Monday, January 28, 2019

MMT "critics"


Two more nutty ones. Not worth time rebutting, since they attack a straw man.

While some criticism is improving as critics realize that the game is changing and they need to up their game if they want to be credible in attacking MMT, some haven't yet gotten that message and making fools of themselves. Sorry to seem harsh, but the time has passed for nonsense.

Forbes
The Flamboyant Absurdity of 'Modern Monetary Theory'
John Tamny | speech and op-ed writer, Director of the Center for Economic Freedom at FreedomWorks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research & Trading

LibertyNation
MMT or Bust – A Big Government Fantasy for Leftists
Andrew Moran | Economics Correspondent at LibertyNation.com

8 comments:

Sanjay Mittal said...

Quite agree. That Forbes article was GARBAGE.

Konrad said...

The flamboyant absurdity of MMT

There is no end to losers like this one who shill for the rich and for neoliberals in the hope of winning their approval, and perhaps even a job. More and more of them are slithering out of the cracks as MMT gains traction.

Meanwhile the oligarchs fear that the public will one day stop believing the lie that there is ‘no money” for social programs that help average people. They needn’t worry. The one thing that average Americans fear most is having freedom and prosperity. What would they do without their self-induced misery?

MMT or bust – a big government fantasy for leftists

This imbecile equates Stephani Kelton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with the neoliberal elitist Paul Krugman.

He thinks that MMT is merely a proposal, and does not explain how money actually works.

“What would happen if Republicans garner the keys to this state-run printing press in the future?”

Republicans already have it in the Senate. That’s why each fiscal year they set new records in the amount of money they create out of thin air for wars and for weapons makers.

This clown also says that MMT means “big government,” which for neoliberals is code for a slightly smaller gap between the rich and the rest.

One thing is clear. All these cretins are obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They are afraid of her.

Bob Roddis said...

Not worth time rebutting, since they attack a straw man.

While they could be more thorough, most of these critiques get it right. You guys NEVER engage the critiques. That's your M.O. which is to never engage when people note the obvious grotesque problems with MMT.

I think the best response to MMT is to point out to average people that they need to watch the phenomenon of MMTers never responding to the devastating critiques.

Andrew Anderson said...

Here ya go, Bob, for the Andrew Moran article:

The printing press has been a permanent fixture inside the Eccles Building for decades to fuel bubbles and drive the boom-bust cycle. Andrew Moran

[my response]
Unlike bank loans, fiat created by simply spending it into existence need never be repaid (i.e. collected back via taxes by the monetary sovereign). So how can there be a bust unless the monetary sovereign runs a budget surplus? Or rewards fiat hoarding by, say, positive interest on bank reserves, i.e. welfare proportional to account balance?

So, considering “money printing” alone, we might have continual price inflation but no boom-bust cycle – given an intelligent government with no welfare for the banks and the rich.

Otoh, government privileges for the banks, such as government-provided deposit insurance instead of allowing all citizens to have checking/debit accounts at the Central Bank itself, allow them to drive the economy into unsustainable debt and thus the boom-bust cycle.
Andrew Anderson

Not that MMT advocates offer a full solution by any means since they refuse, like the Austrians in their own way*, to countenance de-privileging the banks but rather would increase those privileges to near impunity with limitless(!) CB loans at ZERO(!) percent and limitless(!), FREE(!) insurance on bank deposits.

I suggest the Austrians forsake the worship of precious metals and the hope of lazy, risk-free real gains by free-riding on the energy and enterprise of others and embrace GENUINE reform since their own looting scheme has and is being exposed.

*Needlessly expensive fiat favors the use of bank deposits over the Nation's fiat as does not allowing all citizens, at least, to use fiat in account form at the Central Bank or Treasury itself.

Noah Way said...

Two more nutty ones.

I thought you were talking about Egmomt and Roddis.

Noah Way said...

"I think the best response to MMT is to point out to average people that they need to watch the phenomenon of MMTers never responding to the devastating critiques."

Even better, watch the way Roddis fails to respond to devastating critiques.

Konrad said...

Remember those three frogs in the famous Budweiser beer commercial that first came out during the 1995 Super Bowl? The first frog was name Roddis, the second Anderson, and the third Egmont. They couldn’t speak English, but they croaked hilariously from the swamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVcbasIb8lQ

Ralph Musgrave said...

I fell over laughing at Roddis's claim that "You guys NEVER engage the critiques..". Actually there are about five thousand instances out there of MMTers "engaging critiques": about a thousand on Bill Mitchell's blog alone.