"When it comes to climate change, inequality, healthcare for all, and all the other Green New Deal issues, they want a world in which nobody asks about the costs."
So, I watched the video until I developed severe nausea and had to discontinue around the 50 minute mark. From the start professor Kelton basis, her entire thesis on a false premise. She says that The US Treasury prints our “money” and it does not. Apparently she’s unaware or lying about the fact that the federal reserve, A cluster of private bank, issue our currency. Congress passes the spending ball and then borrow money from the Fed of reserve at an interest rate. She seems to think that, unlike while Zimbabwe,, Germany, Rome, Venezuela, whatever other failed state that printed their own currency without control, somehow we will be different
The post-COVID economic landscape provides ample evidence that MMT is junk. In fairness, proponents understand too much money printing causes inflation. So they’re not completely divorced from reality. But the major issue is how do you know you’re printing just enough or too much?
It’s impossible to centrally plan a system as complex as our economy as evidenced by the Fed being incorrect every step of the way in its existence.
This really needs little logic to bother with. We're to believe that after almost 3,000 years of human experience with money that just NOW, a couple geniuses determined that anyone with a coin mint can borrow infinitely with not negative consequence - and they want us to try it.
Personally, I prefer alchemy or perpetual motion for my financial fantasies.
Now in our modern era you can just point to a computer and say “There it is. The trillion dollar coin! It’s in there.”
OK. This is just how it worked in ancient Mesopotamia, except they had the King and his army and tablet carvers to note assets and liabilities instead of a computer. But even today our computer wouldn’t work in this respect without the implied threat of our constabulary, edifice of law and order, lawbooks and prosecutors. Not much difference from ancient Mesopotamia. Only the words change but not the underlying reality.
Also, point #3, there's nothing "Modern" about Modern Monetary Theory. Several years back, I read the late anthropologist David Graeber's book DEBT: THE FIRST 5000 YEARS.
He describes thinking documented in ancient China ca. 2000 to 3000 BC that wrestled with the challenge of financing public expenditures and the ideas that "printing money" was at the core of it all. Other ancient cultures did too. After all, money arose from bookkeeping in religious temples and need for compensation of armies in ancient states. There was -- at the start of the historical human era-- a recognition that money arose out of nothing other than what nature provided via crops and what humans provided via their obedience to larger systems of order at the cultural level. Ancients were as smart (and foolish) as we are today. Nothing has changed.
Is MMT falsifiable? Like has any MMT economist ever outlined a scenario (say, hyperinflation) that would force them to admit they were wrong? My sense is no - even hyperinflation they would brush off by saying the government can still technically meet its debt obligations via printing.
MMTers focus too much on the technicals of money printing/monetizing debt and not enough on the qualitative repercussions.
For example, MMTers believe a country that has sovereign currency status and debt denominated solely in their own currency can essentially monetize any amount of debt, like a cheat code. However, they never explain why then this isn’t done more in practice.
Why did European countries pass on this superior strategy to adopt the Euro? Why do developing countries formally or informally peg to the USD?
MMTers ignore the reality that no one would *trust* the debt issuance and currencies of countries that maximize this “strategy”, which is inherently a qualitative assessment and not an issue of quantitative measures.
Sure, you could technically monetize unlimited amounts of Matt Benson bucks if you only denominate your debt in said currency; however, no one would use it, trust it, or buy your debt, so is that really a superior position?
That’s why the whole thing is bunk, in my opinion. Money itself is irrelevant; the purchasing power it represents is what really matters.
"they want a world in which nobody asks about the costs."
Mises freaks should look in the mirror and keep asking!
Clue 1: One man's cost is another man's revenue.
What does that tell you?
Clue 2: It sounds like double-entry book keeping and asset valuation.
Think hard before you answer. The answer doesn't mean MMTers are correct. I don't believe they are. But Mises freaks aren't either. Dudes, open your minds.
Of course MMT is a joke. But we have simultaneously starved the government for revenue by having popular tax cuts which voters were sold on by virtue of more tax revenue from increased economic activity. Oops! Even Reagan realized that wasn't working quite as planned, quietly raising taxes more than once after cutting them. And of course 'Read my lips' Bush too. But they did it because they knew they had too. We don't have the stomach for that in this era, (nor the opposite willingness to eliminate SS and Medicare which would probably be disastrous).
I personally don’t like referring to tax proceeds as government revenue because taxes are involuntary; no true exchange of goods and services was made in the open market where the buyer voluntarily parted with his/her purchasing power.
It may be a minor point but a lot of MMT and socialist talking points rely on semantics to appeal to folks. It’s important to combat that where we can.
Furthermore I think all levels of government should be required to use zero-based budgeting. No more of this continuing resolution crap that takes last year’s spending, tacks on some inflation assumptions, and ferries it through both chambers of Congress.
Every line item should be assumed to be eliminated unless otherwise justified. Government doesn’t * need * more revenue. It needs to respect the people it serves and cut its spending.
Absolutely any future budgets need to be lean and mean but we also need to be realistic about programs we wish to continue and make sure they are funded one way or another but not paid for by adding to future deficits.
Humanity unfortunately doesn't seem to do the necessary things until hardship forces it. That would probably be the starting point of reasserting a better form of democracy with more stout leaders. Should be an interesting decade.
An interesting decade indeed. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to prevent the government from printing money is to adopt a form of money that can’t be printed at will. Unfortunately, the political class will never voluntarily adopt such a system since it neuters their own power and influence. Turbulent times ahead for sure.
So, I watched the video until I developed severe nausea and had to discontinue around the 50 minute mark. From the start professor Kelton basis, her entire thesis on a false premise. She says that The US Treasury prints our “money” and it does not. Apparently she’s unaware or lying about the fact that the federal reserve, A cluster of private bank, issue our currency. Congress passes the spending ball and then borrow money from the Fed of reserve at an interest rate. She seems to think that, unlike while Zimbabwe,, Germany, Rome, Venezuela, whatever other failed state that printed their own currency without control, somehow we will be different
MMT: Wherein the MMT Moron observes the Snake eating itself from the tail end, and proclaiming that it is "Well fed".
The post-COVID economic landscape provides ample evidence that MMT is junk. In fairness, proponents understand too much money printing causes inflation. So they’re not completely divorced from reality. But the major issue is how do you know you’re printing just enough or too much?
It’s impossible to centrally plan a system as complex as our economy as evidenced by the Fed being incorrect every step of the way in its existence.
This really needs little logic to bother with. We're to believe that after almost 3,000 years of human experience with money that just NOW, a couple geniuses determined that anyone with a coin mint can borrow infinitely with not negative consequence - and they want us to try it.
Personally, I prefer alchemy or perpetual motion for my financial fantasies.
No mint is needed. Or even a coin.
Now in our modern era you can just point to a computer and say “There it is. The trillion dollar coin! It’s in there.”
OK. This is just how it worked in ancient Mesopotamia, except they had the King and his army and tablet carvers to note assets and liabilities instead of a computer. But even today our computer wouldn’t work in this respect without the implied threat of our constabulary, edifice of law and order, lawbooks and prosecutors. Not much difference from ancient Mesopotamia. Only the words change but not the underlying reality.
Or phlogiston. Whatever works!
Also, point #3, there's nothing "Modern" about Modern Monetary Theory. Several years back, I read the late anthropologist David Graeber's book DEBT: THE FIRST 5000 YEARS.
He describes thinking documented in ancient China ca. 2000 to 3000 BC that wrestled with the challenge of financing public expenditures and the ideas that "printing money" was at the core of it all. Other ancient cultures did too. After all, money arose from bookkeeping in religious temples and need for compensation of armies in ancient states. There was -- at the start of the historical human era-- a recognition that money arose out of nothing other than what nature provided via crops and what humans provided via their obedience to larger systems of order at the cultural level. Ancients were as smart (and foolish) as we are today. Nothing has changed.
Is MMT falsifiable? Like has any MMT economist ever outlined a scenario (say, hyperinflation) that would force them to admit they were wrong? My sense is no - even hyperinflation they would brush off by saying the government can still technically meet its debt obligations via printing.
MMTers focus too much on the technicals of money printing/monetizing debt and not enough on the qualitative repercussions.
For example, MMTers believe a country that has sovereign currency status and debt denominated solely in their own currency can essentially monetize any amount of debt, like a cheat code. However, they never explain why then this isn’t done more in practice.
Why did European countries pass on this superior strategy to adopt the Euro? Why do developing countries formally or informally peg to the USD?
MMTers ignore the reality that no one would *trust* the debt issuance and currencies of countries that maximize this “strategy”, which is inherently a qualitative assessment and not an issue of quantitative measures.
Sure, you could technically monetize unlimited amounts of Matt Benson bucks if you only denominate your debt in said currency; however, no one would use it, trust it, or buy your debt, so is that really a superior position?
That’s why the whole thing is bunk, in my opinion. Money itself is irrelevant; the purchasing power it represents is what really matters.
"they want a world in which nobody asks about the costs."
Mises freaks should look in the mirror and keep asking!
Clue 1: One man's cost is another man's revenue.
What does that tell you?
Clue 2: It sounds like double-entry book keeping and asset valuation.
Think hard before you answer. The answer doesn't mean MMTers are correct. I don't believe they are. But Mises freaks aren't either. Dudes, open your minds.
Great piece for normies! 👀😎
Wonderful piece. Very clear exposition of the expropriation 3 card monte.
Of course MMT is a joke. But we have simultaneously starved the government for revenue by having popular tax cuts which voters were sold on by virtue of more tax revenue from increased economic activity. Oops! Even Reagan realized that wasn't working quite as planned, quietly raising taxes more than once after cutting them. And of course 'Read my lips' Bush too. But they did it because they knew they had too. We don't have the stomach for that in this era, (nor the opposite willingness to eliminate SS and Medicare which would probably be disastrous).
I personally don’t like referring to tax proceeds as government revenue because taxes are involuntary; no true exchange of goods and services was made in the open market where the buyer voluntarily parted with his/her purchasing power.
It may be a minor point but a lot of MMT and socialist talking points rely on semantics to appeal to folks. It’s important to combat that where we can.
Furthermore I think all levels of government should be required to use zero-based budgeting. No more of this continuing resolution crap that takes last year’s spending, tacks on some inflation assumptions, and ferries it through both chambers of Congress.
Every line item should be assumed to be eliminated unless otherwise justified. Government doesn’t * need * more revenue. It needs to respect the people it serves and cut its spending.
Absolutely any future budgets need to be lean and mean but we also need to be realistic about programs we wish to continue and make sure they are funded one way or another but not paid for by adding to future deficits.
It’s just hard to think of a way to hold an unaccountable class of politicians accountable. If you have any ideas I’d love to hear them.
Humanity unfortunately doesn't seem to do the necessary things until hardship forces it. That would probably be the starting point of reasserting a better form of democracy with more stout leaders. Should be an interesting decade.
An interesting decade indeed. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to prevent the government from printing money is to adopt a form of money that can’t be printed at will. Unfortunately, the political class will never voluntarily adopt such a system since it neuters their own power and influence. Turbulent times ahead for sure.
we shouldn’t have to pay income taxes at all. Government spending needs to come away, away, way down. They should be able to make do with the flat .