Recently, proponents of MMT/ELR have attacked me personally for this. I think it’s time for them to take a chill pill.
Before we jump to endorsing theories and policies, we should be confident the theories are fully worked out and the policies will not have negative consequences that outweigh putative benefits.Whaat?
Read it at Thomas Palley
ELR Comes to the UK
Thomas I. Palley
(h/t Scott Fullwiler via email)
Read Bill Mitchell, "British solution to unemployment – make them work for free", to see how far the UK proposal is from the MMT JG. Tom Palley simply does not understand the MMT ELR proposal if he thinks that the UK conservative debacle has anything at all to do with it.
Read Bill Mitchell, "British solution to unemployment – make them work for free", to see how far the UK proposal is from the MMT JG. Tom Palley simply does not understand the MMT ELR proposal if he thinks that the UK conservative debacle has anything at all to do with it.
235 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 235 of 235"this false idea that tax enforcement can avoid currency collapse."
I don't know (and don't think) this is the MMT position.
But actually is easy to understand: when the state can no longer enforce its own laws state currency will collapse. Is a break of social order.
Off course any currency is backed up not by any specie (dumb goldbugs) but by social order and believe system (of which laws and tax codes are an important institutional part).
And when does this social order breaks? When the productive system breaks up too. Happened in Zimbabwe, happened in Weimar Rep. etc.
Most people has the causality backwards of why hyperinflation happens. No, hyperinflation is not a monetary phenomenon, that's an ex-post effect, it's always a social & political phenomenon.
That's why usually hyperinflation comes after severe deflation periods, deflationary periods -which are not price stability btw, for dumb people- destroy the productive & social fabric.
But here the bankers 'anonymous' probably lend towards that stupid path of 'solving things' just because 'operations'. Dumb and dumber, who actually have to be solved of their own stupidity (oh noes, socialists!).
I actually think dumb 'economic conservatives' (some elements of conservatism are actually quite stabilizing) are the most revolutionary ('reactionary') elements of society. Look up for the definition of a moron and you will see why.
""Zimbabwe," the Godwin's law of economics"
Great phrase btw.
@ STF, Yeah you really lead by example there. You are constantly leaving embarrassing and childish comments all over the internet. You've just about wrecked your own reputation by acting the fool all over the place.
You and Wray are loose cannons. You can't control anything that comes out of your mouths. I am surprised either of you have jobs with the way you represent your Universities online.
@ Leverage,
I was responding to your MMT friends who stated so specifically. Try to keep up. Or if you can't keep up maybe just change the point when I prove it wrong. Which looks like that you'll do here anyhow.
For awhile there, you had me fooled, Anonymous. I was sure you were FDO15, but now it seems more likely that you are Major Freedom.
Tom,
There has been a shift in Anon's comment context towards exogenous "money" / "metal love".... if this is FDO, this is perhaps revealing wrt FDO... the "Major" of course makes it very clear about his preference for the metals...
rsp,
I wonder how Anon feels about Beo's $1T platinum coin approach?
Resp,
"A properly depicted review of what happened in Zimbabwe is actually a great refutation of MMT and debunks many MMT points"
No, what Zimbabwe proves is that putting a deranged incompetent dictatorial lunatic in power is never a good idea.
"The problem arises when a govt can no longer enforce the tax obligation."
I think the problem actually arises when the government becomes incapable of managing its finances properly... as in the case of Zimbabwe.
Tax may create the basic 'need' for the currency (logically), but brute force is no substitute for good governance.
Good governance means serving the interests of the people, and not abusing your power.
A government that doesn't exist to serve the interests of the people doesn't deserve to exist.
Functional finance, it's all there.
Are we still arguing where money comes from as we were yesterday? So John borrows money from the bank and buys a tsy with it. The tsy then buys flowers with the money from John. John then uses the money to pay back the bank. John now has a tsy bond. The bank has no loan and no deposit. The tsy has a bond outstanding and dead flowers. NFA has been created. John can sell the tsy for money (assuming the govt has issued some into the economy.)Pretty simple really. The bank facilitated the transaction but is not essettial to it.
Having said the above, it is still the case that current institutional arrangements place no real restriction on government spending in any way that is meaningful with respect to the various policy aims of MMTers.
After all, if the US government could finance WWII under the same basic institutional arrangements as exist today, then I'm pretty sure they can carry out the modest proposals put forward by Mosler et al.
Perhaps the whole thing would fall apart in the case of a Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation, perhaps not. Personally I don't care as I have zero desire to see the government ever bring about such a catastrophic scenario. If it ever gets to that point, then the government has simply lost the plot and really needs to be replaced...
*no real "operational" restriction on government spending
...After all, Congress could of course choose to stop itself from doing what it should.
And tea-party people could of course storm the white house and seize power, perhaps ;-)
Jon,
"Pretty simple really."
Yes it often seems so for someone like yourself and others here... but many people still struggle with this obviously... some sort of mathematical cognition issue at some level imo...
rsp,
"I am surprised either of you have jobs with the way you represent your Universities online. "
Yes, I'm sure Krugman and DeLong will lose their jobs any day now.
And for a troll, you're awfully sensitive.
STF,
I think people like trollboy believe that MMT is about "printing like crazy" and then sending the troops round to everyone's homes to expropriate all their stuff once hyperinflation kicks in.
They don't seem to get what you guys are actually saying at all.
The red mist of hate and paranoia just descends as soon as they start reading anything that sounds a bit left wing.
I love it. You just can't control yourself. You literally can't stop commenting when someone mentions you on the internet. You're like a child who has no self control.
And please, you're Scott Fullwiler from Wartburg Collegr. No one outside of your MMT worshippers knows who you are and no one has heard of your school except for the 1500 sub-par students who attend. So please don't compare yourself to prestigious professors at Princeton and Berkeley.
I have no idea why you and Wray have such massive egos, but they're totally undeserved.
Trolls are people that have failed to get a life. He probably lives in a cardboard box. Or maybe he is just a drunk.
He's (anon/FDO15) become one of the most prolific ad-hominem generators I've ever encountered on the Internet.
touched a nerve, apparently--obsessed, sensitive. Yep.
Be careful, Y, as you might hurt our troll's feelings with your tone and word choice.
Anon,
Any thoughts on Beowulf's proof platinum coin deposit proposal?
rsp,
I like that — our very own pet troll. Maybe we can domesticate it so it doesn't excrete inside.
MMT deserves better trolls.
Anon writes: "Government must still obtain funds from the private sector or its money is worthless."
Here he has exposed himself.
This is not an objection to certain of the operational details of our current endogenous systems as revealed thru MMT, which he has previously alleged to be his "problem" with MMT, no rather, it is a statement that in his view, the govt cannot be allowed to issue "money" endogenously.
This type of human behavior, ie an objection to endogenous "money" and a zealous preference or "fetish" for exogenous "money" based on the 3 elements in column 11 of the PTE, goes back 1,000s of years and is documented in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.
This behavior is dark; something "has a hold on" Anon in this regard. He probably cannot get out of it imo.
Anon will not engage me on the topic of MMR Beowulf's platinum coin either because platinum is NOT from column 11 of the PTE, it's from column 10, and at core the thought of using this metal from outside of column 11 terrifies him;
or the thought of govt depositing a $1T coin struck with the imprimatir of an image of a human being with the bankers and thus creating $1T of endogenous "money" in itself terrifies him.
Or it is a combination of these things; endogenous "money" via striking a metal from outside column 11; ie the WORST possible outcome, and he is terrified.
Result: He cannot think.
His normal human brain functions shut down (he is made a moron), Lev's comments above on the ex post visible biological effects on human brain operations in this "fight or flight" mode seem very applicable in this case imo.
ie higher order function shutdown (can't "see" the abstract math) and lower order functions takeover as his brain shifts to what we may look at as some sort of "survival mode".
He cant get out of this imo.
rsp,
I don't think our pet troll is a gold fetishist. I think he likes to think of government as being subservient to banks, and hates the idea that it might not be.
For people like him, the government being subservient to banks equals "freedom" (capitalism), whilst banks being subordinate to government equals "oppression" (socialism).
Such a way of thinking about things is, of course, utterly idiotic and ridiculous. But some people, including our pet troll, do indeed think this way, unfortunately.
The thought that people might realise that their government is *not* in fact the servant of the banks, really scares and angers bank shysters like our pet troll.
y,
Right... I think "gold-love" behavior may be just one of the symptoms.
rsp,
…"gold-love" behavior"…
I would define gold-love behaviour as any monetary policy that seeks to limit the amount of money the state can create on it's own.
They want to leave money creation to the "market".
Read, our betters that are in control and already rich.
btw, I think this is what it looks like when credit expansion hits a wall…
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s82/sh/7af2d915-a927-4aa6-982a-351b862010e7/7feed0c53941455e6d8f4c481527d9a0
right Paul,
Can people recognize both forms of "money" ie exogenous and endogenous????
It seems that WE can see and understand BOTH forms, but those caught up in "gold-love" really if you think about it is if they CANNOT "see" endogenous "money", it's like they are blind to it...
Separating humans into these two categories; ie those who can "see" endogenous vs those who cannot, may be like the Biblical "separating the sheep from the goats"...
They are the "goat people".. ie stubborn morons.
rsp,
@ Matt,
I am not that familiar with the platinum coin idea because it seems stupid. What would you do? Just have the President order a trillion dollar coin and deliver it to the Fed? That's called a dictatorship. The Congress controls spending in the USA and they decide, as elected officials, how money is allocated. There are guidelines for this because of the structure of the US government. I know you socialists would like to just bypass all these structures and have someone just shake the money tree, but that's not how it works.
MMT is authoritarian thought gone terribly wrong. The fact that you think the stupid coin idea is okay is a clear example of this. We all know the USA could just run the printing press. That's not a big secret and MMT didn't reveal some amazing insight there. But you want to break down the way spending is decided so you can expand the size of government.
The platinum coin was proposed independently by Ellen Brown and beowulf as a way around the debt ceiling debacle. Spending can only be appropriated in Congress. Congress already appropriated the spending, contracts were entered into, and there are also ongoing appropriations such as interest payments and SS. Congress then creates a block in the form of a debt ceiling, which forces default on existing obligations. No new spending involved. One can't default on contracts that have not been entered into.
What's so hard to understand about this?
Anon,
every comment you make just gets more and more ridiculous.
"dictatorship"
No one is calling for a dictatorship.
"The Congress controls spending in the USA and they decide, as elected officials, how money is allocated."
Wow, really? No one is saying that Congress shouldn't decide how money is allocated.
"I know you socialists would like to just bypass all these structures and have someone just shake the money tree."
That's a meaningless comment. No one is saying the democratic decision-making process should be bypassed. You fascist.
"MMT is authoritarian thought gone terribly wrong."
No it isn't, see above.
"The fact that you think the stupid coin idea is okay is a clear example of this."
No. The 'coin idea' is not about *how to spend*, it is about *how to finance deficit spending*.
"you want to break down the way spending is decided so you can expand the size of government."
No one is saying that democractic decision making processes regarding spending should be changed or "broken down".
The size of government is a political choice that will be decided democratically.
Anon,
Now you are going on about a "dictatorship" like some sort of an ideological anarcho-libertarian...
before it seemed like you had some sort of beef with MMT on certain operational details and semantics, but at least understood endogenaity wrt "money"... have you now lost that perspective?
Look at your statement here: "Government must still obtain funds from the private sector or its money is worthless."
What is the difference between "money" and "funds" here? How can the govt have "money" but not have "funds"?
You are in trouble I realize that...try to think man! I'm pulling for you.
rsp,
"The fact that you think the stupid coin idea is okay is a clear example of this. We all know the USA could just run the printing press. That's not a big secret and MMT didn't reveal some amazing insight there."
I guess you can rule me out from the list of suspects for who Anon really is. :o)
The funny thing is he's dead wrong about "what we all know". The govt cannot just run the printing presses without Congress either increasing the debt ceiling or the US Notes ceiling. Tsy already has the authority to deposit a $1 trillion coin with the Fed just as surely as it has the authority to deposit a trillion $1 coins, with rather less effort.
Remember only Congress can appropriate funds, adding coins seigniorage to the TGA wouldn't actually increase federal spending.
Beo,
I dont think Anon is in a position to be able to follow you here...
rsp,
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