https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12127067/woman-says-she-is-a-cat-trapped-in-the-wrong-body.html

Wow, this really is the greatest spreadsheet in the world. This is not a tribute.

I've always wondered how they figured out who got paid what on international mail.

And sometimes those mailmen really do work hard to get the mail where it's supposed to go:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/iceland/articles/letter-no-address-hand-drawn-map-delivered-remote-iceland/

Wait for it? The ending was telegraphed in the first 2 seconds.

2:28 - Telegraph operation, you're doing it wrong.

You don't need to buy an ultra expensive one, just don't buy anything from Dyson if you can avoid it. Amazon shows them starting at $13, I imagine there might be some model reasonably priced and decent quality.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6377644/Dyson-fan-was-it-invented-30-years-ago.html

LOL like Eric said, don't get me started

Nah I won't bang on, I'd only be repeating myself.

But the addiction is real http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11949643/Cheese-is-addictive-as-drugs-study-finds.html

Yes, freedom from having a stable economy and freedom to be racist as fuck.

I couldn't find a valid embeddable replacement. Just watch it on Telegraph's web page.

Thanks. I couldn't find its replacement and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/viral-video/11113474/Watch-The-Great-Gorilla-Run-2014-in-London.html didn't a valid embed code for VS.

@greatgooglymoogly

Thanks for taking the time to watch it.

Like I said in my previous comment, this talk needs to take a lot of shortcuts, otherwise its length would surpass anyone's attention span.

So, point by point.

By "balanced budget", I suppose you refer to the federal budget. A balanced budget is not neccessarily a bad thing, but it is undesirable in most case. The key reason is sectoral balances. The economy can divided into three sectors: public, private, foreign. Since one person's spending is another person's income, the sum of all spending and income of these three sectors is zero by definition.

More precisely: if the public sector runs a surplus and the private sector runs a surplus, the foreign sector needs to run a deficit of a corresponding size.

Two examples:
- the government runs a balanced budget, no surplus, no deficit
- the private sector runs a surplus (savings) of 2% of GDP
- the foreign sector must, by definition, run a deficit of 2% of GDP (your country runs a current account surplus of 2% of GDP)

- the government runs a deficit of 2% of GDP
- the foreign sector runs a surplus of 3% (your current account deficit of 3%)
- your private sector must, by definition, run a deficit of 1% of GDP, aka burn through savings or run up debt

If you intend to allow the private sector to net save, you need to run either a current account surplus or a public sector deficit, or both. Since we don't export goods to Mars just yet, not all countries can run current account surpluses, so you need to run a public sector deficit if you want your private sector to net save. No two ways about it.

Germany runs a balanced public budget, sort of, and its private sector net saves. But that comes at the cost of a current account surplus to the tune of €250B. That's 250 billion Euros worth of debt other countries have to accumulate so that both the private and public sector in Germany can avoid deficits. Parasitic is what I'd call this behaviour, and I'm German.

If you feel ambitious, you could try to have both surplus and deficit within the private sector by allowing households to net save while "forcing" corporations to run the corresponding deficits. But to any politician trying that, I'd advise to avoid air travel.

As for the "devaluation of the currency", see my previous comment.

Also, she didn't use real numbers, because a) the talk is short and numbers kill people's attention rather quickly, and b) it's a policy decision to use debt to finance a deficit. One might just as well monetise it, like I explained in my previous comment.

Helicopter money would be quite helpful these days, actually. Even monetarists like AEP say so. If fiscal policy is off the table (deficit hawkery), what else are you left with...

As for your question related to the Fed, let me quote Eric Tymoigne on why MMT views both central bank and Treasury as part of the consolidated government:

"MMT authors tend to like to work with a consolidated government because they see it as an effective strategy for policy purpose (see next section), but also because the unconsolidated case just hides under layers of institutional complexity the main point: one way or another the Fed finances the Treasury, always. This monetary financing is not an option and is not by itself inflationary."

MMT principle: the central bank needs to be under democratic control, aka be part of government. The Fed in particular can pride itself on its independance all it wants, it still cannot fulfill any of its goals without the Treasury's help. It cannot diverge from government policies too long. Unlike the ECB, which is a nightmare in its construction.

Anyway, what does he mean by "one way or another the Fed finances the Treasury, always"? Well, the simple case is debt monetisation, direct financing. However, the Fed also participates by ensuring that Primary Dealers have enough reserves to make a reasonable bid on treasuries. The Fed makes sure that auctions of treasuries will always succeed. Always. Either by providing reserves to ensure buyers can afford the treasuries, by replacing maturing treasuries or buying them outright. No chance whatsoever for bond vigilantes. Betting against treasuries is pointless, you will always lose.

But what about taxation as a means to finance the Treasury? Well, the video's Monopoly example illustrated quite nicely, you cannot collect taxes until you have spent currency into circulation. Spending comes before taxation, it does not depend on it. Until reserves are injected into the banking system, either by the Fed through asset purchases or the Treasury through spending, taxes cannot be paid. Again, monetary financing is not optional. If the Treasury borrows money from the public, it borrows back money it previously spent.

Yes, I ignored the distribution of wealth, taxation, the fixation on growth and a million other things. That's a different discussion.

The foreign policy of both Russia and the US is far more motivated by domestic policy than "imperialism" or "cold war tactics".

Putin just needs to appear to be winning. Winning wars, media arguments, just winning anything. Crossword competitions, ice hockey games, fishing, push-ups, literally anything. With not much to be gained in Ukraine quickly, he can switch to helping Assad to quash rebels and appear to fight the IS. Russian air support and logistics will have small losses and big PR gains. Putin is clever so he will avoid direct confrontation with the IS leading to a long stalemate and much destruction, in Iraq mainly.

Obama needs to do stupid unworkable things like "spread democracy", "help Israel no matter what", "broker peace in the middle east" and "support 'friends' of the US, some of them as bad as Assad" - its nearly impossible for him to have a sane middle east policy. There is nothing Obama can do in the short term in Syria. He probably cant reconsider his position on Assad and there is no reasonable path to topple Assad gracefully. Also no direct path to fight IS - Turkey will fight Kurds before fighting IS, Israel has to be careful.

Is Iran the key then? Iran is definitely not to be trusted http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11903290/Eight-of-Irans-womens-football-team-are-men.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11015672/Wikipedia-refuses-to-delete-photo-as-monkey-owns-it.html

So... the Gorilla owns this footage?

"So we now have a Europe where the political temperature is rising to boiling point: where the EMU elites are refusing to shift course; and where mischievous lawyers are concocting criminal charges against anybody daring to explore a way out of the trap.

This is a recipe for a European civil war."

From AEP, no less:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11768134/European-alliance-of-national-liberation-fronts-emerges-to-avenge-Greek-defeat.html

If the current Greek proposal is actually the one being published just about everywhere, they might as well sign it in the replica of Marshal Foch's carriage in Compiègne. It's even worse than the one they had their referendum on.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Jamie Galbraith substantiated AEP's claim that the referendum was horseshit to begin with.

They screwed the pooch, even I'd agree to that if they were to accept this unconditional surrender. The anti-austerity movement on the left would be compromised to such a degree, leaving only the anti-EU forces of the right credible in their opposition to austerity. The recession cult will have their permanent austerity -- and the bigots will have their revival of nationalism.

... and those are comments on a video sharing platform, posted by a bloke without any economic bona fides.

Doesn't speak favourably to the state of the media, does it now...

Edit: I should be clearer. Some folks do a marvelous job of reporting on this issue. AEP, for instance, had a great piece yesterday, and so did George Monbiot. But the really good stuff, I'd say, comes from outside the media. Blogging economists all over the world are doing a terrific job. Yves Smith alone, over at NakedCapitalism, provides more and better info than the entire German press combined.