5 ms·

Irrespective of its economic merits, any policy which depends on a competent and upright Congress does not inspire confidence. It feels like it's bound to be on

Irrespective of its economic merits, any policy which depends on a competent and upright Congress does not inspire confidence. It feels like it's bound to be one of those "True MMT Hasn't Ever Been Tried (TM)" things.

travisgriggs 5y ago
Let’s rebrand it as Critical Fiscal Theory. I’ve got my popcorn already.
- kregasaurusrex 5y ago
  Not-quite Fiscal Theory: the fed mints a $1 trillion dollar platinum coin and lends it to congress to allocate the year's budget. The coin may not have any value beyond spot, but everyone can see that congress has a rare piece of metal!
hn_version_0023 5y ago
The best definition of Congress I’ve ever seen was this: Congress: 535 ants on a leaf, floating down a river towards a waterfall, with each ant thinking they’re steering. I share your lack of confidence.
- mushbino 5y ago
  If it said being paid not to steer, I think that would make more sense in our current oligarchy.
  - hn_version_0023 5y ago
    You know, I’m sure I don’t recall the text exactly… it was a New Yorker cartoon that I just can’t seem to dig up. C’est la vie!
dragonwriter 5y ago
MMT isn't a thing to try or be tried: it's not an ideology or set of policies or even policy goals (there is a very loose correlation between adherence to MMT and certain progressive policy goals, but they aren't the same thing.) MMT is an understanding of factual nature of the environment in which government operates. Reduced to one sentence it is “the entire concept of fiscal balance is play-acting as if the government was using commodity or externally-controlled fiat currency, rather than it's own fiat and a distraction from the real constraints on government finance, rather than something which reflects, or even loosely guides policy makers towards, the real constraints.”
- stale2002 5y ago
  > it's not an ideology or set of policies or even policy goals That might be true in the academic sense. But in reality, the only people who talk about MMT are people who just want to spend money infinitely and claim that there is no negative consequences to doing so. Which of course, doesn't make any sense if you know anything about MMT in the academic sense, which absolutely admits that there is negative consequences to spending/money printing. Mainstream economists don't really think MMT has much to say, TBH, and few professionals care about it.
  - brimble 5y ago
    As someone who took a lot of political science and economics classes once upon a time, and has an ongoing amateur interest in these things, MMT is the first time I've looked at one of these macro-level explanations/descriptions and not felt like I needed to ask a bunch of stupid questions that are (inevitably) going to be dismissed with a heaping dose of condescension. Finally, something that makes total sense when I look at how real world systems (and especially governments) behave.
    - stale2002 5y ago
      Theories that are dismissed by the vast majority of the mainstream experts are often simple, yes. It turns out that the real world is complicated, and thats why we have experts in the world.

travisgriggs 5y ago

Let’s rebrand it as Critical Fiscal Theory. I’ve got my popcorn already.

kregasaurusrex 5y ago
Not-quite Fiscal Theory: the fed mints a $1 trillion dollar platinum coin and lends it to congress to allocate the year's budget. The coin may not have any value beyond spot, but everyone can see that congress has a rare piece of metal!

hn_version_0023 5y ago

The best definition of Congress I’ve ever seen was this: Congress: 535 ants on a leaf, floating down a river towards a waterfall, with each ant thinking they’re steering. I share your lack of confidence.

mushbino 5y ago
If it said being paid not to steer, I think that would make more sense in our current oligarchy.
- hn_version_0023 5y ago
  You know, I’m sure I don’t recall the text exactly… it was a New Yorker cartoon that I just can’t seem to dig up. C’est la vie!

dragonwriter 5y ago

MMT isn't a thing to try or be tried: it's not an ideology or set of policies or even policy goals (there is a very loose correlation between adherence to MMT and certain progressive policy goals, but they aren't the same thing.) MMT is an understanding of factual nature of the environment in which government operates. Reduced to one sentence it is “the entire concept of fiscal balance is play-acting as if the government was using commodity or externally-controlled fiat currency, rather than it's own fiat and a distraction from the real constraints on government finance, rather than something which reflects, or even loosely guides policy makers towards, the real constraints.”

stale2002 5y ago
> it's not an ideology or set of policies or even policy goals That might be true in the academic sense. But in reality, the only people who talk about MMT are people who just want to spend money infinitely and claim that there is no negative consequences to doing so. Which of course, doesn't make any sense if you know anything about MMT in the academic sense, which absolutely admits that there is negative consequences to spending/money printing. Mainstream economists don't really think MMT has much to say, TBH, and few professionals care about it.
- brimble 5y ago
  As someone who took a lot of political science and economics classes once upon a time, and has an ongoing amateur interest in these things, MMT is the first time I've looked at one of these macro-level explanations/descriptions and not felt like I needed to ask a bunch of stupid questions that are (inevitably) going to be dismissed with a heaping dose of condescension. Finally, something that makes total sense when I look at how real world systems (and especially governments) behave.
  - stale2002 5y ago
    Theories that are dismissed by the vast majority of the mainstream experts are often simple, yes. It turns out that the real world is complicated, and thats why we have experts in the world.