yes, so life was wonderful in Soviet era USSR, Poland, Cuba, East Germany?
None of those have any relevance to our current economic system or anything being proposed. You also completely ignore the seven times America’s capitalist economy has failed and required “socialist” measures to bail it out. Each of those was preceded by cutbacks to spending in an attempt to reduce the debt. Properly organizing the economy around the currency and making wise investments with that currency is not “socialism”. It is the proper function of any sovereign currency-issuing government.
you don’t get millions of people all to sacrifice their own comfort for the ‘greater good’ without using violence
Sure you can. You simply use a corporate mass media and corrupt politicians to propagate and disseminate lies and fear to get them to accept that unrestrained capitalism is in their best interest despite a complete lack of any evidence that is true.
YOU SUGGEST JUST PRINTING MONEY BASICALLY?
I almost hate to break it to you, but “ALL” money is “just printed”. Banks can create credit and businesses can shuffle money around between winners and losers, but Congress is the only entity that can create the nation’s currency and expand the “net” money supply. It does so when it deficit spends into the economy, injecting more currency than it destroys via taxation.
The deficit spending of Congress is the only source of net assets to store value from commerce or retire private sector debt. It is also required to save and purchase Treasury bonds. A balanced budget not only doesn’t satisfy the desire of the private sector to net save, but it steals the resources and labor that the government uses.
If Congress doesn’t deficit spend sufficiently to pay private sector interest on debt, cover the foreign sector trade deficit and wealth accumulation, it is effectively shrinking the money supply and weakening the economy. While making the people more dependent upon private sector debt is profitable to banking it also requires constant growth/extraction to sustain and fails when the business cycle turns downward.
yeah worked great in 1920s Germany DM value fell to a billion per US $
Weimar Germany’s failure was due to massive reparations to repay the damage it caused in WWI that was only payable in gold, British Pound Stirling, or French Francs, neither of which it controlled or could produce. All of its productive capacity was dedicated to paying those reparations, leaving commodity inflation as the only way to supply basic needs to its population.
This is simply an example of why not to accept foreign debt not denominated in US dollars, which we don’t do. In fact, Treasury debt is no longer a funding mechanism for the government’s spending since we dumped the archaic gold standard. The dollars used to buy that debt must already exist, meaning they were previously spent into the private sector and not yet taxed back.
Deficit spending “funds” Treasury bonds, not the other way around. Ditto for taxes. The national debt used to beat progressives about the head and shoulders when they propose any social benefit is actually our national savings. It represents prior economic productivity that remains unspent and not yet canceled by taxation, not a mortgage against future productivity. The private sector cannot be responsible for debts in the government sector without removing all currency from circulation. Balancing debits and credits is always a first-order function of spreadsheet accounting.
worked well in Venezuela, Bolivar now about the same, billion per $
If America managed its economy as Venezuela did theirs it would find itself in the same position. No economic system can fix stupid. Venezuela depended upon a single export to fund its economy and government. It didn’t even develop refinery capacity, depending upon the US to refine its crude oil. It was also one of the most corrupt economies in the world long before it nationalized its oil deposits.
When the price of crude oil fell below the cost of extracting and shipping the nation’s entire economy collapsed, even though refined fuel prices didn’t suffer as badly. It then made the mistake of taking on debt denominated in US dollars via the IMF. Many believe it was largely a victim of economic sabotage, but the fault for getting into such a fragile position lies entirely with its leadership, not its economic system.
