When I was a young lefty, the ideal form of public debt, sometimes called national debt, was explained to me as labor contributed, today, in excess of immediate compensation, with deferred compensation down the line. In other words, it's not a threatening obligation. It's an investment. That's a simplification, but it makes a lot more sense than deficit terrorists' death-dealing Debt Bomb of Doom scenarios and the lazy Micawberisms of the sensible liberals.
Comments (26)
The 1821 pamphlet, The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties... presents the best summary of public debt I've ever seen. Let's see if I can sum it up: It is loans made to government to purchase goods that have the purpose of destroying value. Public debt was invented to finance war. So the only thing left are the obligations to repay the debt, not the "wealth" created with the borrowed funds.
There is ALSO public debt that is investment, but this is subordinate to the main objectives of financing wars and creating secure income streams for the war financiers.
Posted by Sandwichman | August 27, 2011 5:29 PM
Posted on August 27, 2011 17:29
Thanks for the pamphlet and even more for that summary. I've never had any luck getting the destruction of value concept across. I'm not up to the explication.
Posted by Al Schumann | August 27, 2011 5:53 PM
Posted on August 27, 2011 17:53
its
the deficit terrorists'
"death-dealing Debt ceiling of Doom "
Al
i sent you the memo
-------------------
sandy you're gettin to be a habit around here
quite a delight
please
bring us more of your vintage wares
just so long as you keep quiet
your conviction
dilke here is superior
to the prick doctor from trier !!!!!!!
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch21.htm
Posted by op | August 27, 2011 9:00 PM
Posted on August 27, 2011 21:00
" Labour’s Wrongs and Labour’s Remedy"
http://ideas.repec.org/b/hay/hetboo/bray1839.html
paine enters a dog in the hunt
Posted by op | August 27, 2011 9:47 PM
Posted on August 27, 2011 21:47
That hound's braying is painefully long-winded. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Posted by Sandwichman | August 28, 2011 2:59 AM
Posted on August 28, 2011 02:59
stumbled into to this and thomatose view
thought it might spoil mjs's brunch
"Academic Freedom
1.Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties;
but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.
2.Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject,
but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.
Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.
3.College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution.
When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline,
but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances.
Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution"
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 10:05 AM
Posted on August 28, 2011 10:05
why sandy
feel free
as my daddy always used to say
after he beltched over some
tv egg head's pinky fingered jest
"son .....if a man can't stand up
to a pun or two
why he's not a real man "
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 10:08 AM
Posted on August 28, 2011 10:08
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/islamophobia.html
friends of the sand people attendez vous
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 12:18 PM
Posted on August 28, 2011 12:18
top anti izzy wizzy fund-outfits:
Donors Capital Fund
Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
Russell Berrie Foundation
Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
Fairbrook Foundation
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 12:21 PM
Posted on August 28, 2011 12:21
"public debt, ....labor contributed,
today,
in excess of immediate compensation,
with deferred compensation down the line.'
"In other words, it's not a threatening obligation. It's an investment"
i'm left by that passage
beautifully transported
to a fragrant smellin place
but i'm blind as a mole
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 12:55 PM
Posted on August 28, 2011 12:55
Academic Freedom
You're free to say whatever you want, so long as you don't.
When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations.
You're free wherever you're a citizen (I thought I was a citizen everywhere), but not within the "community." The community, however, is now anywhere: Facebook, blog posts, newsletters, etc. Defining where community begins and ends is almost theological: one might as well be warbling about the Holy Spirit.
Posted by antonello | August 28, 2011 2:23 PM
Posted on August 28, 2011 14:23
still digesting libya
i like this
" 'Kinetic' is a word that's been used around the Pentagon for many years to distinguish between actions like dropping bombs, launching cruise missiles or shooting people and newer forms of non-violent fighting like cyber-warfare.
At times, it also appears to mean just taking action.
a passage from Bob Woodward's book, Bush at War:
'For many days the war cabinet
had been dancing around
the basic
question:
how long could they wait
after September 11
before the U.S.
started going "kinetic,"
as they often termed it,
against al Qaeda in a visible way?'
Now, White House officials are referring to the war in Libya not as a war but as a "kinetic military action."
As common as "kinetic" might be among those in government,
it still seems likely to strike
members of the public
as a euphemism that allows the Obama administration to describe a war
as something
other than a war."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/white-house-libya-fight-not-war-its-kinetic-military-action#ixzz1WNnQzQnx
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 11:00 PM
Posted on August 28, 2011 23:00
pwogs prolly wanting something like this:
"... public education should equip students with skills to enter the workplace.....(pause).... it should also
educate them to contest workplace inequalities,
imagine democratically organized forms of work,
and identify and challenge those injustices that contradict and undercut
the most fundamental principles of freedom, equality, and respect for all people....."
got this :
"In the grand finale, public school teachers were dragged out into the town square for public stoning."
" Having deskilled these teachers for decades, switching their roles to technicians and test machines, ".. helped later on in absolving them of all power to challenge oppressive workplace practices like militarization and privatization "
maybe at least above say grade 6
Clio has Her reasons
why we might "charter" and "voucher"
this soured old dewey gig
into oblivion
over priced bad health
meet on line multiple guess
Posted by op | August 28, 2011 11:25 PM
Posted on August 28, 2011 23:25
Obama's Public Opinion DilemmaJonathan ChaitThe New RepublicAugust 26,
2011
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/94250/obamas-public-opinion-dilemma
nub
a shift
asmong folks
now more want mr reasonable
to confront the gop
maybe we get a truman moment
after labor day ??
surely nows the time
fuck the hill and fuck QE III
force gentle ben
to activate a major fed/fanny freddie household balance sheet rescue
possible ???
nope
though heres what barry could say
i plan on firing timmy that brass plated wall street mole and replace him with barney frank
and as you know
i have open seats on the fed board to fill
and i plan to fill em by recess appointments and i'm sending you three read hots
including jaimie galbraith and joe stiglitz
guiys that can make your life hell
as well as
remove any excuse about how
you haven't got the votes to do more
by the way
we have a case against you
as part of the larger greenspan bubble caper
investigation
can you spell
"criminal regulatory negligence" ??
the good people of america would love to see a barn burner attack on that fucking
wall street run
temple of doom and gloom
over there on constitution ave
--------------
in what universe paine ??
Posted by op | August 29, 2011 11:20 AM
Posted on August 29, 2011 11:20
in my dream
barry goes kinetic on ben
grabs him by the tie and sez
remember timmy ben ??
he didn't like my plan
told me so last week
well gee i hear tim boys on his way
to the best nut house in america right now
in a belle vue tuxedo
yup guy just went bonkers
during a cocktail party last night
at bob rubin's penthouse up in manhattan
i bet you wonder what he must have been drinking eh ??
Posted by op | August 29, 2011 11:27 AM
Posted on August 29, 2011 11:27
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-911-homeland-security-surveillance-20110830,0,2086471.story
another
they are watching you watching you watching you
world of
post 9/11 piece
ex-sips "
" Internet entrepreneur Nicholas Merrill was working in his Manhattan office when an FBI agent in a trench coat arrived with an envelope."
...Merrill ran a small Internet service provider with clients including IKEA, Mitsubishi and freelance journalists.
"The agent handed Merrill a document called a National Security Letter, which demanded that he turn over detailed records on one of his customers. The letter wasn't signed by a judge or prosecutor. It instructed him to tell no one.
"Not even my lawyer? Not even my business partners?" Merrill asked.
The agent shrugged and left."
". U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies now collect, store and analyze vast quantities of digital data produced by law-abiding Americans."
" The data mining receives limited congressional oversight, rare judicial review and almost no public scrutiny."
"In several cases, they have wiretapped conversations between lawyers and defendants, challenging the legal principle that attorney-client communication is inviolate."
"We are caught in the middle of a perfect storm in which every thought we communicate, every step we take, every transaction we enter into is captured in digital data and is subject to government collection,"
"A robust debate on the intelligence gathering has been impossible, for the simple reason that most of the activity is officially secret."
" In lawsuits alleging improper eavesdropping, the Justice Department has invoked state secrecy to prevent disclosure of classified information and systems."
"In May, two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that Americans would be disturbed if they knew about some of the government's data-gathering procedures. But Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said they were prohibited from revealing the facts.
"When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted" surveillance law, "they will be stunned and they will be angry," Wyden said."
.
.
"Courts have ruled that the government doesn't need a search warrant, which requires a judge's approval, to obtain records held by "third parties," .
"the FBI issued 24,287 National Security Letters last year for data on 14,212 Americans. That's up from a few thousand letters a year before 2001."
.
.
. good news !!!
the Obama administration had largely embraced the surveillance strategies and systems developed under President George W. Bush."
frankly i can't get very excited
this looks like a good thing to my beat
the white job class
they like national security types
in mormon accountant suits knocking on dark folks doors
their take:
"no fbi ever called me nigger "
Posted by op | August 30, 2011 9:01 AM
Posted on August 30, 2011 09:01
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/sources_document13.html
worth a read
from the fateful year 1971
when nixon closed the gold window
and like a second pandora
open-ed a box
so full of revamped and vile corporate evils
it would have seemed
--if he could have
grasped its full import--
like the mountain top itself
a zeus like bolt
loosed on all those he most despised
on them
on their children and on their childrens children
beyond his fondest and ugliest dreams
the era of neo liberalism
can be dated from this
one bold act of statesmanship
---obviously the author of the linked to memo
itself a kind of domestic nsc 68
could have no notion the great corporate counter attack the memo demands
would commence almost immediately
with nixons fateful action
an action
only the invisible hand itself
could have nudged into existence
Posted by Anonymous | August 30, 2011 5:25 PM
Posted on August 30, 2011 17:25
al i want to review
your incisive notion
sunstein socialism
with you
i'm in need of a little cheering up
reading mjs on vivaldi hasn't done the trick
Posted by op | August 30, 2011 5:27 PM
Posted on August 30, 2011 17:27
" the net worth of US households has rebounded from $51 trillion in 2008 (down from $64 trillion) to $58 trillion in the first quarter of 2011"
that sort of nonsense oughta get
the writer sent to a rock pile
Posted by op | August 30, 2011 9:05 PM
Posted on August 30, 2011 21:05
Why so down OP? Have you tried MDMA therapy?
Posted by Paul Alexander | August 31, 2011 2:36 PM
Posted on August 31, 2011 14:36
Here is something worth thinking about vis a vis Libya.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/31/gaddafis-libya-as-demon/
Posted by Boink | August 31, 2011 5:59 PM
Posted on August 31, 2011 17:59
And this
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/libyan-soldier-true-heroes-nato’s-war
Posted by Boink | August 31, 2011 10:26 PM
Posted on August 31, 2011 22:26
Owen, maybe we should try lowering consciousness. Sunstein Socialism would thrive on resentful, nudgeable, barely awake lumps of unwilling labor. Each goldbricking comrade would have visits from a personal nudger, drawn from a pool of poindexter liberals with very high test scores. The poindexters, in turn, would be assigned supervisors, like Melissa Pacewell-Groanshaft, who dragged them off to be the victims of academic pecking parties.
We should make it Orwellian too. Picture a poindexter nudging a human lump—forever. Lumps sleep safely at night because poindexters stand ready to visit nudging on those who would harm them. Etc. etc.
Posted by Al Schumann | September 2, 2011 4:29 AM
Posted on September 2, 2011 04:29
Picture a poindexter nudging a human lump—forever. Lumps sleep safely at night because poindexters stand ready to visit nudging on those who would harm them. Etc. etc.
sounds like 'nice peoples' parties' in brussels.
Posted by juan | September 5, 2011 11:27 PM
Posted on September 5, 2011 23:27
"Nudging Poindexters" is interchangeable with, and semantically equivalent to, "European Central Bankers". Especially when they get mean.
Posted by Al Schumann | September 5, 2011 11:55 PM
Posted on September 5, 2011 23:55
op - you do sound very down; please take care, above all when nearing pointdexterian casstles of nudgery
Posted by juan | September 6, 2011 5:03 AM
Posted on September 6, 2011 05:03