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Posted this on another comment but: Having gotten clued into modern monetary theory from The Deficit Myth lately I’ve come to question all the hand-wringing ab

Posted this on another comment but: Having gotten clued into modern monetary theory from The Deficit Myth lately I’ve come to question all the hand-wringing about cost. If the government can just print however much money it costs to pay out a UBI, then it’s more about controlling inflation with a significant increase in deficit spending, not about if a (monetarily independent) state can “afford” it. Taxes may be a part of that to drain money from the general supply and incentivize work, but it’s not necessary to pay for it.

thomasahle 5y ago
MMT says that if you have unused capacity in the society, the government might as well use it (by printing money). As long as it doesn't compete for resources it won't create I inflation but simply grow the economy. It's a pretty distinct issue from redistribution.
- hackeraccount 5y ago
  Distinct? It seems to just be a rephrasing. How will we create unused capacity? We'll take money from some people so it can't be spent on whatever capacity they want and so spend it on the capacity we want. On that level MMT isn't particularly troubling to me. The thing I don't like about it is when the proponents start implicitly talking about having politicians directly control the money supply. The status quo has the Fed - which ultimately is a creature of congress but there's at least a bit of inertia for congress to enact its will and the Fed has room to do things outside of that will.
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roenxi 5y ago
> ... but it’s not necessary to pay for it. Your point seems rather close to: * There would be high spending * There would be high taxes * The high taxes and the high spending would be linked Those three things link together into paying for the spending with taxes. "Controlling inflation" is a series of measures that have all the properties of taxes, it is just a euphemism. Much like how the term is "quantitative easing" rather than the more easily followed "money creation".

thomasahle 5y ago

MMT says that if you have unused capacity in the society, the government might as well use it (by printing money). As long as it doesn't compete for resources it won't create I inflation but simply grow the economy. It's a pretty distinct issue from redistribution.

hackeraccount 5y ago
Distinct? It seems to just be a rephrasing. How will we create unused capacity? We'll take money from some people so it can't be spent on whatever capacity they want and so spend it on the capacity we want. On that level MMT isn't particularly troubling to me. The thing I don't like about it is when the proponents start implicitly talking about having politicians directly control the money supply. The status quo has the Fed - which ultimately is a creature of congress but there's at least a bit of inertia for congress to enact its will and the Fed has room to do things outside of that will.

deleted 5y ago

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roenxi 5y ago

> ... but it’s not necessary to pay for it. Your point seems rather close to: * There would be high spending * There would be high taxes * The high taxes and the high spending would be linked Those three things link together into paying for the spending with taxes. "Controlling inflation" is a series of measures that have all the properties of taxes, it is just a euphemism. Much like how the term is "quantitative easing" rather than the more easily followed "money creation".