America’s problem isn’t a lack of deficit spending/consumption. America’s problems are profoundly structural.

The nice thing about free to me money from any source is the recipients don’t have to change anything. Free money is the ultimate free-pass from consequence and adaptation: instead of having to make difficult trade-offs or suffer the consequences of profligacy, the recipients of free money are saved: they can continue on their merry way, ignoring the monumental dysfunction of their lifestyle.

This explains the appeal of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which holds that deficit spending is the “solution” to all our problems because governments can’t go broke–they can always emit whatever currency they need via printing or borrowing.

The problem with government deficit spending is it’s free money to the recipients: there are no feedback mechanisms to enforce any consequences for spending that’s wasteful, fraudulent or inefficient/ineffective. Get a Job, Build a Rea... Charles Hugh Smith Best Price: $7.99 Buy New $13.99 (as of 02:30 UTC - Details)

Deficit spending simply enables the wasteful, corrupt, rewarding-insiders profiteering state-cartel kleptocracy to continue gorging on public spending.So what desperately needed efficiencies and improvements are imposed on the higher education cartel by handing the cartel another trillion dollars of public spending? None.

What desperately needed efficiencies and improvements are imposed on the healthcare cartel by handing the cartel trillions of dollars in publicly funded “Medicare for all”? None.

What desperately needed efficiencies and improvements are imposed on the national defense cartel by handing the cartel additional trillions of public spending? None.

What kind of sense does it make to encourage wasteful consumption on a finite planet with limited resources? The entire rationale of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is that the productive capacity of the economy isn’t being maxed out because we’re not consuming enough.

This is the insane ideology of endless growth on a finite planet. Consumption funded by free to me deficit spending has no mechanisms to recognize the wasteful, dysfunctional insanity of planned obsolescence and growth-for-growth’s-sake wasteful consumption.

Everybody supports spending trillions on infrastructure but has anyone noticed that the system for building infrastructure is completely broken in the U.S.? It takes a decade or two to rebuild a bridge (for example, the Bay Bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco) and every project that is budgeted to cost $1 billion ends up costing $4 billion. Why Our Status Quo Fai... Charles Hugh Smith Best Price: $4.31 Buy New $6.45 (as of 07:30 UTC - Details)

China would have cleared the political/permit process in weeks and rebuilt the Bay Bridge in six months. In the politically dysfunctional, over-regulated, insider-oligarchy of the U.S., the process takes 17 years, and costs quadruple. That is the acme of dysfunction on all levels.

Increasing deficit spending in this system simply rewards insiders and elites.Look, the U.S. has already borrowed and blown $16 trillion in federal deficit spending and trillions more in state and local deficit spending, i.e. the sale of bonds to repave streets, reroof schools, build affordable housing, etc.

Somebody benefits from all the deficit spending on cartels and all the financing of the debt: the top .1%. And why are you surprised? This is the only possible output of a state-cartel kleptocracy/oligarchy.

Read the Whole Article

The Best of Charles Hugh Smith

$post_author: WP_User Object
(
    [data] => stdClass Object
        (
            [ID] => 893
            [user_login] => charles-hugh-smith
            [user_pass] => 3972667c364cc0d038e1d33009459f0a
            [user_nicename] => charles-hugh-smith
            [user_email] => [email protected]
            [user_url] => 
            [user_registered] => 2012-11-02 07:11:18
            [user_activation_key] => 
            [user_status] => 0
            [display_name] => Charles Hugh Smith
            [type] => wpuser
        )

    [ID] => 893
    [caps] => Array
        (
            [contributor] => 1
        )

    [cap_key] => wp_capabilities
    [roles] => Array
        (
            [0] => contributor
        )

    [allcaps] => Array
        (
            [edit_posts] => 1
            [read] => 1
            [level_1] => 1
            [level_0] => 1
            [delete_posts] => 1
            [email_single_user] => 1
            [contributor] => 1
        )

    [filter] => 
    [site_id:WP_User:private] => 1
)

get_the_author_meta: 

$bio: 

$bios: Array
(
)