pool is larger than that it means that for the size govt. in place taxes need to be cut, or govt expanded, depending on one's politics Tom Hickey Reply: December 20th, 2010 at 8:14 pm Peter D., the reason that the US is declining is that financialization is replacing productive investment, i.e, finance capital is crowding out industrial capital. So I would tax away economic rent in order to disincentivize rent-seeking and incentivize productive investment. in real terms people are working in the financial sector which has no value added to real output, rather than working in the real sector it's a massive brain drain and a total waste of human endeavor Peter D Reply: December 20th, 2010 at 11:02 pm Warren: Why 3%? Isn't the size of the program dependent on a lot of things that could go wrong with the economy and demand a large size? Weren't Roosevelt public works larger, for example? Also, by saying the govt needs to expand, isn't it already expanded de facto by employing the people under JG? Tom: agree. Is your an example of what you refer to as "principles of functional finance"? for me the JG target should be maybe 3%, meaning that if it's larger than that taxes should be cut and/or govt spending increased. and yes, the unemployed and those in the JG are in the public sector. Tom Hickey Reply: December 20th, 2010 at 11:39 pm Peter D, it's not functional finance but the application of the tax