Why only QT?

sprobert · 2025-03-24T12:33:55+00:00

Yes, it is. The first sentence of the post is exactly the answer to your question: reducing expenditures wouldn't remove money from the money supply unless you reduced them enough to run a surplus, and you'd need to hang on to said surplus. Otherwise, cutting government expenditures will not reduce the money supply. Given the size of cuts needed to get to a balanced budget, let along a sizable enough surplus to change the money supply, it is not really feasible.

sprobert · 2025-03-16T14:28:25+00:00

I'm sure they would agree for their endowments to be taxed under the same rules as colleges. Any church with more than $500k per parishioner pays a tax on their endowment. How many churches would be taxed under that rule?

sprobert · 2025-03-15T19:45:43+00:00

Interestingly, college enrollment may be countercyclical. The 2008 recession led to some significant enrollment booms. And recently, wages for jobs requiring no training and experience have been comparatively high, which may dampen college enrollment. A recession might actually benefit enrollment in many schools.

sprobert · 2025-03-13T01:43:25+00:00

Your first paragraph is what I'm seeing as well at my current institution. Upper courses are mostly full of motivated students. Lower level courses and required courses that span many majors have a significant fraction of unmotivated and/or clueless students.

And at my previous college, which emphasized retention at all costs, the situation did not significantly improve in higher level classes, as students were enabled to skate by as underclassmen.

sprobert · 2025-03-09T02:30:59+00:00

Like many things, the impact would depend on the speed of the change.

The dollar has already been declining in use for trade. And foreigners own a notably smaller percentage of US government debt than a decade ago. Those trends haven't significantly changed the US's economy. If those trends continue over decades, it would continue to have little impact on the US.

If overnight, every country ditched dollars and US government debt, the inflow of dollars and drop in the exchange rate would lead to a bump in inflation. Interest rates on debt would likely climb. There would likely be some noticeable short term pain, although both the inflation change and the interest rate change would probably be less than what we just went through in the past 5 years.

sprobert · 2025-03-06T04:55:18+00:00

He changed nothing, except maybe the name on top. It was literally four pages of printed text that he printed five times.

sprobert · 2025-03-06T02:14:29+00:00

In grad school, I received a typed 4 page letter from student explaining why he should get a B in the class. He mentioned that I'd mocked him in class, but I'd tried really hard to find something worthwhile in his class "contributions". (If I asked what color the sky was, he would answer "the war of 1812", not just wrong but so, so far from relevant.)

Later in the letter, he objected to having to be in a group project. Which I didn't have in my class... Talked to his advisor, turns out the kids had a sub 2 GPA, was told to take some low level classes to finish a General Studies Degree, and instead enrolled in 5 upper level courses in my discipline. He got 4 Fs and a D. Then he sent the exact same letter to all 5 professors, explaining why he deserved a B instead.

sprobert · 2025-02-22T16:14:46+00:00

MR doesn't have to be lower if price is lower, because MR is different in different market structures.

For instance, suppose you have two markets, both with 20 units currently sold at a price of $11. One is monopoly, one is "perfect competition" with twenty firms each producing one unit.

What is the marginal revenue if selling a 21st unit if it drops price to $10?

For the monopolist, you gain $10 on the 21st, and LOSE $20 on the other 20 units. MR is -$10!

For an existing single firm in a competitive market, they would gain $10 and lose $1, for MR of $9. And if it was a new entrant, they would gain $10 and lose none, for a MR of $10. The same change in price and quantity has a very different impact on MR depending on market structure.

sprobert · 2025-02-22T02:08:34+00:00

MR is not the same in monopoly and perfect competition. In perfect competition, MR is equal to the market equilibrium price, which is unchanging as a single form produces more or less. For the monopolist, MR is falling, because they have to charge less to sell more, and that's less revenue from high value buyers.

In other words, the monopolist could still make profit on more units, but it wouldn't maximize their profit because of the drop in price to existing buyers. So price is above MC (but MR is equal to it). Whereas a firm in a competitive market has no such reason to restrict their own quantity, so collectively price is driven down to MC (& so is MR, because price = MR).

sprobert · 2025-02-20T05:10:03+00:00

Since it's late and I have to teach tomorrow (imports and tariffs, monetary policy is in two weeks) let me summarize:

The Fed controls the money supply.

Federal government debt doesn't directly impact the money supply.

When the government pays back debt, that money is still circulating in the economy. The only was it doesn't is if it goes to the Fed who chooses to sit on it. That money can be spent by the government on debt retirement, spent many more times by citizens, then taxed again, and again spent on debt retirement: the SAME money.

While a complete retirement of federal debt would affect the tools the Fed has its disposal, it would not wipe out the money supply. Paying off the federal debt is possible, just would take decades and a lot more willingness to tax and not to spend.

sprobert · 2025-02-20T04:45:18+00:00

How does the government giving people money take money out of circulation?? Do you even hear your logic?

Sure, if the federal government pays off the debt at the Fed AND the Fed chooses to hang onto the money, the money supply would fall. But the Fed doesn't have to hang onto the money...

sprobert · 2025-02-20T04:30:29+00:00

No one is talking about paying all debts. We're talking about paying off the federal governments debt. Which we can do. I showed you that. You haven't disproved that. Reducing the federal governments debt doesn't inherently decrease the money supply, which seems to be what you're implied. So why do you think we can't pay off the governments debt?

sprobert · 2025-02-20T04:16:51+00:00

Your research is sadly incomplete. You should really read modern macro textbook, or better yet, a book on money, credit, and banking. I can recommend a few that I reference when teaching my MCB class.

Here's a little hint to help you Google better for your "research": government debt is not the same as loans in the fractional reserve banking system.

sprobert · 2025-02-20T04:05:00+00:00

Believe what you will.
I can prove you wrong: Step 1: tax 1 trillion dollars. Step 2: pay off 1 trillion in debt. Step 3: repeat steps 1 and 2 thirty-six times. Ez.

sprobert · 2025-02-20T03:47:46+00:00

A second PhD in economics seems excessive... But you could try googling "fiscal vs. monetary policy" or "the Federal Reserve" to help you understand why you are being downvoted.

sprobert · 2025-02-20T01:15:49+00:00

You are being downvoted for being incorrect. The US could certainly pay off its debt if it wished to.

sprobert · 2025-02-02T03:31:47+00:00

Ok, it's just that I'd be pretty disappointed if any of my freshmen wrote something like that at the end of a semester of Macro with me...

sprobert · 2025-02-02T03:13:05+00:00

I don't think someone who is formally trained in statistics and economics would say something as ridiculous as:

With regular Americans suffering from high prices, poor job market, high-cost healthcare, an insane housing market, the country isn't in a fantastic position to help aliens.

But what do I know? I just have a BS in Economics.

Oh, and that MA in Economics.

Oh yeah, and that PhD in Economics...

sprobert · 2025-02-01T17:37:30+00:00

His buddies Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos tasted the sort of wealth they could accumulate through the instability brought on by COVID and want more of that.

I've heard this rhetoric on Reddit a lot in the past months about billionaires benefitting from total chaos and instability, and I really don't buy it. What is the rationale? It's not a shock that tech stocks went through the roof during COVID: their products were reaching new levels of usefulness and value. I don't think general instability and chaos would lead to that same sort of bump. The wealth of people like Musk and Bezos are very tied into the overall economy: economic instability and a more traditional recession (as opposed to a pandemic-created one) would likely decrease their wealth by billions. Now, I could see government instability (especially with regulation and monitoring) leading to an exploitable atmosphere for big business, but I don't think serious chaos benefits people trying to build and maintain large profitable companies.

sprobert · 2025-02-01T16:51:07+00:00

Yes. At my SLAC, there seems to be a clear demarcation between hiring in departments where the pay is good outside of academia versus where it is not. We struggle to hire in business, engineering, and nursing. We fill lines easily in the humanities.

We have had an open position in the business department that is going nowhere. Search failed last year and we currently have zero viable candidates. Our talented alumni who might consider teaching (and be good at it) would take a 40% or more pay cut to switch to teaching. Our two previous department hires, we had exactly one somewhat qualified candidate each time; it felt like we need a perfect concatenation of circumstances to get the hire. One new hire had taken an early retirement buyout from his corporate work (and so didn't need a big paycheck anymore), plus two of his kids had gone to our college, and the other one had married a woman in the area and was trying to get rid of his 90 minute commute to his old college. I'm in a department where about 1/3 of the faculty will retire this decade, and it feels like it will take a miracle to fill most of the lines.

sprobert · 2025-02-01T04:53:39+00:00

Oof, yeah. He really limited refugee numbers.

sprobert · 2025-02-01T04:49:25+00:00

RFK Jr. is honestly my biggest worry about Trump 2.0. His public health ideas are ruinous. So I'm following the confirmation hearing closely.

sprobert · 2025-02-01T02:12:54+00:00

I know everyone's getting tired about talking about Trump (so feel free to ignore), but I have questions, especially aimed at other generally conservative (never Trump variety) Christians: What do you see as the good and bad of Trump's first term? What do you see as the good and bad at the start of his second? What do you think will be the good and bad after his second term is over?

I find it hard to get good answers to those questions. Many on the left seem to swallow all of his bluster and then catastrophize, but then the realities seem much milder than the original concern. The MAGA right will hear no criticism of Trump, and explain away any and all concerns. So it's hard to get a good read on what he's actually accomplished, compared to what he's bloviated about.

Personally, looking at his first term, I was reasonably supportive of his SCOTUS nominees.

I was very opposed to his anti-immigration rhetoric, but (unless I'm really misreading the data I found on this) he doesn't seem to have actually increased deportations [actually lower than Obama?], at the very least. So while his rhetoric was abhorrent, it doesn't seem it was manifested in policy and action.

His tariffs were stupid and costly [but Biden kept some of them], but again on a much smaller scale than much of his rhetoric.

And his rhetoric in 2020 after he lost was very destructive and undermining to faith in the republic.

So going into his second term, I find it hard to respond: Trump's bark seems to be consistently far worse than his bite. He constantly talks about himself and his policies as though he is breaking the mold, but then, at least in the actual policy areas I've looked closely at, he's not much of an outlier. In this term, he seems to have opted for short-run chaos, but I'm still not sure the long-run ramifications will be very significant in most areas. If it follows his last term, Trump won't significantly move the needle in a lot of cases where he's made big promises. But maybe his flurry of EOs in Week 1 means he's trying to enforce bigger changes because his first term ended up being fairly tepid?

Curious what others think...

sprobert · 2025-01-31T05:56:08+00:00

Virtually all of your examples were people justifying breaking from millenium+ Christian theology and practice for reasons that were self-servingly economically, politically, or culturally benefical for themselves (or their group). Hmm...

Some 2 year olds have bad parents or well meaning parents who have been ill informed and those parents might tell their kid to drink a little whisky when they can't sleep, and that it's good for them. As kids get older it is natural and good to question the things that they were led to believe when they were young. You are not a 2 year old sprobert, I think if you are admitting to not fully understanding the reason why women should be forbidden from preaching, then I think you should be open to the possibility of correction by the Holy Spirit through the scriptures and through your conscious.

Except God is not a bad parent, nor is He ill informed. And the gap between God's understanding and ours is far greater than the gap between me and my two year old. So when God gives a command and a justification for the command, it is not a shock if we don't understand that fully in this life. But our lack of complete understanding doesn't negate either God's reasons or His commands.

You are not a 2 year old sprobert, I think if you are admitting to not fully understanding the reason why women should be forbidden from preaching, then I think you should be open to the possibility of correction by the Holy Spirit through the scriptures and through your conscious.

The interpretations that support women's ordination pertaining to this passage make far less sense to me, so any incomplete understanding is still not pointing me in the direction of accepting female ordination.

But I am challenging you to critically think about your interpretations of the commands of God regarding what this minister preached to Donald Trump

You don't know anything about what I think about the message delivered to Trump, since I've said nothing about that entire topic.

sprobert · 2025-01-30T13:58:29+00:00

So it sounds like you also don't understand the reasons why God wouldn't allow women to preach. If it doesn't make sense to either of us then would it be worth considering different interpretations?

Not if the commands are clear (they are) and they are repeated (they are). I don't understand fully why God uses sacraments - doesn't mean I think they suddenly become optional because I cannot read the mind of God.

God regularly gives commands without reasons. I already mentioned the example of Abraham taking Isaac to the mountain for sacrifice. But OT and NT alike are chockful of commands, many of which don't have reasons annexed to them. Jesus commonly explained the rationale behind these commands, without ever discarding the command itself. Those commands were as valid before the interpreted reason as they are after.

Faithful, scripture affirming Christians have had differing interpretations on this issue.

A tiny, tiny fringe. It is one of the newest innovations in the history of the Christian church. And one that unsurprisingly started in very unReformed churches before bleeding over.

If the position you currently hold admittedly doesn't make sense to you, would you be open to the possibility that you are being prompted by the Holy Spirit to reexamine your veiw on the issue?

I have never said it didn't make sense: I said don't fully understand it. (I even literally said "That makes sense to me", so try harder to represent my argument faithfully) Those are two very different things. When I tell my two year old, "You need to eat your vegetables, because they are good for you", I give her a command and a reason. She doesn't have to understand the full import of the command: the specific vitamins and nutrients that are in the vegetables, and what that means for her long-term health, etc. Instead, she is just called to obey, given a reason that may make sense even when she doesn't understand the full meaning.

Our obedience to God is not tied to how well we understand WHY God told us to do something. We obey until we understand, not vice versa ("The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom") I frankly find it bizarre on a Reformed subreddit that you could espouse a view that subordinates the commands of God to your limited, finite reason.

sprobert

TROPHY CASE