MMT: The US government does NOT have to add taxes to add spending

[coins4commies]

This applies to any government that manages a sovereign fiat and holds all of its debt in said fiat.

1. The government does not have to balance its budget and can never default on debt owed in dollars
2. The government MUST spend in order to tax
3. Creating new money does not necessarily cause inflation
4. The value of the US dollar is tied to the fact that it is the only acceptable payment for US taxes.
5. The dollars value comes from the existence of taxes but not the amount of taxes

All of these misconceptions make people irrationally desire the US government to impose austerity on itself.  Printing an infinite amount of money would certainly lead to inflation but printing money to buy existing goods and services is simply the government's way of deciding money be spent on said goods and services. 

This is important when talking about public works projects, government healthcare, and education.

If a government decides to give all of its people healthcare, this could be problematic depending on the answers to the following questions.
-Are there enough existing hospitals?
-Are there enough existing doctors?

Healthcare example
In the US, these goods and services already exist so the government paying for them with created money wouldn't reallocate any physical resources.  In a hypothetical economy that had no hospital, building materials would have to go into making a bunch of hospitals and the increased demand for all of those materials would drive up prices. 

Jobs Example
If the government hired a bunch of unemployed people to work on building public works project, those people were an idle resource going to waste and by bringing them to work in a sector with a previous shortage of workers (construction) you are making idle industries active.   This actually grows the economy by the same amount of government spending offsetting any inflation it would cause. If this spending was X% of GDP to pay these workers, they would produce X+Z% GDP as Z is their productivity or what the private sector would call profit.   

Universal Corvettes
If the government wanted to buy everyone a corvette, it could create the money and do it.  This would cause inflation because there are not enough GM workers and factories to fill the supply chain to produce all of those cars.  Resources would have to be reallocated from other areas and this would drive up prices.  The US economy would no longer be as strong because it would not be producing as many goods and services as before.  The opportunity cost of all of those corvettes would be value lost from the economy.  Inflation would be rampant.

Somehow, the ridiculous example is what most people conflate with government-funded programs that are necessary for an advanced society.  I think the most important thing for people to realize is that fiat is not real

[TECSHARE]

Learn to maths. Less Marxism, more maths.

[Spendulus]

Learn to maths. Less Marxism, more maths.

They are basic economics questions. Not Eco 101 though.

Answering these questions show the failing of the old Marx constructs.

Could Marxism exist or be even conceived without fiat money?

Could Marxism exist when dominant currency was crypto non-governmental?

[TECSHARE]

Learn to maths. Less Marxism, more maths.

They are basic economics questions. Not Eco 101 though.

Answering these questions show the failing of the old Marx constructs.

Could Marxism exist or be even conceived without fiat money?

Could Marxism exist when dominant currency was crypto non-governmental?

The USSR and the popularization of Marxism was created as a construct of the banker elite in order to create controlled opposition to Capitalism. This is well documented. As a result Marxism/Communism can not exist without Capitalism.

It is right in your faces, look at the symbol for Communism, the hammer and sickle. The hammer represents the building and creating, and the sickle represents the destruction and the harvest. These are ancient symbols. The hammer is Capitalism and the sickle is Communism.

[coins4commies]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEM2r2QR_0

So many people operate off of an understanding of how gold-standard currency works but MMT is about fiat. There are several videos of well-established economists and economics professors discussing this but I chose this video as it is more concise.

Tecshare, I hope you will come to understand MMT.

[coins4commies]

Another video from Kelton and telling graph
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXK9JQnvVLo

[BADecker]

The government has to maintain the appearance of collecting taxes to be able to borrow more money from the Federal Reserve Bank. If they don't, they won't be able to borrow more. That's why they need to spend more... so they can tax those who they spend it on, so that they can borrow more.

It's a Ponzi. Make more wars, more spaceships, more medicine, more of everything, just to keep adding to the Ponzi so that it doesn't crash... like all Ponzis do when they run out of people who will join.

[TECSHARE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEM2r2QR_0

So many people operate off of an understanding of how gold-standard currency works but MMT is about fiat. There are several videos of well-established economists and economics professors discussing this but I chose this video as it is more concise.

Tecshare, I hope you will come to understand MMT.

I have said it before and I will say it again.

YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ECONOMICS

Stop pretending like you do. You are taking your incomplete and superficial knowledge of economics and selectively hearing only what you like about what these people are saying while totally ignoring much larger macro economic issues. These people are making the point that credit of some kind is necessary, and I agree. What they are NOT SAYING is that we can just print limitless amounts of money without serious consequence, which seems to be your mantra.

[coins4commies]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEM2r2QR_0

So many people operate off of an understanding of how gold-standard currency works but MMT is about fiat. There are several videos of well-established economists and economics professors discussing this but I chose this video as it is more concise.

Tecshare, I hope you will come to understand MMT.

I have said it before and I will say it again.

YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ECONOMICS

Stop pretending like you do. You are taking your incomplete and superficial knowledge of economics and selectively hearing only what you like about what these people are saying while totally ignoring much larger macro economic issues. These people are making the point that credit of some kind is necessary, and I agree. What they are NOT SAYING is that we can just print limitless amounts of money without serious consequence, which seems to be your mantra.

I never said that.  Its funny you are doing the very thing you often accuse people of doing.  Making up things people said.  In fact, I already explained specifically to you that the limit was the point at which the economy is running at full steam and you didn't even know what "running at full steam meant".  Government spending is not credit.

I wish you would watch the videos and read the articles instead of putting all of your focus on screaming that I don't know economics.  The deficit owls video also addresses how textbooks did not change in 1971 when reality changed.  You are trying to apply your obsolete pre1971 knowledge of how this works to today's reality.  Thats why you keep talking about mathematic law and are under the impression that I'm just making things up.  You have even demonstrated that you are unaware of the change by stating something to the affect of "it has worked this way for thousands of years".  Its not just this topic. In general, you are pretty closed to new systems of knowledge and updates to the ways things have worked traditionally.  

Also this

There is no direct link between the size of government spending, size of government deficits and the devaluing of currency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLZJAgo9FgHWajc5BdOP8e75eddFmWhtzh&time_continue=131&v=51Arlvr45kY

[BADecker]

Is it that you don't understand that government spending is part of the process of maintaining the fiat Ponzi scheme that is promoted by the Federal Reserve Bank?

[TECSHARE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEM2r2QR_0

So many people operate off of an understanding of how gold-standard currency works but MMT is about fiat. There are several videos of well-established economists and economics professors discussing this but I chose this video as it is more concise.

Tecshare, I hope you will come to understand MMT.

I have said it before and I will say it again.

YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ECONOMICS

Stop pretending like you do. You are taking your incomplete and superficial knowledge of economics and selectively hearing only what you like about what these people are saying while totally ignoring much larger macro economic issues. These people are making the point that credit of some kind is necessary, and I agree. What they are NOT SAYING is that we can just print limitless amounts of money without serious consequence, which seems to be your mantra.

I never said that.  Its funny you are doing the very thing you often accuse people of doing.  Making up things people said.  In fact, I already explained specifically to you that the limit was the point at which the economy is running at full steam and you didn't even know what "running at full steam meant".  Government spending is not credit.

I wish you would watch the videos and read the articles instead of putting all of your focus on screaming that I don't know economics.  The deficit owls video also addresses how textbooks did not change in 1971 when reality changed.  You are trying to apply your obsolete pre1971 knowledge of how this works to today's reality.  Thats why you keep talking about mathematic law and are under the impression that I'm just making things up.  You have even demonstrated that you are unaware of the change by stating something to the affect of "it has worked this way for thousands of years".  Its not just this topic. In general, you are pretty closed to new systems of knowledge and updates to the ways things have worked traditionally.  

Also this

There is no direct link between the size of government spending, size of government deficits and the devaluing of currency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLZJAgo9FgHWajc5BdOP8e75eddFmWhtzh&time_continue=131&v=51Arlvr45kY

Once again you, as petulant children do, blame others for your own short comings rather than examine your own positions carefully and critically. If you will note the underlined text, I used the word "seems", clearly communicating this was a generalization of your opinion, not me making a statement as if you said it.

What you are saying however is that the economy, after decades of absorbing tens of millions of ILLEGAL immigrants, can continue to do so while still engaging in inflationary spending for massive entitlement programs. Literally everything is already leveraged hundreds if not thousands of times over already. We are at breaking point. This is not just a question of the government going bankrupt, it is a question of people losing a lifetime of savings and work in order to make these policies possible.

"running at full steam" is just some made up bullshit, at best a metaphor, for some undefined maximization of the economy. It has no technical definition and is just some arbitrary string of words you use to attempt to give yourself credibility without actually doing any of the work in actually researching the topic. The fact that you are only linking me youtube videos is also a good indicator of your level of knowledge on the subject.

I have watched the videos, and as I said previously, you are just picking and choosing what you like about what they say and claiming repeatedly I just don't understand it, and therefore my arguments need not even be refuted.

You look at the world thru a lens that every system, every organization, every institution around you is yours to experiment with. As long as you personally declare your intentions as pure then consequences in reality be damned. What matters is you were trying to make things better right? No.

Not everything needs Postmodernism, especially math and economics. The problems the world is facing right now is a RESULT of the policies you are advocating for, the SAME EXACT POLICIES of inflation we have been engaged in since 1913. You wrap the same stale robber baron bullshit up in a progressive cloak and claim it is our salvation as if directly out of the Hegelian dialectic.

PROBLEM - REACTION - SOLUTION

You work for the people you claim to be fighting against. Frankly I pity you, but unfortunately your ignorant ideology effects millions if not billions of people in very horrible ways, and therefore your delusions should not be tolerated with any niceties.

Lets examine "MMT" shall we?

"Modern Monetary Theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT or Modern Money Theory) is a macroeconomic theory that describes and analyzes modern economies in which the national currency is fiat money, established and created by a sovereign government. The key assertion of MMT is that sovereign governments that are the sole supplier of national currency can issue currency of any denomination, and in physical or non-physical forms. Consequently, these governments have an unlimited financial ability to pay for the things they wish to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments. The real limits to a currency issuing government's spending are the availability of natural resources, goods, assets, workers and services in the real world. MMT claims that these governments also have an unlimited ability to provide funds to other sectors, and that because of this, it is not possible for a government that issues its own currency to be bankrupt.[1]

MMT is seen as an evolution of Chartalism, and is sometimes referred to as Neo-Chartalism. "


"Chartalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In macroeconomics, chartalism is a theory of money which argues that money originated with states' attempts to direct economic activity rather than as a spontaneous solution to the problems with barter or as a means with which to tokenize debt,[1] and that fiat currency has value in exchange because of sovereign power to levy taxes on economic activity payable in the currency they issue. "



So as you see, you are in fact advocating for top down centralized control and taxation, by force, supported by the further inflationary policy which is then a further taxation via buying power loss suffered by all of the currency holders. Essentially you are arguing for what the banks want, and what they ALREADY HAVE.

WAY TO GO CAPTAIN PROGRESSIVE!

[coins4commies]

Once again you, as petulant children do, blame others for your own short comings rather than examine your own positions carefully and critically. If you will note the underlined text, I used the word "seems", clearly communicating this was a generalization of your opinion, not me making a statement as if you said it.

What you are saying however is that the economy, after decades of absorbing tens of millions of ILLEGAL immigrants, can continue to do so while still engaging in inflationary spending for massive entitlement programs. Literally everything is already leveraged hundreds if not thousands of times over already. We are at breaking point. This is not just a question of the government going bankrupt, it is a question of people losing a lifetime of savings and work in order to make these policies possible.

"running at full steam" is just some made up bullshit, at best a metaphor, for some undefined maximization of the economy. It has no technical definition and is just some arbitrary string of words you use to attempt to give yourself credibility without actually doing any of the work in actually researching the topic. The fact that you are only linking me youtube videos is also a good indicator of your level of knowledge on the subject.

I have watched the videos, and as I said previously, you are just picking and choosing what you like about what they say and claiming repeatedly I just don't understand it, and therefore my arguments need not even be refuted.

You look at the world thru a lens that every system, every organization, every institution around you is yours to experiment with. As long as you personally declare your intentions as pure then consequences in reality be damned. What matters is you were trying to make things better right? No.

Not everything needs Postmodernism, especially math and economics. The problems the world is facing right now is a RESULT of the policies you are advocating for, the SAME EXACT POLICIES of inflation we have been engaged in since 1913. You wrap the same stale robber baron bullshit up in a progressive cloak and claim it is our salvation as if directly out of the Hegelian dialectic.

PROBLEM - REACTION - SOLUTION

You work for the people you claim to be fighting against. Frankly I pity you, but unfortunately your ignorant ideology effects millions if not billions of people in very horrible ways, and therefore your delusions should not be tolerated with any niceties.

Lets examine "MMT" shall we?

"Modern Monetary Theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT or Modern Money Theory) is a macroeconomic theory that describes and analyzes modern economies in which the national currency is fiat money, established and created by a sovereign government. The key assertion of MMT is that sovereign governments that are the sole supplier of national currency can issue currency of any denomination, and in physical or non-physical forms. Consequently, these governments have an unlimited financial ability to pay for the things they wish to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments. The real limits to a currency issuing government's spending are the availability of natural resources, goods, assets, workers and services in the real world. MMT claims that these governments also have an unlimited ability to provide funds to other sectors, and that because of this, it is not possible for a government that issues its own currency to be bankrupt.[1]

MMT is seen as an evolution of Chartalism, and is sometimes referred to as Neo-Chartalism. "


"Chartalism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In macroeconomics, chartalism is a theory of money which argues that money originated with states' attempts to direct economic activity rather than as a spontaneous solution to the problems with barter or as a means with which to tokenize debt,[1] and that fiat currency has value in exchange because of sovereign power to levy taxes on economic activity payable in the currency they issue. "



So as you see, you are in fact advocating for top down centralized control and taxation, by force, supported by the further inflationary policy which is then a further taxation via buying power loss suffered by all of the currency holders. Essentially you are arguing for what the banks want, and what they ALREADY HAVE.

WAY TO GO CAPTAIN PROGRESSIVE!

Do you think big images and size 50 font obscenities help your argument?

How do you know we are at a breaking point?  What evidence do you have that we are at a breaking point?

Our government cannot go bankrupt.  Its not possible in the current setup.  You claim to understand the topic but lose all credibility when you mention the US government going bankrupt.

When the economy is running at full steam, there is full employment for one.  That is easy to measure and something we are clearly not at.  The cool thing about mass immigration is that it gives you more people to work with before reaching full employment.  Its almost like saying a country of 310 million can produce more than a country of 200 million.  Not earth shattering news.  I give youtube videos not for me to learn, but for you, who believes the opposite of the truth to see within 5 minutes that I am not just making these ideas up in my head.  You had no idea about MMT before I told you about it but will never admit that.  You still hold onto your system of beliefs that are grounded in the idea our government can go bankrupt.

You tell me what part of the video I am in conflict with.  The videos discuss economics but intentionally do not discuss politics.  They never say if we should spend extra money or what we should spend it on because that is not their job.  They simply reiterate the idea that we have money at our disposal and it does not need to come from taxes.  The banks want to spend the money one way and the people want to spend it a different way.  Just because the banks want to print money doesn't mean people who want to print money want it to help the banks.  Trump prints money to give to the rich and the military.  Everyone has an agenda.

You say the exact same policies.  Please tell me how the world's problems are a result of sending children to school, providing healthcare and fighting climate change.  Again, you have our agenda mixed up with the agenda of the establishment simply because both want to spend money.

And alas, no one is forcing you to use our society to earn money, no one is forcing you to save in US dollars.  If you were smart, you wouldn't just save all of your wealth in US dollars, you can buy commodities, real estate, stock (like a good capitalist) or whatever you please.  US dollars are for buying stuff and paying taxes, not for hoarding. 

[TECSHARE]

Do you think big images and size 50 font obscenities help your argument?

How do you know we are at a breaking point?  What evidence do you have that we are at a breaking point?

Our government cannot go bankrupt.  Its not possible in the current setup.  You claim to understand the topic but lose all credibility when you mention the US government going bankrupt.

When the economy is running at full steam, there is full employment for one.  That is easy to measure and something we are clearly not at.  The cool thing about mass immigration is that it gives you more people to work with before reaching full employment.  Its almost like saying a country of 310 million can produce more than a country of 200 million.  Not earth shattering news.  I give youtube videos not for me to learn, but for you, who believes the opposite of the truth to see within 5 minutes that I am not just making these ideas up in my head.  You had no idea about MMT before I told you about it but will never admit that.  You still hold onto your system of beliefs that are grounded in the idea our government can go bankrupt.

You tell me what part of the video I am in conflict with.  The videos discuss economics but intentionally do not discuss politics.  They never say if we should spend extra money or what we should spend it on because that is not their job.  They simply reiterate the idea that we have money at our disposal and it does not need to come from taxes.  The banks want to spend the money one way and the people want to spend it a different way.  Just because the banks want to print money doesn't mean people who want to print money want it to help the banks.  Trump prints money to give to the rich and the military.  Everyone has an agenda.

You say the exact same policies.  Please tell me how the world's problems are a result of sending children to school, providing healthcare and fighting climate change.  Again, you have our agenda mixed up with the agenda of the establishment simply because both want to spend money.

And alas, no one is forcing you to use our society to earn money, no one is forcing you to save in US dollars.  If you were smart, you wouldn't just save all of your wealth in US dollars, you can buy commodities, real estate, stock (like a good capitalist) or whatever you please.  US dollars are for buying stuff and paying taxes, not for hoarding.

No, but they are good for communicating with really slow people, like Communists.

My argument was never about the government going bankrupt. That was your argument. I hope the Federal government DOES go bankrupt. Yes, they can print infinite amounts of money. No they can not do this without consequence. There are a finite amount of resources, and no matter how much money they print it does not change this fact. As a result, there is a defacto limit on how much money they can print.

"full steam" please. Just stop using this meaningless phrase. It is just more retarded Postmodern utopianism that never really has any technical definition, but it sure does sound great doesn't it? It is like saying "ECONOMY 2.0!", it is just some meaningless marketing phrase for the same old tired collapsing system we already operate under.

I have no idea about a lot of voodoo rituals as well, that doesn't make them valid. Also MMT is not a new idea, it is just a new name for inflationary economics. There is nothing new or revolutionary about it. Money printing inherently helps the banks, because in an inflationary economy, the first one to spend the money benefits from the highest buying power from it, decreasing as more filters out. The first ones to spend in this case, being the banks since they print it.

Taxes are collected by force. Every transaction is taxed. Taxes are required to be paid in USD. You are required to use USD, at least at some point in this nation. You act like it is the fault of the working class for being so dumb as to try to save for a home or a car, and they are right to be robbed of their life for doing so, as if you can buy a car for a basket of vegan pita loaf or something instead of USD.

[coins4commies]

Bernie Sanders has hired Stephanie Kelton as a top economic advisor so he has to know about MMT.  She will likely be treasury secretary under the next democratic president so I can't understand why he, or no other progressive will explain MMT on TV when CNN regurgitates the "how you gonna pay for that" question.  

Aside from economists, Jill Stein is the only politician I've ever seen explain MMT directly.  Is that political suicide?  Why do democrats insist on falling into the trap of saying they will raise taxes?

Here is a link to a clip from 3 years ago that is the jist of the type of exchange I am referencing. MMT is never mentioned. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBuECI1srr4

Money doesn’t grow on rich people.
Stephanie Kelton

^The tax burden needs to be adjusted away from working class people and towards the capitalist class.  

Kelton maintains that government doesn’t actually finance its activity by levying taxes or issuing bonds. Instead, it creates money by spending it into existence. If a government wants to build a road, it calls some contractors and puts money in their bank accounts to pay for it. Where does this money come from? The same place all money comes from: thin air.

This means, among other things, that the government can always pay for whatever it wants ― housing, health care, tanks, whatever. But it doesn’t mean governments can just spend infinite amounts without any consequences, she emphasized. Eventually inflation becomes an issue when the amount of money in circulation gets ahead of the productive capacity of the workforce.

But even inflation doesn’t impose a hard limit on policy options. The Federal Reserve can raise interest rates to deal with it, Congress can raise taxes to pull money out of circulation or even impose price controls. All those have their drawbacks, but depending on circumstances, any of them might be preferable to reducing government spending. It all depends on what a society needs. Those needs, Kelton thinks, should be the primary focus of study ― not the immediate impact on the federal budget deficit, a metric that dominates policy discourse in Washington.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephanie-kelton-economy-washington_us_5afee5eae4b0463cdba15121

[Spendulus]

Bernie Sanders has hired Stephanie Kelton ......government doesn’t actually finance its activity by levying taxes or issuing bonds. Instead, it creates money by spending it into existence. If a government wants to build a road, it calls some contractors and puts money in their bank accounts to pay for it. Where does this money come from? The same place all money comes from: thin air.

This means, among other things, that the government can always pay for whatever it wants ― .......The Federal Reserve can raise interest rates to deal with it, Congress can raise taxes to pull money out of circulation or even impose price controls. .....

These are socialist dreams that sooner or later result in a loss in the value of the money and a distrust in it.

When that happens, the people are impoverished. And they are impoverished by the likes of you and those you quote.

Your promises of easy free stuff are just lies, in fact you'd make the people poor while the socialist leaders ALWAYS get rich.

[TECSHARE]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-26/modern-monetary-madness-will-lead-higher-taxes-and-inflation

[mOgliE]

Stop answering to TECSHARE dude, he's just a troll. ignore is your friend here trust me.

Even when you finally manage to get rid of his bad faith and his stupidity, he'll just end denying facts without any reason just because they don't suit him. You can bring 5 different sources all giving the same thing and no you're still wrong, even though he has nothing to oppose you in any way xD

Could Marxism exist or be even conceived without fiat money?

Could Marxism exist when dominant currency was crypto non-governmental?

I don't see the link between the two, care to elaborate?

Marxism is absolutely not dependant on fiat money. Which system is more dependant on fiat and banks? Current system or Marxist system?

[Spendulus]

Bernie Sanders has hired Stephanie Kelton as a top economic advisor so he has to know about MMT.  She will likely be treasury secretary under the next democratic president so I can't understand why he, or no other progressive will explain MMT on TV when CNN regurgitates the "how you gonna pay for that" question.  

Aside from economists, Jill Stein is the only politician I've ever seen explain MMT directly.  Is that political suicide?  Why do democrats insist on falling into the trap of saying they will raise taxes?....

You may have just discovered finance, but others have known about it forever.

I need and use such knowledge in my work and have read and studied extensively. Yes, that includes universities.

The differences between latent and explicit inflation, catch up periods, and things such as the economic impact of increasing circulation of money in retail, versus hard assets such as real estate, these concepts go back to Keynes.

And when did he live? Don't know? Who did he work for?

How about Hyack? Friedman? Could it be that they actually understood this stuff and you don't?

[squatz1]

Well yes, the US government doesn't have to add taxes in order to add spending. Though if you don't do this, all the US is going to have to do is BORROW MORE MONEY and allow for the national debt to further be increased.

That's not something that the US should be doing if they want to increase the amount of spending. That's the path that leads countries into printing more money to pay off their debts, leading to massive inflation, and then an overall demise of FIAT currency and the collapsing of an entire countries economic system. I mean, if that's what you think is successful (like Venezuela) then so be it.

But in my mind, I'd rather this scenario not occur. Don't increase spending, and if you must then offset it with spending cut somewhere else.

[coins4commies]

^Learn MMT
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/03/01/stephanie-kelton-explains-modern-monetary-theory.html

I'm glad MSM is starting to give MMT some exposure.  Most people understand "basic economics" which actually makes them misunderstand the economics of a government with sovereign debt.  Venezuela's debt was not sovereign and was owed in currencies they do not control.  Venezuela does not apply.