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The fonts make it nearly unreadable, but it's a good article, well worth reading through. Two thoughts: My hope for the alt-priest replacement is Steve Keen,

The fonts make it nearly unreadable, but it's a good article, well worth reading through. Two thoughts: My hope for the alt-priest replacement is Steve Keen, who seems like the only guy with a reasonable explanation why orthodox economics is so consistently useless, and a concrete policy suggestion (modern debt jubilee). Which gets to my second thought: the current problem is not productivity growth and, in any event, productivity growth is a shibboleth (just pouring more gasoline in the engine and belching more exhaust into the sky produces more useless plastic tchotchkes, for God's sake). The current problem is debt. A very specific debt. It is the debt slavery being forced on our young people in the form of education debt and housing debt. It is crushing family formation, particularly among the most educated. No children, no future. Not with a bang but a whimper.

klipt 10y ago
As sympathetic as I am to the idea that housing is too expensive etc., how exactly would you stop a debt jubilee from being gamed? If my mortgage is going to be forgiven, shouldn't I find the biggest, most expensive house possible, take out a huge mortgage to buy it, then wait for my mortgage to be forgiven / paid off by the jubilee?
- fineline 10y ago
  Keene's suggestion is basically a flat universal payment, if you have debt it must be used to pay down debt first. http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/ http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/ I don't really get how it's supposed to work though. What would ensure it increased consumption and productive investment, rather than just further fuelling asset price inflation.
  - carsongross 10y ago
    It's supposed to work because Keene's models suggest it would work: the failure in the economy is not one of underproduction (we have dramatic overcapacity and, if anything, overproduction) but rather a lack of monetary power in the broader consumers hands, caused by the burden of private debt. It's unorthodox, but I buy it. Or, at least, I'd rather try his solution than keep trying the failed policies of both the orthodox and keynesians.

klipt 10y ago

As sympathetic as I am to the idea that housing is too expensive etc., how exactly would you stop a debt jubilee from being gamed? If my mortgage is going to be forgiven, shouldn't I find the biggest, most expensive house possible, take out a huge mortgage to buy it, then wait for my mortgage to be forgiven / paid off by the jubilee?

fineline 10y ago
Keene's suggestion is basically a flat universal payment, if you have debt it must be used to pay down debt first. http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/ http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/ I don't really get how it's supposed to work though. What would ensure it increased consumption and productive investment, rather than just further fuelling asset price inflation.
- carsongross 10y ago
  It's supposed to work because Keene's models suggest it would work: the failure in the economy is not one of underproduction (we have dramatic overcapacity and, if anything, overproduction) but rather a lack of monetary power in the broader consumers hands, caused by the burden of private debt. It's unorthodox, but I buy it. Or, at least, I'd rather try his solution than keep trying the failed policies of both the orthodox and keynesians.