>Of course, as Weimar Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia and more recently Zimbabwe and Venezuela have all found out, you have to watch out for hyperinflation. Of co

>Of course, as Weimar Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia and more recently Zimbabwe and Venezuela have all found out, you have to watch out for hyperinflation. Of course, as Japan awkwardly found out, you can have the highest debt/gdp in the world and still get deflation. (I remember hyperinflation frequently being predicted as the obvious outcome of Japan's staggering deficits in the 90s though... by people who would doubtless pour scorn on MMT) The difference between all of those above examples and Japan is that their economic output was substantially impared (e.g. with Zimbabwe by effectively destroying their agricultural sector) and they were trying to pay off externally denominated debts as well as sustain themselves. None of this requires deficits, it can happen even in surplus.