Daniel Brockman

@DanielBrockman@hcommons.social
19 Followers
20 Following
96 Posts
Lifelong interest in History & Economics. Author of "The Tale of Capitalism" (available at "No Dearth of Books" bookstore & Amazon.com). Career in banks & investment companies & systems engineering. MS Finance, BS Mathematics.
LaughingPhilosopher.comLaughingPhilosopher.com
The Tale of Capitalismsmile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B7RVB24C
BookstoreNoDearthOfBooks.com

@alex_mastodon @TatianaIlyina

Universal monthly payments can render unnecessary some targeted welfare programs & bureaucracies to distinguish between undeserving & deserving people. Universal monthly payments adjust the economic system to achieve improved distribution of resources & reduced economic inequality.

Universal, reliable monthly payments can effectively compensate people for higher energy costs & other burdens of coping with climate change, while producing more widespread prosperity, & perhaps stimulating GDP growth.

Politically, though not for economic reasons, the problems of getting an enabling bill through the Congress will be difficult, I agree. /5/end

@alex_mastodon @TatianaIlyina

In nearly all of these examples, recipients have exhibited increased levels of employment, many participants reducing working hours to get more education, mothers & fathers able to stay home to care for children, better household financial stability, & improvements in personal happiness. Sloth & indiscipline plague fewer than 5-10%. Identifying them & criminalizing them would be costly, while even the slothful & undisciplined continue to patronize retail businesses. On net, the participants benefit directly, with wide beneficial side-effects.

/4

@alex_mastodon @TatianaIlyina

Considerations for moderating inflation, with a dose of my opinion, ... As the ideas of Milton Friedman & the monetary operations of the Federal Reserve System under Paul Volcker demonstrated, changes in money supply & velocity have positive effects on inflation. As the cash distributions of the COVID-19 years & the 2017 tax cuts demonstrated, large wide distributions of cash can alter the money supply & velocity. As the Fed under Jerome Powell demonstrated, the Fed can control & manage undesirable inflation without excessive unemployment & without diminution of GDP growth. Thanks to these principles & predecessors, the Fed has working through these monetary balancing acts.

Concerns about people using their monthly payments unwisely have been shown unfounded by the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, the experiments in Seattle, Stockton, & Winnipeg, & by Social Security & Medicare, & by numerous other examples.

/3

Turning to funding, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidea, & Amazon have combined market cap of approx (USD) $946t, of which $420b/yr is less than 1%. The approx aggregate market cap of the S&P 500 companies is $44t.

Increased taxes of $420b/yr on the wealthy & the businesses they own won't likely impair GDP growth & may stimulate it, given the expected improved revenues for retail businesses. Nor would the taxes required heavily burden the wealthier population. While some individuals & businesses might have to declare bankruptcy, can we not reasonably suppose nearly all of them were in pre-existing financial distress?

We recall the PPP payments & special tax refunds the USA govt distributed by direct payments to a large fraction of the population. If I'm not mistaken, these payments resulted in GDP stimulus, in the widespread opinion of economists.

/2

@alex_mastodon @TatianaIlyina

I agree with Alex, that compensation, for the costs of coping with climate change and increased costs of energy, is a viable path in USA. I think the fear of significant decline in GDP growth rate is unwarrante concern for an improbable event.

A direct payment of taxable $ (USD) 100/mo to every child, woman, & man in USA would cost approx $35b/mo or $420b/yr.

The OnePct would collect approx $4b/yr, and they would likely put most of it in savings/investment. The next 9pct of the population would collect $36b, & we might expect them to spend half of that. The next 40pct would get $168b & spend $160b. The least wealthy 50pct (175m people) would get $210byr & spend it all. If I calculate correctly, that's $397b/yr less taxes that people spend mostly at retail establishments, a rough guess of $300b/yr.

That's $300b/yr of revenue for all kinds of retail,
revenue to their suppliers, requiring hiring workers & investment, & producing profits. /1

This strikes me as yet another injustice from the ever-changing definition of "terrorism" and the "War on Terror".

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/politics/sept-11-suspects-war-crimes-sentence.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nU0.9uX0.MLkuClxSXiAy&smid=url-share

Prosecutor Says Sept. 11 Suspects Can Be Held Past War Crimes Sentence

The argument, in a pretrial hearing, dealt with the unresolved question of whether a prisoner who completes such a sentence is entitled to release from military detention.

The New York Times

"World Bank must take ‘quantum leap’ to tackle #ClimateCrisis, #UN expert says - Simon Stiell calls for reform at development banks to enable governments to provide more #climate finance to developing world.

The World Bank must take a “quantum leap” to provide new finance to tackle the climate crisis or face “climate-driven economic catastrophe” that would bring all the world’s economies to a halt, the UN climate chief has said.

Simon Stiell warned that there were just two years left to draw up an international plan for the climate that would cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

“There’s no room now for half measures,” he warned, referring to the global heat that has surpassed records for the past 10 months. “Averting a climate-driven economic catastrophe is core business.” ... "“We can’t afford a talkfest [at the spring meetings] without clear steps forward, when there is an opportunity to make real progress on every part of the new climate finance deal all nations need,” Stiell told an audience of geopolitical experts at the Chatham House thinktank in London on Wednesday afternoon."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/10/world-bank-must-take-quantum-leap-to-tackle-climate-crisis-un-expert-says

#GlobalWarming #Klimakrise #Climate #ClimateEmergency #ClimateChange #Klima #WorldBank #Capitalism #CapitalismKills

World Bank must take ‘quantum leap’ to tackle climate crisis, UN expert says

Simon Stiell calls for reform at development banks to enable governments to provide more climate finance to developing world

The Guardian

@alex_mastodon @TatianaIlyina

Most GDP growth occurs in the incomes of the TenPct and the companies they own. Growth doesn’t limit our response to global warming, but extreme income inequality does. One possibility: tax the rich and distribute the money to those who bear the burdens of climate change for the other inhabitants of the planet.

Henry Ford wrote: “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege.”

https://apnews.com/article/32-hour-workweek-bernie-sanders-076c14dd52c7938bfb41e988a9a6d347

Bernie Sanders wants the US to adopt a 32-hour workweek

The 40-hour workweek has been standard in the U.S. for more than eight decades. Now some members of Congress want to give hourly workers an extra day off. Sen. Bernie Sanders this week introduced a bill that would shorten to 32 hours the amount of time many people in the U.S. can work each week before they’re owed overtime. The far-left independent from Vermont says U.S. companies can afford to give employees more time off without cutting their pay and benefits given advances in automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. Critics say a mandated shorter week would force many companies to hire additional workers or lose productivity.

AP News
The fact the the GOP is simultaneously receiving help from Russia's intelligence services in their disinformation campaign against Joe Biden (https://nytimes.com/2024/02/20/us/politics/fbi-informant-hunter-biden.html) and withholding aid to Ukraine should be the biggest news story of the week, no?
Ex-FBI Informant, Accused of Biden Lies, Said He Had Russian Contacts

Federal prosecutors portrayed the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, as a serial liar incapable of telling the truth about even the most basic details of his own life.

The New York Times