Okay. There's a great movie, though, called "Money as Debt" which is definitely biased, definitely simplistic, definitely anti-establishment and a pretty good watch: So money doesn't do anything unless it's moving. Money in the bank? Useless to the economy. DEAD. Money under your mattress, money in your wallet, money in your sock drawer, might as well not be money. The only time money is useful is when it's being used in transactions. Money is so useful, in fact, that banks don't need to have it to lend it out. Well, it's not quite that simple, but fractional reserve banking basically means that if I've got a nickel, I can loan up to a dollar. If I loan that dollar to another bank, they can loan 20 dollars. if another bank borrows that 20 dollars, they can loan 400 dollars. And the only thing that's real is the fuckin' nickel. Head hurt yet? Start to see why "runs on banks" are uber-bad things? And why the whole system is predicated on trust? I"m in the process of building a birth center. I'm not a pauper but I sure can't field six figures of biomedical build-out. Confidence is high it will be a money maker, and will pay taxes, and hire employees, and take in fees from expectant mothers, and before that pay the wages of a dozen contractors, architects, designers and all the rest, but there needs to be a loan to make it happen. And that loan needs to come from a bank that's solvent and is willing to risk its precious, precious deposits on my has-every-chance-of-failing unsecured birth center. It's in the government's best interests to have that birth center built. It'll provide jobs. It'll pay taxes. It's a part of the durable goods economy. Yadda yadda yadda. But it's not in the bank's best interest to have that birth center built unless it knows for sure we'll pay back the loan with interest. If that interest rate is too high, we won't build the birth center 'cuz we can't afford to. So it needs to be cheap for the bank to loan money to us and when the government has literally made it free to borrow money from the government (the prime rate) they run out of options other than quantitative easing. Now say that instead of giving that money to a bank, the government gives it directly to me. I'm going to get a piece, but not a piece big enough to build a birth center with. The contractors will get a piece, but not enough to grow their businesses (and nobody can afford to build anything anyway, unless they have cash). The banks will get a piece, but their fraction won't be nearly what it is if the government floats them by buying their previous obligations (like, other people's birth centers, for example). Everyone gets money, but no one gets any incentive to spend it. This is why the "Bush tax cut" was so resoundingly panned by everyone - what the fuck are average americans going to do with $296? how's that going to help the economy? Lost in the subterfuge was the fact that the Walton siblings split $38 billion in tax cuts and the Waltons spent like mad. Think of what Walmart did between 2002 and 2008. So. Wealth inequality yes, market liquidity yes. Wealth equality yes, market frigidity yes. Make sense?
That does make some sense then. So let me ask a follow up question then. People criticize the whole argument of "The Trickle Down Effect" because they say that those with the money to trickle down just hoard it. Are they actually hoarding it, or are they reinvesting it in themselves and therefore somehow still stimulating the economy?
An easy one! (not) The argument for "trickle-down economics" is that the wealthy will spend it, and that spending is a stimulus that helps everyone. The argument against is not that the wealthy will hoard it, it's that they'll spend it on things that are a lot less impactful on other taxpayers. One Gulfstream G650 is $65 million. Say you have a stimulus that lets ten more billionaires buy G650s. That's $650 million into the economy of Savannah, GA, Long Beach, CA, dozens of other places where subcontractors work, etc. Those ten jets are a real economic stimulus for maybe 20,000, maybe 30,000 people. But maybe eight of them don't buy Gulfstreams. Maybe eight of them buy bigger mansions. That already exist. That happen to be in Monaco, Bermuda, St. Tropez, Kingston, etc. So that's maybe 500 of your $650 million that didn't give anyone a job. A lot of it stone-cold left the country. Now instead of a $650 million gulfstream stimulus, you decide to rebuild some roads. Best guess? $4k per mile, you're rebuilding 162,000 miles of highway. Center for American Progress estimates that's 120,000 jobs created. And it's really tough to off-shore that shit. Besides which, now everybody can use that road, not just ten billionaires. Liz Warren has said a thing or two about infrastructure and the leverage effect it has. She's a clever lady. I'll bet she's anti-G650. it's a different argument than "quantitative easing increases wealth economy." The argument against "trickle down" is it why would you want a trickle when you can have a flood?
It was apparently tried in the 1890's - didn't work then, either. It was called "horse-and-sparrow" theory - 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'
Indeed - Keynesian economics is sometimes called "trickle-up". As I understand it, Keynesian economics is more about stimulating a sluggish economy, by lowering interest rates, public-works spending, etc; whatever works; but I'm no expert on it.
I think that's where people misunderstand Keynes. I'm no expert either, but Keynes was for stimulating the economy by government spending and other tools in economic downturns, but also for raising taxes and cutting spending during good times. We always only hear about the downturn half, but the problem is the downturn half doesn't work so well when you're always cutting taxes and encouraging spending independent of what the economy is doing. For example, during the boom between the dot com bubble and the housing bubble, what did we (the US) do? Cut taxes, spent a trillion dollars on a war, and encouraged people who couldn't afford it to borrow as much money as they possibly could, all while keeping interest rates low enough that those poor people could afford it (kind of...in the immediate term...yay interest only loans!). Leave it to W to fuck up a boom.As I understand it, Keynesian economics is more about stimulating a sluggish economy...
Was confused, until the google convinced me that you meant "Ben" not "Mark"
Yeah. That douchecamel. Ryan Holiday recommended the book at one point, without mentioning that it's a VC bragging about how rough it is being a VC because you need to lay people off without pissing off the people who stay. Cue some bullshit DMX quote.
Hmm. That's actually a pretty compelling argument, and one I can get behind. Thanks for taking your time to share a thing or two tonight.It's a different argument than "quantitative easing increases wealth economy." The argument against "trickle down" is it why would you want a trickle when you can have a flood?
Crazy thing just happened. I actually like something kleinbl00 has to say. I wish I could tell him how much I appreciate his explanations on this as it is something I have been eager to learn about and he seems to be very knowledgeable in this category. Alas I can't so maybe this will find its way to him.
If you can't send him a PM (due to blocking), you can send it to me and I'll forward it to him, if you like.
It's no big deal. He doesn't particularly like me. If you want to send it to him cool, if not it's w/e. I just don't like not being able to coexist and I enjoy the different view points. So when I appreciate what one such as he says I feel the need to put it out there in an attempt to build a bridge of understanding.
I have no particular desire to be a messenger boy - if you can send him a PM, then feel free to do so (as per the wish you expressed).