September 27, 2018

Dean Baker: progressive agenda pusher for the Oligarchy

Comment on Dean Baker on ‘Getting serious about debt and deficits: the deficit hawks did enormous harm to our kids’

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Sep 29

Dean Baker argues: “With the possibility that the Democrats will retake Congress and press demands for increased spending in areas like health care, education, and child care, the deficit hawks (DH) are getting prepared to awaken from their dormant state. We can expect major news outlets to be filled with stories on how the United States is on its way to becoming the next Greece or Zimbabwe. For this reason, it is worth taking a few moments to reorient ourselves on the topic.” and “Just to remind everyone, the classic story of deficits being bad is that they crowd out investment and net exports, which makes us poorer in the future than we would otherwise be.”

Just to remind everyone, the classic debate about deficit-spending/money-creation entirely misses the point. The lethal argument against MMTers and other promoters of deficit-spending/money-creation is that the permanent growth of public debt is a program for the permanent self-enrichment of the Oligarchy, because of the macroeconomic Profit Law Public Deficit = Private Profit.#1

The fact is:
• MMT/Post-Keynesianism is a macroeconomic theory that is refuted on all counts. It is scientifically worthless.#2
• Like all other false Friends-of-the-People Dean Baker does not mention the profit effect of deficit-spending/money-creation.#3, #4
• All the social benefits MMTers promise are paid for in real terms by WeThePeople themselves via stealth taxation.#5
• Public debt is deferred taxation of WeThePeople which is simply pushed beyond the time horizon. In the meantime, income is redistributed from WeThePeople to WeTheOligarchy via taxation/interest payments.
• Economically, the point to worry about is that the US economy will drop dead as soon as public and private debt growth slows down and eventually reverses.

MMT claims to push the agenda of WeThePeople but pushes the agenda of the Oligarchy. MMT is a social fraud and so-called Progressives including Dean Baker are part of it.#7

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Why the MMT benefactors of humanity never talk about profit
#2 For the full-spectrum refutation see cross-references MMT
#3 Stephanie and Noah ― economics at the intellectual zero lower bound
#4 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump and exploding profit
#5 MMT, money creation, stealth taxation, and redistribution
#7 For details of the big picture see cross-references Debt/Deficit

For more about Oligarchy see AXECquery.


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