I am a big fan of Bernie Sanders, however there is a large portion of his fan base that we refer to as the “Bernie or Busters” who will only vote for Bernie and will not vote at all, or vote third party if he loses the primary. I would like to use this post as a plea to these particular supporters to still show up in the general election if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination. And for them to fairly assess the fellow progressive candidates who are also running.
Bernie Sanders policies are the most progressive of the democratic primary candidates, that doesn’t mean that his democratic primary opponents aren’t progressive or aren’t worthy candidates for President. He doesn’t attack political opponents. He simply stays on message and repeats it over and over again. Perhaps because of this messiah complex Bernie doesn’t need to attack his opponents, because many of his supporters do it for him and it has been highly successful at painting candidates with inappropriate labels
Which brings me to this: what separates something as an attack from a criticism? It is typically based on ad hominem insults, primarily covered in this piece: neoliberal (levied on all the candidates I cover here), anti criminal justice reform (levied on Harris), and former republican (levied on Warren). What is happening from the Bernie or Bust crowd is largely rooted in this form of attacking, as once these accusations are laid out, just a little bit of research results in showing them to be not true or very loose correlations that seem more nefarious than they really are.
The point here is if progressives want to usher in a new era that will shape the future of this country it is also important to shape the dialogue surrounding political opponents. Attacking people over policy is always a poor way of convincing people to adapt the policies of the candidate you want in.
So what constitutes the basis of these attacks?
Corey Booker, often gets the label of a neoliberal, as he is often being attacked for his ties to Big Pharma, but are they really ties or are they just coincidence? Let’s analyze this.
Booker’s two main criticisms, that appear legit on its surface, is that he appears to be closely tied to some Big Pharma initiatives: deregulation and prohibiting reduced drug prices. Let’s look at the claim of deregulation first.
Booker signed the 21st Century Cures Act and Bernie, along with Warren, voraciously opposed it on the grounds that it gave Big Pharma more ability to profit. Like with any Act there are going to be some give aways and some take aways here. Does it give Big Pharma more ability to profit? Sure, allowing more drugs to market faster reduces research and testing costs and allows more products to be sold. Guilty as charged. But what else does this Act do? Here are some of the benefits:
“The Cures Act would give the states $1 billion to fight the opioid crisis, in addition to providing $4.8 billion for continuing three signature Obama administration research programs over the next 10 years: Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, the BRAIN Initiative, and the Precision Medicine Initiative.
An earlier House version of the Cures Act, which was passed last year, called for $8.75 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health over five years. The current version of the legislation also includes $500 million for the US Food and Drug Administration, although this is well below the amount Democrats had sought.”
So what do the readers think? Is bringing development to product, with modern clinical trial designs, along with more funding to other health issues a horrible compromise?
Onto Booker’s second major criticism, prohibiting reduced drug prices:
Booker did vote against a bill that may have lowered drug prices but he also voted for other bills that did lower them. Since that vote that has haunted him, he has since said it was a bad vote and has appeared to make up for it with supporting two other bills that would lower them, here and here . So how should he be judged? Should he only be judged by the mistake that he admitted he made or for trying for the last two years to fix that mistake?
After reviewing the two most common claims against him being neoliberal and in the pockets of Big Pharma it seems on the surface the two issues levied against him aren’t something that should be detrimental. If you wish to judge for yourself how progressive he is, view his issues page here.
Next up is Kamala Harris, as an ex-prosecutor she is going to be a hard sell for any progressive. The job lends itself to many, many daily decisions that could come back to haunt you. She has a laundry list of good and bad things she has done while in that office.
All in all she helped form California to be the most progressive state in the country (her criminal justice reforms were ahead of what the rest of the country was at during her tenure), but for today’s progressive standards it isn’t enough. But keep in mind that as a prosecutor she had to make more decisions than anyone else running in the primary, so her mistakes are going to be many.
Also of note during her tenure is that she drastically lowered marijuana sentences from 863 to 169 by the time she left office. Here is a great politifact article on the many claims and attacks against her that are largely exaggerated or false.
In turn we have to look to her senate votes to see where she currently stands on issues. In the Vox link here, you have to scroll down to her senate bills to see that she has done nothing but vote for “yes” for any progressive criminal reform bill that came her way. Progressives have to measure her past with what she is saying and doing now.
She is also getting criticized for receiving a donation from Mnuchin of $2000, but sources reporting this leave out that she also voted against his confirmation. This is what one calls dishonest reporting.
She has policies to introduce universal health care, $6000 yearly tax credits, rent relief act, and various other progressive policies. If she became winner of the primary, she would no doubt be the most progressive President we have ever had.
The last candidate to be covered here is Elizabeth Warren. She is getting labelled as a neoliberal as well, because at one point in her life she was a republican and she served under Obama to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who was in fact a neoliberal.
The first thing I want to address is that she admitted that she was once a republican, up until 1995. This is really due to how much culture influences someones political beliefs. It shouldn’t be held against someone that they were able to overcome their own cultural upbringing, that should be seen as a strength. She is also seen as someone who favors Wall St., but when compared to Bernie, since Warren has been senator she has sponsored more Wall St regulatory bills than he has (19-10).
What separates Warren from Sanders is that Warren will admit she is a conscious capitalist while Bernie will admit he is a democratic socialist. So it is a matter of labels here, but policy wise they are nearly identical, and thus the labels are really a useless measurement as the policies achieve nearly the same ends, a more progressive economy (yes Sanders is still more progressive). Warren’s OPED in the WSJ, clearly shows she understand the dramatic neoliberal shift this country took in the 1980’s, and that she wishes to reverse this trend. A neoliberal wouldn’t do this.
As a progressive she supports universal health care and eliminating large chunks of student debt, among other things.
Bernie or Busters, if you were able to read through this and click all the hyperlinks to do the due diligence on these candidates, my only hope is that you come away from this with a more promising image of what the current democratic primary front runners consist of. These candidates are worthy of your vote if they do happen to beat out Bernie in the primary so please don’t vote third party or abstain from voting if Bernie doesn’t happen.
Why do I continually plead with Bernie or Busters to vote for other progressive candidates if they win the primary? There are many reasons:
Migrant children dying, concentration camps, racism, xenophobia, possible nuclear war, worsening climate change, worsening air quality, LGBTQ rights, supreme court nominations, deregulation and outright defunding of many necessary federal agencies/programs, increased partisan divisiveness, increased hate crimes on minorities, lack of accountability in the government, cozying up to rogue nations lead by brutal dictators, destruction of relationships with allies, destruction of peace agreements and treaties. This list can likely go on and on, and will likely be edited in the future as more is uncovered.
*Purposely left off this list is Biden because his policy proposals consist mostly of Obama era holdovers and little to nothing to be excited about.
**Some other candidates that can rise up to this list are Buttigieg, and Castro, and it could be updated later if they do start to gain in polling numbers and progressive momentum.
Hope this clears up, in some very simple examples of what the sectoral balances approach to government accounting posits. The balance between the government sector and the combination of the private/foreign sector is always going to be 0!
Sometimes the words used to describe an issue are often poorly thought out or over simplified to try to explain a complex issue into a few simple words. Some of these that come to mind are the paleo/caveman diet, the term “theory” used in the context of Scientific Theory, and of course white privilege. All of these words have shown to have a tendency to give people a different impression of what their meaning is and often lead many people to not understand the true meaning of these terms.
I admit to not being aware of how white privilege is discussed on mainstream media so it may be accurately portrayed in that regard, but what I hear from many of my white friends and relatives is something along the lines of this:
“I grew up poor and was given no privilege.”
“I have earned everything that I have received in my life and wasn’t given any handouts.”“I had to work hard to get where I am today!”
This line of thinking is of course what intuitively many may think white privilege means. But in fact it means nothing of the sort. White people tend to take it as a personal attack in the sense that it implies that they didn’t have to work hard to get what they have achieved in life.
It’s actual definition is actually much more nuanced and complex than what its implied or intuitive label leads people to think it means. There really isn’t one specific definition as it describes a complex cultural institution but I do like this explanation best:
“White privilege is a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others. White privilege can exist without white people’s conscious knowledge of its presence and it helps to maintain the racial hierarchy in this country.”
The most important thing to understand about the above definition is that it is a generalization of the framework of our societies culture. It doesn’t mean that white privilege occurs in every circumstance or every situation. What white privilege means is that it happens so pervasively and so often that is has measurably proven harmful effects on non-white people in this country to the point where it is a problem that needs to be pointed out so that it can be discussed and addressed, both on the policy level and on the American conscious level.
As you can see it has taken quite a bit to unravel what the term white privilege refers to. But in the most generalized sense I did my best to portray its meaning for readers who may be curious in understanding its meaning. But providing its meaning is just one part of it. It is also important to explain how this is occurring with empirical data to back up the claim that it happens on such a scale that something needs to be done about it.
This privilege starts to show up at a very early age:
” According to the report, black children make up 18 percent of preschoolers, but make up nearly half of all out-of-school suspensions. “
It then continues to happen outside of school and into the workforce:
“The resumes with white-sounding names spurred 50 percent more callbacks than the ones with black-sounding names.
After responding to 1,300 ads with more than 5,000 resumes, the researchers found that the job applicants with white names needed to send 10 resumes to get one callback, but the black candidate needed to send 15 for one.”
There is widespread rampant white privilege shown in police interactions even when correcting for country crime rates and violent crime rates:
“African American and Latino drivers are nearly twice as likely as white drivers to be asked during a routine traffic stop for ‘consent’ to have their car searched. Yet white motorists are 49% more likely than African American motorists to have contraband discovered during a consent search by law enforcement, and 56% more likely when compared to Latinos.”
It also happens in the judicial system:
” The gap in incarceration rates between White and African-American defendants increases by 18 percentage points (compared to a mean incarceration rate of 51% for African-Americans and 38% for Whites) when moving from the 10th to 90th percentile judge in the racial gap distribution.”
I only posted 4 pieces of evidence that empirically prove the existence of white privilege, just to avoid being over wordy and to give people an easy to read and understand guide on what all this means in context. This is by no means all the evidence as there are plenty more studies and data collections that show this.
The most important thing to remember about the issue of “white privilege” for white people to remember is that this is not to assign blame, shame or guilt, but to address these issues and become the people that advocate for changing this part of our culture. And having privilege is also not a reflection on someones character or intention. It is about observing, recognizing and acknowledging that these advantages do exist for us because we don’t suffer from this discrimination. Acknowledging this issue and confirming it is the first step in addressing solutions to fix this. This is all that white privilege is, a campaign to get white people to admit there is a societal and cultural benefit for them in being white.
Before explaining how I came to support Hilary it is important to try to explain away any perceived biases people may have of someone who is acknowledging their support for the democratic nominee. As a 36 year old software engineer, husband of almost 8 years and new father of a 5 month old girl my views today don’t resemble the person that was a single, 24 year old, insurance agent and part-time financial adviser and bartender. Back when I was 24 I was a far right leaning libertarian, who believed in the gold standard, state decided civil rights, balanced federal budgets, and unwavering support for any foreign wars we engaged in. Today I am a centrist among the rest of the worlds political structures and what could be seen as far left here in the United States to some, as I believe in expanding civil rights federally, larger deficits, fiat currency, and a better understanding of geopolitical engagements.
I mention this shift in political beliefs because it is important to emphasize that people can actually change their beliefs based on new evidence and from life experiences that make their world a much larger place. Empathy, compassion and understanding are things I started to adapt into my everyday life when I fell on harder times living paycheck to paycheck during and after the financial crisis, and I understood what it meant to need to rely on other people even though the decisions I made (for the most part) weren’t the reasons I was living that way. I am not trying to imply that people can’t experience this without falling into hard times, but that it is very difficult to live in another persons shoes and understand their struggles without having been there yourself. And what I see from Trump is someone who mocks other people struggles, other peoples races, other peoples cultures and other peoples handicaps. I don’t see him as someone who I can remotely trust to run a government meant to protect people and support their general welfare. He doesn’t understand what it is like to be a victim, and often resorts to blaming victims. So this is why I support Hilary over Trump, and support Hilary over wasting my vote away for a third party candidate as a protest vote.
I fully believe that if she is able to enact the policies she claims to support that this country will start to help take care of people in difficult situations and improve the standard of living for the bottom 90%.
As with any candidate I don’t fully support everything she stands for but I do support the below policy choices as they are heavily backed by empirical research and are in line with policies I have generally supported and would like to see enacted. As you read through this piece I genuinely hope you read each link I posted and provide some feedback, it is important to keep civil discourse open during such a heated election.
-Supreme Court – Overturn Citizens United and expand voting rights.
Since the supreme court has made the disastrous decision to equate money with free speech, the amount of money that has been funneled into federal and local elections has increased dramatically. It is important that we try to limit the amount of private donations to a capped amount so that elections can be more fair, and become less influenced by outside money interests.
In order for this country to adhere to its democratic and republic based principles it needs to expand voting rights so that all legal citizens have zero barriers to vote, and the idea to automatically register all U.S. citizens to vote helps this country create a larger voter turnout so that all voices can be heard.
-Economic Issues – Debt free college, 100 day jobs plan, world leader in clean energy, profit sharing, guaranteed paid leave.
Debt free college is a great way to help transition this economy from the remnants of a manufacturing/blue collar economy to a more service/white collar based economy. This country is seeing a large skills gap expand in the technology sectors because not enough people have the skills to get those jobs. Even in the manufacturing sector we are seeing difficulties in filling those jobs because they have become more technical and technologically driven. With college debt free people can cross train to fill these jobs and at the same time lessen their debt burden so they can purchase more things, as buying more things is what helps drive the engine of job growth in this country.
If you’ve read my blog before you know that I support a Job Guarantee Bill , so supporting a 100 day jobs plan should be no surprise to anyone.
Becoming a world leader in clean energy has several advantages: reducing the costs of clean energy by investing in its technology, reducing the amount of carbon emissions, and increasing the amount of jobs our debt free college educated populace can be absorbed into. One doesn’t even have to believe in anthropogenic global warming to see this as a solid plan to move this country forward for cheaper and renewable energy.
Profit sharing is not only beneficial for workers but highly beneficial to employers, as Clinton only supports a tax break for companies who do this there is no forceful action to make companies do this, but there is a great incentive to do so: “Together with job training and opportunities for workers to participate in problem-solving and decision-making, such programs have been shown to foster employee engagement and loyalty, reduce turnover, and boost productivity and profitability.
Profit sharing also benefits workers. Indeed, workers in companies with inclusive profit-sharing and employee-ownership programs typically receive significantly higher wages than workers in comparable companies without such arrangements. About half of Fortune’s list of the 100 best companies to work for have some kind of profit-sharing or stock-ownership program that extends beyond executives to include regular workers.”
Guaranteed paid leave has been examined thoroughly over several decades and it has been found to actually save businesses money by reducing turnover and training costs. The numerous benefits afforded to families health and economic positions are well covered in this CNN article.
-Civil Rights Issues
I will just leave a statement by Hilary to explain her position and why I support it:
“Really systemic racism in this state, as in others, education, in employment, in the kinds of factors that too often lead from a position where young people, particularly young men, are pushed out of school early, are denied employment opportunities. So, when we talk about criminal justice reform and ending the era of mass incarceration, we also have to talk about jobs, education, housing, and other ways of helping communities.”
If you have read my blogs in the past you know that these are the kind of policy directions we need to implement to combat “implicit bias” in this country. Many people, including BLM, have become too narrowly focused on law enforcement and having a more broad focus could help to ease tensions between BLM and law enforcement.
-Still Reading?
Having outlined, policy wise, why I am voting for Hilary it has come time to refer to the more intangible reasons why I support her.
Experience wise she far exceeds any candidate out there. While I cringe at the thought of voting for someone who appears to be part of an oligarchical type system we seem to be left with only one candidate who can name world leaders and understand geopolitical issues and diplomacy. To allow certain treaties, trade deals and good relations fall apart for the sake of not electing an oligarch seems rather irresponsible to me.
As I mentioned earlier, I am now a proud father of a baby girl, and that has drastically altered how I view raising a future women in this country. I don’t want my daughter to grow up thinking that she is limited by her gender, and having her grow up only knowing a woman president for a few years can help not only my daughter but all girls and women throughout this country realize that nothing limits their potential.
Sorry if you thought this might be a blog post about footballs NFC’s North division. This one is a different black and blue, and that is Black Lives Matter and Cops supporting Blue Lives Matter. It is a very touchy subject for me as I have many family members that are police, and myself considered applying for the FBI at one point in my life, and so I am empathetic to their safety and concerns. On the other hand I went to a university that had a high black population and took a racism class that really opened my eyes as to how important the BLM movement is for proper a justice system for black Americans (almost every kid in the class lost someone to gun violence). The idea to be presented is that both cops and BLM are going about this issue in ways that won’t help any of them obtain their cause: police safety and a proper justice system for black Americans. So please be warned before reading on, both groups will be critiqued here, as this is not an anti-police or anti-BLM piece but an anti-violence piece.
When it comes to Black Lives Matter, they have a very valid reason for being upset, statistics overwhelmingly show that the justice system works against them in disproportionate numbers, and I have written about this in the past so you can read about it here. When it comes to cops and them supporting Blue Lives Matter, they have a valid concern as well, as their profession is very dangerous and split second decisions is what separates them from being shot and killed, or coming home to their families at the end of a shift. The problem that comes from this is that both sides tend to view one another as being against them, when in fact both are fighting for lesser violence.
In the 1960’s the Civil Rights Movement fought against obvious and overt racism from the justice system, and were able to get laws passed that helped the issue in a variety of ways. What both sides need to realize is that things have changed, but in a much more hidden way (overt racism has been replaced by implicit racism, read about this difference here), and both sides are trying to fight this issue with old antiquated methods (disruptive protests, and adding more diversity). These methods aren’t going to bring cops and BLM together, they are just going to provide more reason to divide and avoid understanding. We have politicians and media that do that for us, there is no reason why we should help them accomplish this.
Implicit racism is something social scientists refer to as the inherent stereotype in each and every one of us. It is a phenomena that actually makes us human, the ability to stereotype, the ability to decipher what is safe and what is dangerous based on appearances. We all do this with races, with dangerous objects, with people from a specific country or religion, so on and so on. No one is immune from this because it is how our brains work and partly how we learn. What we can do to help reduce its effects is become aware of it and to recondition ourselves to not see other races, and such as inherently dangerous to us. Because in those split second life altering decisions that cops have to make, that inherent stereotype is going to come to effect one’s decision making, it is unavoidable.
When it comes to disruptive protests by BLM, it is the story of a desperate and impassioned people doing what they think will help them accomplish their goals. Instead what it does do is bring frustration and annoyance to those they are trying to make aware of the issue, and more importantly it causes police to strengthen an us vs. them mentality, strengthening group identity and favoritism towards in-group members. I am in no way against protesting to make people aware of your cause, and I have done it in the past with Occupy Wall St., and what morphed from that, was a movement that resulted in people getting elected, that was empathetic to their causes. The protests need to evolve into an organized political movement (like OWS), otherwise they will end up alienating police and people like me sympathetic to police. They also need to stop demonizing cops, the large majority of cops are excellent people and heroic in what they do, and by being violent or aggressive towards them, isn’t going to garner sympathy, especially from police, the group they need to gain sympathy from.
As for police, the response to promote Blue Lives Matter is one that makes sense to them, as many of the instances BLM protests against, occur when cops feel it is reasonable to respond with deadly force, which they are trained to do (like I said above strengthening us vs. them mentalities). But what this movement does is only try to tell BLM that blue lives matter more than black lives, while all lives matter and we should always be promoting that, the reason why BLM is a movement is because statistics show us something wrong is occurring here. When people promote breast cancer awareness does one think it is wise to counter it with ovarian cancer awareness? What normally happens is that people recognize that breast cancer awareness is important and that something should be done about it, they don’t ignore it and counter it with another movement. That is what the BLM movement is trying to tell people, not that all lives don’t matter, but that black lives are statistically disproportionate to others when it comes to police killings (actually Native Americans have it worse). It is very similar to a triage situation, you treat the people that are most prone to this happening and try to fix that issue.
Without trying to pretend to know all the answers I felt it would be prudent to mention that I think are possible first steps in helping bridge this divide. What both sides need to do is attack the issues that are causing this and not attack each other by dismissing their causes. For BLM they need to address poverty, and support candidates that will help reduce inequality on the federal level, the typical democratic and republican candidates typically don’t address this aggressively enough, or can’t address it because of an inability to gain popular support for it. This can be addressed with becoming more organized at the local level and building this political support from the bottom up. For police they need to hold fellow officers more accountable and have the state use specially assigned prosecutors to handle grand jury cases to avoid conflict of interest while using local prosecutors. There are some other “hot button” policies that can address this issue as well but I wanted to avoid those and focus on ones that both sides could accomplish quite easily with a little bit of organization and cooperation, and not jump into things that could cause a further divide on this.
There is a lot to digest from the rhetoric and the attacks being thrown at Bernie Sanders. And for the most part most of it is based on mud slinging trying to paint democratic socialism as socialism, and anti-capitalist. But what it is, is the new invention that should replace the unabated capitalism the United States has seen the past 40 years.
When it comes to economic systems like capitalism, socialism, democratic socialism, communism, feudalism, etc. People need to recognize that all they are, are inventions, they are the latest technologies, sometimes they fail, sometimes they thrive and become game changers, sometimes the become obsolete. When an economy is immature and needs to develop fast, capitalism seems to be the most effective way to mature that economy and put it into hyper drive. But at some point hyper drive could cause you to crash and burn, and capitalism has shown to have that effect on more mature economies (frequent recessions and depressions).
Capitalism deserves its fair share of credit for transitioning from merchantilism to the major reason for bringing people out of poverty, although some may argue it was due to Industrial Revolutions (hard to determine causality there). But I will digress and give capitalism the due credit it may or may not deserve.
The point I am trying to make here is that we should start to consider that capitalism, in it’s current form, is perhaps not the invention and tool we should be reliant upon. We make and control our economy, and always have, there is no reason to rely on an invention to form it for us. We would never allow another technology to run amok on us, but when it comes to economic inventions we seem to allow it.
What I am trying to say in laymen terms is that it is time to upgrade our Iphones. It seems that democratic socialism could be capitalism 2.0. When one understands what democratic socialism is they understand that it actually enhances economic freedom and helps capitalism, as evidence by the libertarian minded think tank Heritage, who lists their economic freedom index, almost all of them being some form of democratic socialism.
And what countries are on top of that list? Hong Kong is number 1 (universal health care, education reliant on vocational schools paid for by government), Singapore number 2 (Essentially universal mandatory HSA’s, 20% of government spending on education), and if you look at the remaining on this list you will see similar set ups. A high reliance on spending for health care and education, a massive investment on future generations. All of these countries also have higher taxes to pay for these (although I would argue that is not necessary for the U.S.).
So when it comes to attacks on Bernies Sanders about giving things away for free (which is false, considering he is raising taxes), one can only imagine that these statements are made from a complete lack of understanding of what exists outside of the U.S. It is like using the first issue of an Iphone from a decade ago and not being aware that Iphone 6s does a lot more and is a much better technology.
People need to stop looking at economics ideologically and start looking at it as a technology and a tool to better serve you and humanity, because democratic socialism does exactly that. And like all breakthrough technologies, eventually they change the world to create a better standard of living.
Put together by Nathan Cedric Tankus
Scenario one: Federal Reserve purchases a government bond from Individual investor
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + government bond | +Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | + deposit owed to Individual investor |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + deposit owed to Individual investor
– government bond |
|
Scenario two: Federal Reserve sells a Treasury Security to a Primary dealer
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Treasury Security | -Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | – Deposit owed to Primary Dealer |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| – Deposit owed to Primary Dealer
+Treasury Security |
|
Scenario three: Individual investor purchases a Treasury Note at a Treasury Auction
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account
-Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account | + Treasury Note |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| –Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | -Deposit owed to individual investor |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Treasury Note
– Deposit owed to individual investor |
|
Scenario four : Treasury Pays interest on a particular Treasury note held by an individual investor
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account
+Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account | |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | + Deposit owed to individual investor |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Deposit owed to individual investor | |
Scenario five: Individual worker pays Social Security payroll tax
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account
-Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account | [Social Security Trust fund memo: Individual worker owed additional x amount of retirement benefits] |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | – Deposit owed to individual worker |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| – Deposit owed to individual worker | |
Scenario six: Treasury deposits monthly payment in an Individual Retiree’s Commercial bank checking account
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account
+Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Treasury’s Reserve account | [Social Security Trust fund memo: Individual retiree owed x amount of monthly payments] |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | + Deposit owed to individual retiree |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Deposit owed to individual retiree | |
Scenario seven: Commercial bank A makes a loan to Commercial bank B on the Fed Funds market.
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Commercial bank A’s reserve account
+Reserves held in Commercial bank B’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Commercial bank A (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account
+Loan to Commercial bank B |
|
| Commercial bank B (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | +Loan to Commercial bank B |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
Scenario eight: The Federal Reserve invests excess funds in Treasury’s reserve account at a commercial bank
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Treasury’s reserve account
+Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Treasury’s reserve account
+Deposit owed to Treasury |
|
| Commercial bank (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | +Deposit owed to Treasury |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
Scenario nine: The Federal Reserve withdraws Treasury deposit at a commercial bank
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Treasury’s reserve account
-Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account |
|
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Treasury’s reserve account
-Deposit owed to Treasury |
|
| Commercial bank (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| -Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | -Deposit owed to Treasury |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
Scenario eleven: The Federal Reserve raises Fed Funds rate
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo: owes more future interest on floating rate liabilities]
–Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
[Memo: owes more future interest on floating rate liabilities]
–Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo:owed more future interest on floating rate assets]
–Δ market value of fixed rate assets |
[Memo: owes more future interest on floating rate liabilities]
–Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
| Commercial bank (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo:owed more future interest on floating rate assets]
–Δ market value of fixed rate assets |
[Memo: owes more future interest on floating rate liabilities]
–Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo:owed more future interest on floating rate assets]
–Δ market value of fixed rate assets |
[Memo: owes more future interest on floating rate liabilities]
–Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
Scenario twelve: The Federal Reserve lowers the Fed Funds rate
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo: owed less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
[Memo: owes less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo: owed less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
[Memo: owes less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
| Commercial bank (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo: owed less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
[Memo: owes less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| [Memo: owed less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
[Memo: owes less future interest on floating rate liabilities]
+Δ market value of fixed rate liabilities |
Scenario thirteen : Federal Reserve Pays interest on a particular Reserve account held by a Commercial bank.
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Reserves held in Commercial bank’s reserve account | |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
Scenario fourteen: Individual worker borrows money from Commercial bank
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Individual worker’s promise to pay principal and interest | + Deposit owed to individual worker |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Deposit owed to individual worker | +Individual worker’s promise to pay principal and interest |
Scenario fifteen: Individual worker A borrows money from Commercial bank A and purchases House from individual worker B with checking account at Commercial Bank A
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Treasury | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Individual worker A’s promise to pay principal and interest | + Deposit owed to individual worker B |
| Non-Commercial bank (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Deposit owed to individual worker B | +Individual worker A’s promise to pay principal and interest |
Scenario fifteen: Individual worker A borrows money from Commercial bank A and purchases House from individual worker B with checking account at Commercial Bank B
| Federal Reserve | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank B’s reserve account
-Reserves held in Commercial bank A’s reserve account |
|
| Commercial bank A (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Individual worker A’s promise to pay principal and interest
-Reserves held in Commercial bank A’s reserve account |
|
| Commercial bank B (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| +Reserves held in Commercial bank B’s reserve account | + Deposit owed to individual worker B |
| Non-Commercial banks (private sector) | |
| Assets | Liabilities |
| + Deposit owed to individual worker B | +Individual worker A’s promise to pay principal and interest |
Solution one: Solve Social Security alleged “potential bankruptcy” by making the Treasury legally responsible to pay all Social Security benefits. This is already done with Medicare Part B and D
“Part B of Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI), which pays doctors’ bills and other outpatient expenses, and Part D, which provides access to prescription drug coverage, are both projected to remain adequately financed in to the indefinite future because current law automatically provides financing each year to meet the next year’s expected costs”
– A summary of the 2011 annual Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund reports
There seems to be two camps of fear that are pitted against each other when discussing the growing concern over concussions and CTE that occur while playing in the NFL. Both seem to be based on a fear of some sort, whether rational or irrational. On one side you have the fear of the NFL losing popularity or being lost as a sport altogether, and the other side is the fear that most athletes playing football will turn people into walking vegetables. Both of these camps seem to be taking extreme stances here, which is often what is represented in the media at times as those who are most extreme seem to be given the headlines over the more moderate voices out there.
What needs to be done in this debate is to realize what arguments are based on a rational fear and what aren’t. We can probably say with 100% certainty that the NFL’s popularity is safe from the CTE issue because of it’s rising popularity today, in spite of the criticisms they receive. We also can’t say with 100% certainty that if you play in the NFL (or even college or high school) that you are going to suffer long term effects from the damage you take on hits to ones head.
In the case of the NFL losing popularity or suffering a negative image to tarnish the league one has to look no further than it’s t.v. ratings and overall revenue. In a year in which two high profile running backs were arrested and missed playing in the 2014 season the NFL enjoyed its highest Super Bowl rating, and continues to enjoy increasing revenues from it. If two high profile players that have beaten their kid and girlfriend can’t turn people away from the sport then can people really rationalize a fear of the NFL losing popularity because of the risks of CTE?
As for the case of people in fear of more football players suffering from CTE the evidence is mounting that the problem is a more rational fear than an irrational one. For former football players in their 50’s the odds of them having alzheimers and dementia are as high as 23 times higher than the non-football players and for those in their 60’s as high as 35 times higher. As much as 3 in 10 NFL players will develop neurocognitive problems.
So while some fears can be categorized as irrational because of a lack of evidence that the fear will be realized or the lack of trends that it will one day occur, other fears are realized and show a trend that it may one day occur. One has to ask themselves which side is arguing through rational fear and which one is arguing through an irrational fear?
As a huge football fan I know the sport will likely not suffer in any statistically significant way from more awareness of CTE and for the NFL to be in full force in trying to prepare better for these injuries, which includes small investments into highschools to make kids aware where socioeconomic conditions may lead them to forego these risks whether they are aware of them or not. It could be a poster in a lock room or a video shown during the first practices of the season, local governments do this for kids who get speeding tickets to instill a fear of driving too fast (so the precedence is there). With the NFL poised to pay out millions and perhaps billions in medical bills and donations to research on this issue it would be wise for them to also get ahead of the awareness game as it would only help them in any future liability cases.
It is time to stop pretending that this will negatively effect the NFL in a popularity standpoint, it is still the modern gladiator games and people like me love seeing huge hits and a physical game, but that shouldn’t mean we should root under a veil of cognitive dissonance. It is ok to be a hypocrite that supports awareness and funding for the high levels of risk that comes with football and still support the violent nature of it and enjoy watching that violence.
I would like for this post to be a place to debate this topic. There was a time where I thought that passing on taxation to consumers made sense to me. As I made the assumption that taxes were a cost associated in overhead. But is it really overhead? Or is it exactly what corporate income taxes are supposed to be? And that is an “after profit tax”. It is important to understand that distinction.
Would it be wise for a company to add expected tax payments into a cost of a good? If another company doesn’t care about “after profit taxation” then they could easily undercut a company that attempts to add that expected cost into their product or service cost structure. That would then allow the competition to obtain more valuable market share and stronger revenues to capture more ad revenue and market penetration. Most executives would fire their accounting staffs if they made the blunder of adding that cost into their pricing.
Let’s also take into consideration the fact that many businesses only pay taxes via individual tax rates as sole proprietors or partnerships and other corporation set ups. I don’t have the percentage of businesses who pay taxes in this way but I do recall it being the majority of small businesses in this country, please correct me if I am wrong. So if corporations that pay “after profit incomes taxes” have to compete with people who pay no corporate income tax, then it would be disastrous for them to include that tax in their cost structure as it would price them out of the market.
Now I am not arguing that corporations should pay higher taxes, as I believe that taxation for revenue purposes are obsolete. But I can’t stand when this argument is made because it makes zero economic or logical sense. What seems more illogical is that we are so quick to tax individuals who are the consumers of products and services that the companies provide and yet not quick to tax corporations who are now hoarding trillions in profits that could be used to increase wages and hiring. So maybe the burden of taxation should shift from individuals to corporations?
As most who read this blog can attest to, I think taxation should be used as a redistribution tool and a punitive tool to help the consuming portion of our economic base consume more, so don’t let this be an argument for government revenues but an argument to reverse the tax structure to benefit business, by increasing their consumer base, and benefiting the lower classes to save and pay off debt more.
Which is better for the economy? The golden era of economics practiced more “demand side” theory in the 50’s and 60’s. And in the late 60’s and early 70’s our economy started to shift to “supply side” theory, where neo-liberal policy took hold (neo-liberals consist of democrats and republicans).
Here is a list of recessions in those two eras of differing economic theories.
Demand side era:
1960 a 1.6% drop in GDP and a peak of 7.1 UE. 10 months
1969 1 .9% dip in GDP and a peak of 6.1 UE. 11 months.
Supply Side era:
1973 recession a near 7% decline in GDP and a peak of 9% UE. 2 years, and UE never fully recovered to its pre recession levels until 1997!
1980s recession had a dip in GDP of 4% and a peak UE of over 10%, it lasted 2 years as well.
2008 recession is called the GReat Recession for a reason because only the Great Depression dwarfed it in size. 4.9% dip in GDP and 10% plus in UE, still haven’t recovered 5 years later.
Demand side recessions averaged a 1.75% dip in GDP and a 6.6 UE rate and average of 10.5 months.
Supply side recessions averaged 5% dip in GDP and 9.75% UE average.
And since we entered into the post Keynes era we have never reached the levels of 4% UE (for a brief time in the late 1990’s).
I realize that comparing the two era’s may seem rather specious, but the two eras represent two completely different eras of economic practices. From the pro-labor era where unions were strong and the middle class heavily bolstered from WW2 era government spending programs, to today’s era of anti-labor with shifting jobs overseas, dismantling unions, and government policy geared towards supply side thinking.
Heretical Druthers 