Friday, February 8, 2019

Jacob Weindling — What Is Modern Monetary Theory and Why Is It So Important to the Green New Deal?

The question of how to pay for the Green New Deal is pretty silly when you take a step back and look at the larger issue at hand. Scientists are nearly in unanimous agreement that unless we do something unprecedented in the next twelve years, the Earth will become irreversibly hostile to human life in twenty years, with an estimated cost of $69 trillion to deal with this apocalyptic future. Given that the global GDP for 2017 was $75 trillion, it doesn’t matter what economic theory you espouse—nothing will be able to pay for that kind of cataclysm. The Green New Deal doesn’t have a price tag yet, but I can guarantee that it will cost far less than $69 trillion, making it the fiscally conservative policy option in humanity’s bid to avoid certain planetary destruction.
Kind of says it all. Now just just have to hope we won't be too late. The deniers aren't going to change their minds until the rising sea level threatens to engulf them.

Interesting, too, how the urgency of a GND is thrusting MMT to the fore.

2 comments:

Detroit Dan said...

Well considered. Another excerpt:

"One of the best pieces of evidence that MMT advocates can point to in order to prove that this is more than just a theory is the lack of inflation in our current economy. The Republican Party did not raise taxes to pay for its $5 trillion in tax cuts this century ($3.5T by W, $1.5T by Trump), the Iraq War or the longest war in American history—our aimless quagmire in Afghanistan that is still killing Americans to this very day... the inflation rate this century has been consistently lower than it was just before the end of the 20th century, despite massive amounts of deficit spending."

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Fraud comes always in the garb of charity, salvation, or imminent doom
Comment on Jacob Weindling on ‘What Is Modern Monetary Theory and Why Is It So Important to the Green New Deal?’*

Jacob Weindling asserts: “… the question of … how do you pay for the Green New Deal?’ has already been answered. The HuffPo piece was written by Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Stony Brook University, Stephanie Kelton, …. Yesterday, she posted a thread outlining some legitimate economic questions that MMT claims to answer.” and “The question of how to pay for the Green New Deal is pretty silly when you take a step back and look at the larger issue at hand. Scientists are nearly in unanimous agreement that unless we do something unprecedented in the next twelve years, the Earth will become irreversibly hostile to human life in twenty years, with an estimated cost of $69 trillion to deal with this apocalyptic future.”

Jacob Weindling is either a confused blatherer or a fake Progressive agenda pusher.#1

The answer to the question “How are you going to pay for it” has two progressive answers: the genuine and the fake. The genuine Progressive answers: simple, by cutting military spending,#2 The fake Progressive answers: simple, by deficit-spending/money-creation.

MMTers are fake Progressives. In fact, MMTers are agenda pushers for the Oligarchy. How can one be sure of it?

Economically, there are two questions for government spending (i) on what is the money spent (e.g. (ia) administrative-, (ib) military-, (ic) social budget, etcetera), and (ii) is government spending G less, equal, or greater than taxation T, i.e. (iia) GT? Needless to emphasize that these questions are constantly confused, whether intentionally or unintentionally does not matter. The question is further confused by lumping it together with full employment policy.

MMTers claim that the answer to almost all economic/social problems is permanent deficit spending/money creation with some caveats with regard to inflation.

Now, MMT policy has one property that makes it disadvantageous for WeThePeople and advantageous for the Oligarchy,#3, #4, #5 i.e. because of the macroeconomic Profit Law it holds Public Deficit = Private Profit. So, no matter how the money is allocated between administrative, military, social, environmental spending, as long as there is deficit-spending/money-creation the Oligarchy makes a profit equal to the deficit.#6

As a rule of thumb, the financial wealth of the Oligarchy grows in lockstep with the public debt. In other words, fabulous wealth in the U.S. is the mirror image of fabulous public debt ($21.5 trillion).

No matter what MMTers claim that permanent public deficit spending is good for,#6 it is ultimately good for the permanent self-alimentation of the Oligarchy.

While MMTers have hitherto posed as friendly helpers for the unemployed and socially disadvantaged, they now sell deficit spending as the last hope for saving humanity and the planet.

MMT is proto-scientific garbage and social fraud. This is what economics has been since Adam Smith/Karl Marx.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

* Paste blog
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/02/what-is-modern-monetary-theory-and-why-is-it-so-im.html

#1 MMT Progressives: stupid or corrupt or both?
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/08/mmt-progressives-stupid-or-corrupt-or.html

#2 What the world wants and how to pay for it using military expenditures https://ratical.org/co-globalize/WtWW/

#3 How MMT makes everybody happy
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-mmt-makes-everybody-happy.html

#4 MMT, money printing, stealth taxation, and redistribution
http://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/11/mmt-money-printing-stealth-taxation-and.html

#5 MMT is ALWAYS a bad deal for the 99-percenters
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/12/mmt-is-always-bad-deal-for-ninety-nine.html

#6 MMT: If you’ve got a problem, I don’t care what it is, let me help
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/mmt-if-youve-got-problem-i-dont-care.html