AXEC: New Foundations of Economics: From the debt economy to the gift economy: how America is brainwashed to love budget deficits

December 9, 2020

From the debt economy to the gift economy: how America is brainwashed to love budget deficits

Comment on James Galbraith on ‘Reconsideration of Fiscal Policy: A Comment’*

COVID-19 is a godsend for the Oligarchy. The 3-sector macroeconomic Profit Law Q≡(G−T)+(I−S)+Y_d implies Public Deficit (G−T) = Private Profit Q. The current acceleration of deficit-spending/money-creation will result in the biggest profit explosion ever.

Government deficit-spending, of course, increases public debt and it roughly holds: Financial assets of the Oligarchy ≈ Public debt of WeThePeople. As a result, the inequality of income/wealth increases in the process.#1

While not much can be said against short-term deficit spending in an emergency situation, some people are concerned about the longer-term effects of a continuously increasing public debt. MMTers, the proponents of permanent deficit-spending/money-creation, claim that there is nothing to worry about and that the debt hysteria over several centuries was just that: much ado about an economic non-event.

Because MMT is a refuted approach and MMTers are agenda pushers for the Oligarchy, their arguments have to be taken as tranquilizers for the general public. The question is still open whether there is an upper limit for public debt. Economists have come up with the answer that there is nothing to worry about as long as the economy grows faster than the debt, i.e. r < g, which is as trivially true as it is idiotic.

Neither mainstream economics nor MMT has sound scientific foundations. So the macroeconomic analysis of deficits and debt must first be based on correct premises.

As the new analytical starting point, the elementary production-consumption economy is defined with this set of macroeconomic axioms‡: (A0) The objectively given and most elementary configuration of the economy consists of the household and the business sector which in turn consists initially of one giant fully integrated firm. (A1) Y_w=WL wage income Y_w is equal to wage rate W times working hours. L, (A2) O=RL output O is equal to productivity R times working hours L, (A3) C=PX consumption expenditure C is equal to price P times quantity bought/sold X.

Under the conditions of market-clearing X=O and budget-balancing C=Y_w in each period, the price is given by P=W/R, i.e. the market-clearing price is determined by the wage rate, which takes the role of the nominal numéraire, and the productivity. This is the most elementary form of the macroeconomic Law of Supply and Demand. For the graphical representation see Figure 1.#2

Monetary profit for the economy as a whole is defined as Q≡C−Y_w and monetary saving is defined as S≡Y_w−C. It always holds Q≡−S, in other words, the business sector’s profit equals the household sector’s dissaving. Vice versa, the business sector’s loss equals the household sector’s saving. This is the most elementary form of the macroeconomic Profit Law.

With the government included the Profit Law reads Q≡(G−T)−S+Y_d. And under the condition of S=0, Y_d=0 one gets Public Deficit = Private Profit. So, the deficit of the public sector reappears one-to-one as monetary profit of the business sector. If the public sector issues bonds to cover the deficit, the business sector has the exact amount at hand to buy them, no matter how large the public deficit is.

To simplify things, it is assumed that the profit of the business sector is fully distributed to the owners, i.e. the Oligarchy. Distributed profit is not spent but used to buy government bonds. The receivers of distributed profit income Y_d and the receivers of wage income Y_w make up the household sector.

In the first period, the state sector spends G, and taxes T are zero, so deficit spending equals G, and for the profit of the business sector holds Q equals G. This profit is distributed, so Y_d equals Q. Total income of the household sector is Y_w+Y_d and C=Y_w and S=Y_d.

In the next period, public expenditures increase because of the interest on public debt. This amount is taxed from the wage income receivers and paid out to the bondholders, i.e. to the Oligarchy. The disposable income of WeThePeople is reduced Y_w−T and that of the Oligarchy is increased Y_d+T. The budget deficit remains the same (G+T)−T. The Oligarchy spends T on consumption, so total demand does not change.

In principle, this simplified process of deficit-spending/money-creation can continue period after period. What happens is that public debt increases continuously and with it the interest = tax payments of WeThePeople.

The debt is not paid back, so it has to be rolled over at maturity. To avoid this, the government can issue perpetual bonds. Remains the problem that interest = tax T sooner or later becomes equal to wage income Y_w and the disposable income of the wage income receivers approaches zero. So, there is an absolute upper limit for the growth of debt. This limit vanishes only if the interest rate on perpetual bonds is zero. However, a debt that is never repaid and yields no interest is not a debt but a gift. For a gift economy, the MMT assertion that the amount of public debt does not matter is trivially true.

As long as the interest rate on perpetual bonds is greater than zero, there is an upper limit for the growth of public debt. This limit may be so far in the future that it is not of practical importance for the present generation but just because it is beyond the time horizon it remains.

Vice versa, if the interest rate rises in the process, the debt limit is reached faster. A higher interest rate on an increased debt reduces the debt limit exponentially. The debt trap is snapping shut.

As a matter of fact, with growing public debt and a positive interest rate on perpetual bonds, the disposable income of WeThePeople falls continuously from the present onward and their living standard continuously deteriorates. The never-mentioned negative distributional effects are the ultimate reason why the MMT policy of permanent deficit-spending/money-creation is a political fraud.#3, #4

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

* INET

#1 MMT works just fine

#2 Wikimedia AXEC31

#3 Deficit-spending/money-creation is ALWAYS a bad deal for WeThePeople

#4 Stephanie Kelton sells children into debt slavery

‡ Reminder: The Axioms and Laws are protected by Trademark®. For details see Terms of Use.

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Wikimedia AXEC168

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Twitter Dec 20

Twitter Jan 7, 2021

Twitter Jan 19

Twitter Mar 11 Interest payments in comparison

Twitter Mar 11 Interest rates, interest costs

Twitter Mar 18 Interest payments as a share of household income

Twitter Mar 20 Share of public debt owned by the one-percenters aka size of the cash cow

Twitter May 14

Twitter May 20 Another attempt to optically reduce the interest burden of WeThePeople by relating it to a big number

Twitter May 30 Next attempt to fudge the interest burden of WeThePeople

Twitter Sep 13 Future debt service payments

Twitter Oct 14 Average interest rate on public debt

Twitter Nov 11 Debt-to-GDP ratio and interest payments as a percentage of GDP

Twitter Feb 2, 2022

Twitter Jun 28, 2022 As to be expected, after interest rates at the zero lower bound and a massive increase of public debt bondholders now get a rise

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Knowledge only — no opinion

Science does not explain everything, but non-science explains nothing.

Neither orthodox nor heterodox economics satisfies the scientific criteria of material and formal consistency.

Economists cannot explain how the economy works. The Profit Theory is false since Adam Smith. There is much opinion and little knowledge.

Opinion is the realm of political economics, knowledge is the realm of theoretical economics.

Political economics is scientifically worthless.

Theoretical economics is built upon clearly stated premises, i.e., upon a set of axioms.

Orthodoxy got the axiomatic foundations wrong and Heterodoxy has none at all.

Economics is a failed science. Economists are incompetent scientists.

Profit

Neither Classicals, nor Walrasians, nor Marshallians, nor Marxians, nor Keynesians, nor Institutionialists, nor Monetary Economists, nor MMTers, nor Austrians, nor Sraffaians, nor Evolutionists, nor Game theorists, nor EconoPhysicists, nor RBCers, nor New Keynesians, nor New Classicals ever came to grips with profit. Hence, they all fail to capture the essence of the market economy.

Because of this, economists have nothing to offer in the way of a scientifically founded economic policy guidance.

The hybrid science

As a first approximation, one can agree on the general characteristic that the economy is a complex system.

However, with the term system one usually associates a structure with components that are non-human. In order to stress the obvious fact that humans are an essential component of the economic system the market economy should be characterized more precisely as a complex hybrid human/system entity.

The scientific method is straightforwardly applicable to the sys-component but not to the hum-component. While it is clear that the economy always has to be treated as an indivisible whole, for good methodological reasons the analysis has to start with the objective system-component.

In gestalt-psychological terms the economic system is the foreground, individual behavior the background. Common sense wrongly insists that the hum-component must always be in the foreground. This fallacy compares to geo-centrism. The economic system has its own logic which is different from the behavioral logic of humans. The systemic logic is what Adam Smith called the Invisible Hand.

There are systemic laws but no behavioral laws. Systemic laws have the same methodological status as physical laws.

Neither Orthodoxy nor Heterodoxy can tell what the systemic laws of the actual monetary economy are.

Whether the outcome of the human/system-interaction is good or bad is a politcal question that lies outside of theoretical economics. Theoretical economics explains how the actual economy works - no less, no more.

Narrative vs.Theory

Psychological, sociological or behavioral assumptionism cannot yield anything other than a gossip model of the world. Second-guessing the agents is not economic analysis.

Science deals exclusively with propositions that can in principle be decided by objective means. The rest is opinion, faith, phantasy, motive speculation, allegation, hallucination, myth, paranoia, ink-blot association, psychology, philosophy, in one word: storytelling.

Storytelling is the original mode of communication in the social realm — except science.

Political economics is storytelling and, by default, the natural habitat of confused confusers. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism are social narratives and not scientifically valid representations of reality.

"The truth is, most persons, not excepting professional economists, are satisfied with very hazy notions." (Fisher)

In marked contrast, theoretical economics lives up to the standards of material and formal consistency. A scientific theory is the best mental representation of reality that is humanly possible.

Theory starts with a set of objective and consistent axioms.

Paradigm Shift

"The problem is not just to say that something might be wrong, but to replace it by something — and that is not so easy." (Feynman)

"As will become evident, there is more agreement on the defects of orthodox theory than there is on what theory is to replace it: but all agreed that the point of the criticism is to clear the ground for construction." (Nell)

"The moral of the story is simply this: it takes a new theory, and not just the destructive exposure of assumptions or the collection of new facts, to beat an old theory." (Blaug)

"Is it not a fact, which stares at us from the histories of all sciences, that it is much more difficult for the human mind to forge the most elementary conceptual schemes than it is to elaborate the most complicated superstructure when those elements are well in hand?" (Schumpeter)

"The task of producing knowledge against the grain requires imagination." (Mirowski)

"A new idea is extremely difficult to think of. It takes a fantastic imagination." (Feynman)

"The scientific imagination dreams of explanations and laws." (Peirce)

"It is brilliance of imagination which makes the glory of science." (Evans)

"... we know little more now about ‘how the economy works,’ ... than we knew in 1790, after Adam Smith completed the last revision of The Wealth of Nations." (Clower)

Selftest and to watch for

You apply one of these items

• supply-demand-equilibrium,

• general equilibrium,

• marginal utility,

• well-behaved production functions,

• total income = value of output,

• total income = wages + profits,

• I=S,

• wage rate down - employment up,

• behavioral axioms?

Then you are out of science because of unnoticed material or formal inconsistency.

Every economist who uses the concept of equilibrium is scientifically incompetent because she/he failed to notice that equilibrium is an economic nonentity.

Practically this means: as soon as the word equilibrium appears in an economic text it can be thrown into the waste basket. The same holds for all other nonentities.

The vast majority of economists deals mainly with nonentities. This is why Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism is scientifically worthless.

Since Adam Smith, economic policy guidance has no sound scientific foundations.

To be replaced (1)

The core premises of Orthodoxy are uncertain and false and this fully explains the failure of the research program.

“As with any Lakatosian research program, the neo-Walrasian program is characterized by its hard core, heuristics, and protective belts. Without asserting that the following characterization is definitive, I have argued that the program is organized around the following propositions: HC1 economic agents have preferences over outcomes; HC2 agents individually optimize subject to constraints; HC3 agent choice is manifest in interrelated markets; HC4 agents have full relevant knowledge; HC5 observable outcomes are coordinated, and must be discussed with reference to equilibrium states.” (Weintraub)

The inescapable Paradigm Shift consists of the move from this obsolete hard core to the superior set of structural axioms.

To be replaced (2)

The fundamental equations of macroeconomics have been formulated by Keynes in two lines.

"Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income - consumption. Therefore saving = investment."

This elementary syllogism is demonstrably false. The demonstration consists in the proof that Keynes could not solve the Profit Puzzle. Neither did Post-Neo-New-Keynesians.

In the most general terms, the economics Paradigm Shift consists in switching from the behavior-centric bottom-up approach to the structure-centric top-down approach. This is comparable to the Copernican turn from geo-centrism to helio-centrism.

Consensus

Economics is a science without scientists. Because they are ignorant of the elementary difference between profit and income, the present generation of economists has not made and cannot make a significant contribution to the discussion about how the actual economy works.

Every orthodox or heterodox economist can convince himself/herself that their profit theory is defective.

Every non-economist can — by applying elementary logic — convince himself that conventional profit theories are false. See 'How the intelligent non-economist can refute every economist hands down'.

Because the profit theory is false the whole of conventional economic theory has to be rejected.

"What is now taught as standard economic theory will eventually disappear, no trace of it will remain in the universities or boardrooms because it simply doesn’t work: were it engineering, the bridge would collapse." (McCauley)

No scientist will ever accept Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, or Austrianism. These approaches are logically and/or empirically refuted. This is the actual methodological state-of-art. Walrasians, Keynesians, Marxians, or Austrians are still at the proto-scientific stage. These approaches cannot be improved, only abandoned.

Economists are a public nuisance because they have an opinion on everything but knowledge of nothing.

About me

“Bottom line is that your profit law is just a definition you made up nobody else agrees with, nobody. You are all alone with your precious tautology.” Barkley Rosser

“In any event, your entire theory is based on you doing macro accounting in wacky fashion that nobody agrees with.” Brian Romanchuk

"Your stuff is at least original: it's quite cool after a couple of decades at this to see a fresh Economics. But real promises are not advanced: they were around for millennia until the Greeks obscured them with Metaphysics." Chris Cook

"No mate, they're you-blockers. You have all the personality traits of a crank, and the rest of them have tired of you. You could be 100% right, and you'd still die as your only follower." Steve Keen

"What you are doing fills is all with joy, your constructive critique is most welcome!"

Achim Truger,

German Council of Economic Experts,

in a failed attempt to be ironic

"200+ years of thought and yet you are the only one who gets it—or even understands your argument. Thank god we have you, pseudonymous Twitter user. Otherwise no one would know."

William Luther

Assistant Professor of Economics

in a failed attempt to be funny

"Egmonts profit law is the perfect equation that demonstrates this in action. Put the equation into a spreadsheet and then add government spending and watch how it flows into profits. Enter in some debt (-Sm) and watch too how that flows into profits. It can't go anywhere else."

Dean

About the rest of economics

Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, Pluralism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/ formally inconsistent. Economics is a failed science.

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” Leonardo da Vinci

In economics, the overwhelming majority belongs to Class III. This explains why economics is after 200+ years still at the proto-scientific level.

The obvious task for every economist is to advance from cargo cult science and political agenda-pushing to science. This is absolutely beyond the means of Class III people.

For 200+ years now, economists are not scientists but agenda pushers, useful idiots, clowns in the political Circus Maximus.

Nopopop

This blog does not add to any popular/un- popular opinion.

This blog does not hand out advice about how to avoid taxes, to get rich on the stock market, to be successful in business, to increase the wealth of nations, to run an economy, to maximize welfare, to prevent national/global bankruptcy, to improve the institutional setup of society, to get out of national/global depression, nor about how to save humankind or any subgroup thereof.

This blog is about the true theory of the actual monetary economy.

"In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion." (Stigum)

Focus

Science is of primary interest and importance. Scientists are of secondary interest.

With regard to science, most people lose focus easily because of a natural preference for anecdotes and gossip over facts or subjectivity over objectivity.

Hence, Schumpeter once considered it necessary to remind his habitually disoriented fellow economists: “Remember: occasionally, it may be an interesting question to ask why a man says what he says; but whatever the answer, it does not tell us anything about whether what he says is true or false.”

Science is about true/false and nothing else.

Disclaimer

Missing Blog-Reference links: AXEC does not guarantee that their comments can at any time be recovered from where they have been posted intitially because the availability depends on the publication policy of the blog owner which is implicitly accepted on entering a debate. See also: 'Economists: Incompetent? Stupid? Corrupt?'

Texts: Parts of arbitrary length of any of the author's texts is and will be used again by the author in papers, books, websites, blogs, and other media without explicit reference. The right to make corrections or minor textual improvements on reutilization is reserved. Therefore, it is always a good idea to double-check for the latest version.

Caution: Do not expect a corroboration of your political view. Neither a refutation. Political economics has been scientifically worthless since Adam Smith. Politics has to be separated from economics because it is categorically different from science. The best science can do and has always done is to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you have been objectively wrong or ignorant until now. Science goes beyond the naive common sense of today and becomes the sophisticated common sense of tomorrow.

See also Terms of Use and Legal at www.AXEC.org

Outlook

To recall, while political economics is storytelling, theoretical economics adheres to scientific standards.

The first task of theoretical economics is to get the axiomatic foundations right. This is what J. S. Mill called the opus magnum. Neither Orthodoxy nor Heterodoxy came up with a reasonable solution to this day. This explains the secular stagnation of economics.

There is no serious alternative to structural axiomatic economics. This is not a matter of opinion but of proof. The sole criteria are material and formal consistency.

All of economics has to be reconstructed from the ground up.

Major economic policy implication

The price mechanism does not work as standard economics hypothesizes. The axiom-based Employment Law states that overall employment increases if the average wage rate increases relative to average price and productivity. This gives one the lever to improve the employment situation all over the world and to fend off deflation without rising debt and without artificial capacity growth. To increase the average price relative to the average wage rate and productivity increases unemployment.

Right policy depends on true theory.

“In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion.” (Stigum)

Lacking the true theory, economists promote for more than 200 years opinion instead of knowledge.