Dionn J Brune Dr. Benjamin Moore III BUSA 3090/SEC: 006 21 January 2025 Economic Overview Assignment 1. Peter Joseph “The Big Question” Ted Talk: “The Systems Clash” part one of the big question, Mr. Joseph talks about how both the Earth (Theoretical) and Market economy clash. One of the topics that were mentioned was obsolescence (Intrinsic and planned) where goods are designed to breakdown under the assumption of repeat purchases, which would fall under the system we use today “Market economy”. While “Earth Economy” follows a more optimum design where it’s environmentally irresponsible to design goods to fail or allow them to fail unnecessarily. To me this was an eye opener showing me how we live vs. How we should be living. “The Value Wars” part two of the big question, this part really shows what’s valued in our economy. Mr. Joseph lists several different ongoing issues today that are “completely obsolete” (can be resolved/no longer need to go through). The 3 major topics mentioned were unemployment, Energy Cost, and Debt failure. Energy cost “has far too much money that will be made as the system fails, because of scarcity”. This very same selfish reason is the only reason our potential isn’t being maxed but instead faced with this unique form of collapse. Mr. Joseph states, “Removing the environmental and sociological inefficiency inherit to the “market” and simply apply modern scientific understanding resolves or greatly reduce these issues” Key take aways from the information shared, ties back to the title of the Ted Talk “The Biq question” and at the end of the video Mr. Joseph asks the audience a question saying “what will you do”. After hearing about the increasing level of social destabilization and an ongoing decline of public health, I began to ask myself “WHAT WILL YOU DO” there’s a lot that can be changed within our economy and the way we view it. 2. Dr. Stephanie Kelton “Why we need to debunk the deficit myth” BBC Reel: I. Gov’t is increasing their spending limits, and we should rethink the concept. II. Deficits don’t matter in a sign of fiscal recklessness III. The national debt is nothing more than a historical record of all the past instances where the gov’t deposited more money into the economy, then returned it by taxing. IV. A surplus regard to the national debt, would be the gov’t adding more than it’s subtracting. V. No, the gov’t budget isn’t the same as a household budget. Houses and business can and do go broke cause their depending on a currency they can’t create, they have to go earn it. VI. The key tenant is that gov’ts issue their own sovereign currency like the U.S., U.K, and Japan. They can never have bills that are forced to pay or have bankruptcy (They never need to tax their spending “borrow”). VII. No, the gov’t doesn’t have to pay back national debt. VIII. The gov’t can’t use tax payer dollars to pay the national debt. IX. The gov’t funds goods. X. The gov’t taxes some dollars away from us as it spends to make room for its own spending. XI. MMT centers inflation in the budget process as a risk protection (Inflation Risk). XII. Policies used to decrease budget deficits. XIII. The goal of gov’t spending is a balanced economy. XIV. The national debt regarding the economy should be used to deliver a healthy economy. 3. Dr. Stephanie Kelton “What the Deficit Actually Is” Institute For Gender and the Economy: i. Two ways gov’t deficits can be written in regards to outcomes are “you can write a budget that results in a deficit or a budget that generates the same deficit in absolute terms; but serves differently”. ii. No; a deficit is not a result of gov’t mismanagement iii. A gov’t deficit simply means “The gov’t is spending/putting more money into the economy, then it is subtracting (through taxes)”. iv. How deficits work Ex. Gov’t spends $100 hiring people to repair infrastructure/upgrade then $90 is taxed away, so somewhere in the economy there $10 left. v. Dr. Kelton states “Every deficit is good for someone” vi. Financial contributions are made to investors who purchase the bonds. vii. Gov’t bonds are interest bearing currency. viii. There is no inherit reason for deficits to result in ill-effects, but those that do have enough money to invest large amount do receive large returns due to high interest rates.
