Sunday, February 22, 2015

Peter Dorman — Economic Wisdom in Germany


Smackdown.
First, read the words of the Wise. 
Now that you’re done, consider this. Only once in this document is there even a passing reference to unemployment. There is no mention of output gaps, nor of living standards. Governments are seen strictly as borrowing and lending entities with no particular obligation other than paying their bills. In other words, macroeconomics as the rest of the world understands it is essentially absent from beginning to end. The message is: your government borrowed too much, we gave you some relief, and now you have to pay the rest. There is nothing more to discuss.…
And these [five "wise men"] are the supreme experts. Imagine what the reasoning must look like down in the second and third tiers.
Econospeak
Economic Wisdom in Germany
Peter Dorman, Professor of Political Economy, The Evergreen State College

6 comments:

Matt Franko said...

From the 5:

"What particular kind of reforms would be implemented and who would bear the cost of adjustment was entirely determined by the Greek government. Reforms only had to add up to a sufficient overall adjustment."

This is at least true and the Greek policy could have been to severely limit the imports from the northern defeated slave-administered nations...

And here:

"The Troika has helped install an effective system of tax collection, ..... In that sense, it has supported the Greek authorities in collecting taxes from wealthy Greek citizens, as planned by Syriza, rather than preventing it."

So there is some common ground here around this Piketty Tax as YV seems to be relying on this type of "tax the rich" scheme to turn it around in Greece...

So looks like both sides are on board wrt a 'tax the rich' scheme and thus we're probably going to get to see how effective a 'tax the rich' scheme can be...

I have my doubts... this 'tax the rich' is the corollary of the 'welfare queen' and both miss the larger point that mankind possesses absolute fiscal authority which is administered thru the govt institution, and doesnt "need the money!"...

so this 'tax the rich' and its sister 'welfare queen' are products of weak, defeated, slave-oriented policy people that are going to come up way short...

Ryan Harris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt Franko said...

"Secretary of the Treasury Henry J. Morgenthau Jr. convinced Roosevelt to write to Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson saying that a US occupation policy which anticipated that "Germany is to be restored just as much as the Netherlands or Belgium" was excessively lenient. A better policy would have the Germans "fed three times a day with soup from Army soup kitchens" so "they will remember that experience the rest of their lives."[24] Morgenthau was the only Cabinet member invited to participate in the Quebec Conference during which the Plan was agreed to.
Roosevelt's motivations for agreeing to Morgenthau's proposal may be attributed to his desire to be on good terms with Joseph Stalin and to a personal conviction that Germany must be treated harshly. In an August 26, 1944 letter to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Roosevelt wrote that "There are two schools of thought, those who would be altruistic in regard to the Germans, hoping by loving kindness to make them Christians again — and those who would adopt a much 'tougher' attitude. Most decidedly I belong to the latter school, for though I am not bloodthirsty, I want the Germans to know that this time at least they have definitely lost the war."

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

Schauble was born in '42 so he probably had to eat out of these Army soup kitchens when he was very young for a while at least..

These are a defeated now very slave-like "exporting" people trying to call the shots over there and we can see the results... they are all damaged goods... PTSD, etc... probably all on psycho meds....

Ryan Harris said...

Imagine a world where all countries are like Germany. Every country creates large surpluses that must be sold to foreigners but there aren't enough customers for all those goods. More goods must be produced just to keep going than people are willing to pay for. Goods can't really be sold at full price so countries have to discount, subsidize and cheat their goods into markets. They play games with currency to make the goods appear cheap when sold but then raise the currency when credit is due. Any game necessary to try and trap and trick customers into the web.

Schofield said...

Otmar Issing the architect of the Euro did his level best to implement the "de-nationalizing" of public money according to Friedrich Hayek's naive and ignorant plan :-

http://mises.org/sites/default/files/Denationalisation%20of%20Money%20The%20Argument%20Refined_5.pdf

Such a great shame that the Euro member countries didn't understand you need to keep bankers on a tight leash and a technologically superior country like Germany with its covert fascist mentality was never going to support sharing its technical know-how with other member countries for their manufacturing purposes and to reduce the quantity of Euros flowing from the other member countries to Germany.

Matt Franko said...

Scho,

Maybe they are not "fascists" rather they are the children of defeated humiliated fascists....

Rsp