[ SECRET POST #3155 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3155 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 039 secrets from Secret Submission Post #451.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Question Thread

[(Anonymous)]

How do you successfully combat deflationary pressures in an economy when central bank measures aren't working? Particularly if you're at least somewhat worried about running budget deficits?

Re: Question Thread

[raspberryrain]

Raise taxes on large reserves of capital to fund fiscal stimulus, I guess.

Simon Wren-Lewis has been blogging about helicopter money lately, have you read that?
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/

Re: Question Thread

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't! Although it seems very right-minded, so I'll probably start.

Taxing reserves of capital is sensible, I guess, the only problem with it is that it is radically politically impossible - certainly in the US. And also I imagine there's logistic difficulties with it, but I haven't really looked into that.

Re: Question Thread

[raspberryrain]

Well, it might be politically 'easier' to tax transactions, but either way, really. The point is to 'prime the pump' of demand without having to run huge(r) deficits.

I still feel a little out of my depth when I read these blogs. I sometimes read Wren-Lewis. I read Krugman, who's mostly very accessible. I read a little bit of Bernanke's post-Fed blog when he started it, but I've not kept up with it. A lot of these guys link to each other.

For a more popularized (and populist, and very political) economics, but in a very USA-specific vein, Robert Reich is one of the most accessible to the layman.

Re: Question Thread

[(Anonymous)]

Well, wouldn't taxing transactions have significantly different effects compared to actually taxing capital reserves? I mean it kind of seems to me that the purpose of this is two-fold: first, you want to raise money to pay for fiscal policies to increase demand, but you also want to incentivize people to actually invest capital reserves, right? And it doesn't seem like a transaction tax would really do much to accomplish the second aim.

I mean, I don't really know - I'm kind of trying to learn economics atm from a pretty low ground knowledge, so yeah. Actually via reading a literal economics textbook (I am the biggest dork in existence). I'm not a huge fan of Krugman or Reich just on grounds of style and a few questions of political orientation (not really content, more strategy I guess). Wren-Lewis seems much better though.

Re: Question Thread

[raspberryrain]

Yeah, I don't think Reich moves in the same circles. Someone like Bernanke or Wren-Lewis is probably deeper into the state of the science on monetary and banking issues.

Reich works a bit more on the populist/labour political advocacy side than the technical macroeconomics side. He probably talks more about fiscal policy history. But if you're looking at fiscal policy, you're probably dealing with guys like him to do it.

Re: Question Thread

[raspberryrain]

I thought of something else:

If interest rates are near zero, it's theoretically actually fiscally advantageous to borrow money now rather than later. So sell a very large value of bonds (say, greater than half GDP) in the immediate to near term, fund stimulus, and then raise taxes sufficient to pay those bonds back over 10 to 20 years. That does increase state debt (not my favourite choice) temporarily, but it might work.

Of course, it takes legislators who can count and have integrity, so it easily could fail comically.