"Pay off our billionaire bosses or we'll continue to wreck the economy."
So what should we do? I say, give 'em what they want. Yeah, you heard me. Let 'em keep their tax cuts. Let's ignore their 'fiscal bluff'. Meanwhile, we will just cut them out of the deal. Here's how;
We need to take a leap off the fiscal 'cliff', but not the kind you hear about from those who 'think' they know what they are talking about. The fiscal cliff I am talking about is one where you take everything you thought you knew about money and our economy and throw it over the edge of the little orange fancy thingy below.
Go ahead, I'll wait...
Now, open your mind and let this settle in for a minute.
Our government creates wealth.
It's true. The problem up till now is the one's who know this, won't tell you it, because they want to keep it all to themselves. So they start silly arguments over debt without telling you that what they are really talking about is not the same thing. How we understand debt and how they understand debt are different.
The real issue is how we treat our money. We are a slave to the numbers on a ledger that are meaningless unless we force ourselves to see it in a new way. There are a multitude of ways for our economy to become balanced. This does not mean we need a balanced budget, but a balance of currency flowing through our economy to achieve our objective. In order to do that we need to see where we are currently out of balance. The terms deficit and debt should be redefined.
DEFICIT
We have a tremendous hole in our economy. That is our deficit. We have a huge deficit in our infrastructure. Our current roads, bridges and electrical grid are faltering. We are already behind in preparing for the future. We cannot hide our heads in the sand any longer. We have a multitude of problems to solve if we are to have a sustainable future.
We have millions out of work and we are failing to invest in the future effectively. We are leaving a huge debt to our grandkids by not maintaining our economy. They will have to fix all of this unless we start now. What it does mean is that when they are ready to take over the reigns, they will find that we were poor stewards of the machinery that makes the economy function. We spent too much time fighting over a false premise, that spending our fiat currency will force us to go broke.
DEBT
The debt that we hold is not a number on a 'clock' but it is a liability all the same. They are using a business term to describe something that is not comparable at all. When our government spends for roads, schools, old age pensions, research and exploration, we are creating wealth for the private sector. How is that a debt? What it is really is an investment. We issue stock when we sell a Treasury Note. The stock is an investment in our economy and our citizens. The dividend is an infrastructure that allows the private sector (you and me) to earn a living, to be successful, to take care of our families, young and old, and to have a safe environment.
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So when someone busts into tears about the debt we are leaving our grandchildren, ask them if the economy we leave that lacks transportation or schools will continue to give them the opportunity to earn a living into the future. Or when they tell you we have to stop spending so much, ask them if spending is bad if we use it to create new products through research and development in our Universities. When they tell you we should run the country like a business, ask them why any sane businessman wouldn't want to invest to create growth. It is all so silly that it makes me wonder how those who repeat these fallacies managed to make it as far as they did in life with so little understanding of how money works.