What is your solution for an economy that is experiencing a deflationary spiral?

[WhipperSnapper]

Other than housing, what's deflating?

My solution to our nation's economic problems:

1. End our exposure to Global Labor Arbitrage. Institute a zero-dollar trade deficit policy for goods and services by enacting tariffs or by creating an import credits system. Immediately end the H-1B and L-1 visa programs and issue deportation notices for anyone here on such visas. End legal immigration and illegal immigration.

2. Enact real socialized medicine which will decrease the % of GDP spent on health care while also providing coverage for 100% of the population, eliminating medical bankruptcies, and ending the crushing burden that health care concerns place on businesses. This may also result in increased entrepreneurial activity and small business development.

3. Regulate the financial industry properly to eliminate externalities and conflicts of interest.

 

[Narmer]

Explain.

Use detailed analysis. Not rhetoric.

It's simple really. Some people want to artificially prop up prices. They have no problem when demand outstrips supply, leading to inflation. But they have a problem when there is no demand and try to generate it artifcially. Look, India and China are some of the reasons why wages and prices are depressed. Why can't we just acknowledge it instead of fighting common sense?

 

[rudder]

Other than housing, what's deflating?

My solution to our nation's economic problems:

2. Enact real socialized medicine which will decrease the % of GDP spent on health care while also providing coverage for 100% of the population, eliminating medical bankruptcies, and ending the crushing burden that health care concerns place on businesses. This may also result in increased entrepreneurial activity and small business development.

Are you going to go to medical school so you can provide this care? Are we going to have to draft med students to make sure we have someone to provide this care? For what the government will pay doctors... not many will sign up to spend nearly a decade in school just to lose money providing government healthcare to the population.

 

[StageLeft]

Who knows. You can't simply print money as you end up screwing over people who hold debt, have savings. Anyway the fact is a great deal of the government's debt is tied to inflation. I wish people would realize that. Do you think the gov can sh*t money out of a helicopter and continue to pay what it pays now in social security? Medicare? Defense? Of course not. Some of those are legally, unequivocally tied to inflation (like SS), others are as a matter of practice (like cost of outfitting a warship). Wantonly printing money does shift wealth but it obviously produces none. It would help release the grip foreign creditors have on the US but the next round of inevitable borrowing would see them demanding high yields.

What we've seen today is a great deal of playing around trying to figure out ways out of a dire path and so far the fiddling hasn't been very successful. Case in point: the economy. Still sucks, unemployment still sucks, states are by far in worse shape than a year ago because they never tightened their belts and instead used Federal funds as a stop gap. Did they think that would be there forever?

So my solution is I don't have one and I'm ok with that because the experts, who have studied this and are paid to come up with a solution don't have one, either.

 

[Acanthus]

It's simple really. Some people want to artificially prop up prices. They have no problem when demand outstrips supply, leading to inflation. But they have a problem when there is no demand and try to generate it artifcially. Look, India and China are some of the reasons why wages and prices are depressed. Why can't we just acknowledge it instead of fighting common sense?

Acknowledging the problem would mean taking protectionism steps. We will never do that.

 

[Acanthus]

Are you going to go to medical school so you can provide this care? Are we going to have to draft med students to make sure we have someone to provide this care? For what the government will pay doctors... not many will sign up to spend nearly a decade in school just to lose money providing government healthcare to the population.

Yeah... all those doctors working 100 hours a week right now...

There is no lack of surgeons / doctors / nurses. There are however (hundreds of) thousands of bankruptcies.

The uncovered 30% still have emergency care and there are no shortages now. The difference is the pay structure.

 

[her209]

They have no problem when demand outstrips supply, leading to inflation.

Wat!?

 

[Munky]

1. Break up anything too big to fail, reinstate Glass-Steagall.
2. Let the insolvent institutions fail
3. Repeal all foreign work visas, focus on creating domestic jobs
4. Abolish the federal reserve system

 

[Acanthus]

Are you going to go to medical school so you can provide this care? Are we going to have to draft med students to make sure we have someone to provide this care? For what the government will pay doctors... not many will sign up to spend nearly a decade in school just to lose money providing government healthcare to the population.

http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/20584023

 

[Narmer]

Wat!?

You don't understand what I wrote?

 

[Narmer]

Acknowledging the problem would mean taking protectionism steps. We will never do that.

That is one option. Another could be levelling the playing field by forcing all the participants to play fairly (ie, no currency manipulation). Another would be moving up and producing higher value goods.

 

[nonlnear]

Acknowledging the problem would mean taking protectionism steps. We will never do that.

If only it were that simple. Protectionism - when viewed through the IMHO truest political/historical lens - never ended. The only thing that changed was that the political needs of labor and the political needs of corporate lobbyists were more aligned 100 years ago than they are today. In popular parlance, protectionism is used to refer to the desire of those currently employed to preserve their employment. This is a grave mistake that serves to distort the general understanding of what drives trade policy. This is only one instance of the systemic cancer of popular economic discussion, which is speaking of economics in sanitized pseudoscientific terms rather than in terms of pure political power. Economics is, a humanity, after all. To imply otherwise is to lie. This is systematically perpetrated by the economics establishment, who seem largely fixated on creating the popular impression that they are scientists, or nearly so.

Congress generally has always cared for the interests of powerful industrial lobbyists, and nothing about the relationship between Congress and those interests has changed, even while the form of trade policy went through a radical transformation. Protectionism has always been about protecting industrial lobbyists, and when industrialists became transnational, the form of their protections became transnational as well.

 

[her209]

You don't understand what I wrote?

I'm questioning what you wrote.

 

[Anarchist420]

There's nothing wrong with deflation if the market handles it correctly.

 

[Narmer]

I'm questioning what you wrote.

Everybody, including government, loves growth, which leads to inflation.

 

[Munky]

Everybody, including government, loves growth, which leads to inflation.

Not just growth, but the growth of the money supply. You could still have GDP growth without inflation.

 

[rudder]

Yeah... all those doctors working 100 hours a week right now...

There is no lack of surgeons / doctors / nurses. There are however (hundreds of) thousands of bankruptcies.

The uncovered 30% still have emergency care and there are no shortages now. The difference is the pay structure.

Those doctors are earning free market wages now. If we have 100% socialist healthcare, they won't be. They will be earning what the government can afford to pay. Judging by medicare... it won't be much. And you are wrong about no shortages... the number of doctors going into family medicine dwindle every year. Why? Because programs like medicare do not reimburse them enough for services. They are forced into the specialties where they can earn more.

So I ask again... will you go to school for 10 years to help provide socialized medicine?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Are you going to go to medical school so you can provide this care? Are we going to have to draft med students to make sure we have someone to provide this care? For what the government will pay doctors... not many will sign up to spend nearly a decade in school just to lose money providing government healthcare to the population.

As far as I know there isn't any shortage of doctors in nations that have socialized medicine. In fact many even have a higher number of doctors per capita than in the U.S. Doctors will always be well-cared for, at least in non-communist countries.

In fact, I bet we could reduce the percentage of GDP we spend on health care by cutting out the insurance companies while also increasing doctors' pay. Doctors might also enjoy an increased quality-of-life on-the-job if they don't have to worry about insurance issues and have more time to treat patients and have less insurance BS to put up with.

I doubt that the U.S. will have a shortage of medical school applicants anytime soon. We already have perhaps two or three times more applicants now than there are seats available. Furthermore, being a doctor compares so favorably to almost every other field that many people will still want to go--almost zero unemployment and underemployment, pretty much a guaranteed job, social status, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to take care of our nation's doctors but I don't think it's going to be a problem under socialized medicine, at least not one caused by it. I think the real problem is the cost of attending medical school. Perhaps under socialized medicine the government would reimburse doctors for the costs of their education. (Isn't the cost of a medical school education paid for by the government in many of those evil socialist people's states?)

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Those doctors are earning free market wages now. If we have 100% socialist healthcare, they won't be. They will be earning what the government can afford to pay. Judging by medicare... it won't be much. And you are wrong about no shortages... the number of doctors going into family medicine dwindle every year. Why? Because programs like medicare do not reimburse them enough for services. They are forced into the specialties where they can earn more.

So I ask again... will you go to school for 10 years to help provide socialized medicine?

Is it possible that the reason doctors compensation may be decreasing is that our nation's health care system is very inefficient and the most expensive in the world at 17% of GDP? In contrast, nations with socialized medicine are spending a much smaller percentage of their GDP.

Are doctors really receiving horrible compensation? I agree that it may be becoming an issue given the amount of student loans they have to take on, but are they really suffering that badly? $150,000/year guaranteed with job security is not bad. Can you say that for many other professions?

Let's look at law school. It can easily cost $150,000 in tuition and the cost of living for three years to become a lawyer today. However, the majority of law school graduates today end up unemployed or underemployed-and-out-of-field. We also have a huge oversupply of MBAs. We also have a large oversupply of PhD. scientists.

The aspect of being able to find work in your field and have job security and to earn a six figure income continuously is one of the huge benefits of being a physician and one of the reasons why far more people apply to medical school today than there are seats available for them.

(Heck, more people apply to law school today than there are seats available and going to law school today has become an almost retarded proposition when you factor in the return on investment.)

 

[FerrelGeek]

Explain.

Use detailed analysis. Not rhetoric.

If you don't understand why senseamp is wrong, you've proved my point.

 

[Ozoned]

Lets filter out the classic ATP&N lefty vs righty name calling.

What are the options for dealing with an economy that is facing a deflationary spiral?

What economic solutions do you support?

Short it...

 

[Acanthus]

Those doctors are earning free market wages now. If we have 100% socialist healthcare, they won't be. They will be earning what the government can afford to pay. Judging by medicare... it won't be much. And you are wrong about no shortages... the number of doctors going into family medicine dwindle every year. Why? Because programs like medicare do not reimburse them enough for services. They are forced into the specialties where they can earn more.

So I ask again... will you go to school for 10 years to help provide socialized medicine?

That is a stupid question.

Of course id like to deliver medicine, i'd also love to be an astrophysicist, and astronaut, a mechanical engineer, a nuclear engineer, a supermodel, and president.

I have to pick one that is realistic and go for it.

 

[Acanthus]

If you don't understand why senseamp is wrong, you've proved my point.

*Dodge*

 

[zephyrprime]

Print money to pay off existing debts. Partial default of some debts (restructure). Some extra money printing to people with savings to compensate them for inflation.

 

[Munky]

Print money to pay off existing debts. Partial default of some debts (restructure). Some extra money printing to people with savings to compensate them for inflation.

Default on debts is what the free market would force if it were allowed to operate, and clear the debt bubble. But the banks and the government they own wont allow that.