Devastated to hear about the death of David Graeber. He was an intellectual giant, full of humanity, someone whose work inspired and encouraged and educated so many.If you haven't read his work, consider doing it now and let his legacy live on.Rest In Power, David Graeber.— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) September 3, 2020
It might be easiest to explain MMT by contrasting how the budget of the United States differs from a household budget:
If your household wants more dollars, you have to do work, invest, get a loan, etc. If the United States wants more dollars, it can (and does -- this is actually how significant government spending happens) literally just print them.
Because you might not be able to obtain enough dollars to cover your debts, you can default on a loan or not have enough money to pay your bills. Because the United States can just print more dollars as needed, it can never default on its loans and will always be able to pay its bills (at least as long as both of those can be paid in U.S. dollars).
At some point you want to pay down your debts to zero. The United States doesn't want to do this, because U.S. debt creates the Treasury bill market, and paying the debt down to zero would eliminate that market.
There are limits to this -- if the United States prints too much money, and/or doesn't recover enough in taxes, inflation will rise and create all sorts of economic problems -- but we're currently doing historic deficit spending and have consistently low inflation, so we're likely not close to those limits.
As for why this is bad from a leftist perspective: it's not.
I cannot do justice to this vast new philosophy, theory, and technology of statecraft and economic policy, but the main MMTers are essentially Post-Keynesians...
So I ask: When will MMT policy not trigger inflation or stagflation? Where do they draw the line? What are the sustainable limits of MMT?
I am sure MMTers have an answer to such questions, but [I haven't bothered to read them.]
These lines, combined with the grand total of zero citations in the MMT section of that article, suggest that the author is not speaking from any real knowledge of MMT.
All adherents to any religion think that their critics "don't have any real knowledge of MMT", which is, ironically, what makes MMT the Austrianism of the left.
think that their critics “don’t have any real knowledge of MMT”
I think he doesn't know shit about MMT because he starts off by saying "I don't know shit about MMT." How fucking gullible do you have to be to take that guy as an authority on the subject?
I think it is a "for Dummies" version of the much more expansive and detailed work of Prof. Anwar Shaikh, who has a video on Money:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPMoESXe4x8&index=27&list=PLB1uqxcCESK6B1juh_wnKoxftZCcqA1go
What's the low down on MMT, and why does it suck from a leftist perspective? Interested to learn more about this.
It might be easiest to explain MMT by contrasting how the budget of the United States differs from a household budget:
There are limits to this -- if the United States prints too much money, and/or doesn't recover enough in taxes, inflation will rise and create all sorts of economic problems -- but we're currently doing historic deficit spending and have consistently low inflation, so we're likely not close to those limits.
As for why this is bad from a leftist perspective: it's not.
https://cosmonaut.blog/2019/06/01/the-grey-tree-of-post-keynesianism-and-monetarism-the-classical-account-inflation-and-unemployment/
These lines, combined with the grand total of zero citations in the MMT section of that article, suggest that the author is not speaking from any real knowledge of MMT.
All adherents to any religion think that their critics "don't have any real knowledge of MMT", which is, ironically, what makes MMT the Austrianism of the left.
lol
I think he doesn't know shit about MMT because he starts off by saying "I don't know shit about MMT." How fucking gullible do you have to be to take that guy as an authority on the subject?
Is there a "for dummies" version of this essay? Asking for myself.
I think it is a "for Dummies" version of the much more expansive and detailed work of Prof. Anwar Shaikh, who has a video on Money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPMoESXe4x8&index=27&list=PLB1uqxcCESK6B1juh_wnKoxftZCcqA1go
Thank you!