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There’s a problem with quoting this bit of Samuelson

As Spud does:

Can it be truthfully said that “internal borrowing shifts the war burden to future generations while taxing places it on the present generation”? A thousand times no! The present generation must still give up resources to produce the munitions hurled at the enemy. In the future, some of our grandchildren will be giving up goods and services to other grandchildren. That is the nub of the matter. The only way in which we can impose a direct burden on the future nation as a whole is by incurring an external debt or by passing along less capital equipment to our posterity.

Spud’s emphasis there.

OK. Take that seriously then. That means that for any of Spud’s schemes it is us who has to give up things to gain Spud’s scheme. We cannot gain those things for them without giving up resources now for us. Being able to print the money, divert the money from pensions, borrow it, makes no difference. We must still give up real resources right now.

Over to you Spud.

14 thoughts on “There’s a problem with quoting this bit of Samuelson”

  1. Well, yes Tim.

    The fact that I have to give up something I want to pander to the idiocies of others is precisely why I’m so anti all this ratbag crap.

    I’m just naturally selfish.

  2. Good quote.

    Nicely reinforces that we’re simply pissing down the drain humungous levels of resources. Diversity, HR, playing scrabble, whatever it is – rather than plumbing, making stuff, or otherwise providing to a real person some skill for which they are prepared to pay.

    And of course, not only get rid of lots of pointless public sector jobs, but get rid of the regulation that damages the real world (and skews what that third party is obliged to regard as a necessary skill).

  3. Surprising that he knows about Samuelson. He’s on record as saying he stopped attending his Economics course at Uni within about 2 weeks of the start of the first term because he thought it was not teaching him anything useful.

    Unfortunately, that’s meant he’s come to his own truths on Economics from first principles, although one should at least give him credit for inventing MMT all on his own.

  4. It’s very important we invest in capital equipment so our posterity (acid-throwing tribesmen from Central Asia) can have glass beakers.

  5. I wouldn’t be surprised that the attackers lauded somewhere for his commitment to diversity for using an alkali instead of an acid and that his choice represents minority oppression and is a statement on colonialism.

  6. BniC – I was watching the film “Demolition Man” recently.

    It’s the future, and everyone in authority is a simpering pussy, and everything you like is illegal, but black criminals can give the cops the run around whenever they want.

    Anyway, the film is also worth watching.

  7. >A thousand times no! The present generation must still give up resources to produce the munitions hurled at the enemy.

    That’s a non-sequitur.

    That this is true does not mean that taxing people to pay for war pushes *those* costs off onto future generations is untrue.

    It just means you can’t push 100% of the cost through time.

  8. Steve

    These two quotes from that film – a minor classic IMHO- are very apposite to the ‘present day’…

    ‘He’s evil in a way you have only read about’

    ‘He is a criminal the likes of which you have never seen’

    I used to use them about Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell all the time on Twitter but They apply to Murphy in equal measure!

  9. On the basis that public sector debt is nothing more (ultimately) than deferred taxation receivable (from us), should the Government be recording it as such on its balance sheet as an accrued receivable?

    Ie, tax to be recovered in subsequent periods (in excess of the deficit in those periods). The deficit each year is the annual amount not recovered now. Ultimately, it will be need to be caught up with. If Govt plc is solvent, shouldn’t it be recording the accrued debtor, so that its balance sheet is solvent…. /innocent face

    All properly cashflow discounted of course (so it wouldn’t be a 100% accrued debtor due to the usual inflation factors)… Might focus the bastards? And the population as to exactly what it all means?

  10. Funding the Future? Using spud logic the future can fund itself when it arrives.

    OT: I despair about the Northern Ireland Parliament
    “We will strive to look after working people, families and our communities”
    Sounds good. Then motion number one:
    “We call for a ceasefire in a dispute 5,500 km away in a dispute 20 times older than our own”
    They are mentally ill

  11. VP – it’s a spookily prescient film, but I think its most underrated feature was casting Nigel Hawthorne as the main baddie alongside Wesley Snipes.

    Jim Hacker didn’t see that one coming, did he Bernard?

  12. VP – come to think of it, the plot of Demolition Man…

    Effete white technocrat deliberately and for malicious reasons invites Diverse criminals – all military aged men from more violent societies – into a complex, high tech, high trust society whose placid, sheep like consumer-citizenry have been disarmed morally as well as physically by strictly enforced political correctness.

    Amusingly one-sided urder and mayhem predictably ensue, but our hero, the EWT – despite speaking impeccable Oxbridge Confident Bluffer – soon encounters an unpleasant reality. His cleverness is insufficient to control the Diverse criminal element, and he is gruesomely hoist by his own kimono after a Teams meeting.

    Well, a man can dream.

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