this was all Smoot-Hawley's fault? Nothing else caused it?

If you owned an export business then yes, it's likely that Smoot-Hawley killed your factory. But the only person blaming the GD on a single factor is yourself, Geezer. I'm saying there are many factors.

Where did I say there was a single factor causing the GD?

Quote:
Quote:
This graph shows Federal spending as a percent of GDP went from less than 4% in 1929 to almost 11% in 1936. Doesn't look like spending was being brakes much to me.

http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_chart_1920_1940USp_15s1li011mc
n_F0f_US_Federal_Spending

Nice graph. Yes spending went up, BUT revenues increased at about the same rate. So the government was putting money into the economy at about the same rate that it was taking it out. Not what Keynesianism calls for. As I said, the US was being fiscally neutral at a time when Keynes called for deficit spending

Graphs above show national debt going up during the 1929-1939 period, so revenues did not increase at the same rate as spending.

Quote:
You're saying that a world war every once in a while is GOOD for the economy

You apparently don't have a clue what we're saying.

Do you?

"I'm telling you that this is exactly the role WWII played for the US economy. The US didn't put people to work digging holes in the ground and filling them in, but it did employ millions in the US military, and put them to work shooting and bombing Nazis and Japanese. The US didn't bury money for private companies to dig up, but it did give billions of $$$ of war materials/munitions contracts to US factories."

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."