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This far-right politician believes in MMT?

downrightmike 4y ago
Only because they think it means "Its __My__ Money Today!"
halpmeh 4y ago
It's unlikely that this politician explicitly believes in MMT, but the belief that you can somehow wish debt away in in-line with MMT. And of course, any philosophy exists within the zeitgeist of the times. After the GFC, a lot of people in the world started to believe that money is somehow imaginary.
- mindslight 4y ago
  > the belief that you can somehow wish debt away in in-line with MMT The belief that you can wish debt away is rooted in the Keynesianism/Reaganomics of the past five decades. MMT basically just accepts the realpolitik that the enormous handouts to the financial industry will never be stopped, and says that we might as well use some of the new money deliberately. From my economically conservative Austrian perspective, at least MMT appears intellectually honest. MMT also corrects/shortens the feedback path from monetary creation to price inflation, rather than relying on the roundabout feedback path that has created this ever-growing asset bubble.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    It would be more appropriate to say that Keynesians understand the system well enough to say that it is impossible to get rid of debt without negative interest rates so the only way out is to have slow burning inflation and the most effective way to generate inflation is not via the central bank but by government spending. I advocate replacing slow burning inflation with negative interest on cash. When that is done, debts can be repaid.
anm89 4y ago
I think you'd be surprised the degree to which many far right politicians would be supportive of some versions of MMT. MMT is attractive to essentially all politicians. It says you can spend without consequences. You don't have to spend that on a welfare state although many MMT advocates take this line. You could just as easy spend it on the military or surveillance.
- madhadron 4y ago
  > [MMT] says you can spend without consequences. Really? I thought it said that money exists because a government prints it, so a government cannot default on a debt denominated in its currency unless it chooses to, and that inflation is a second order effect resulting from the money supply increasing faster than the pool of goods and services it's chasing.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory The name implies that it is mainstream modern economics, but it isn’t.
  - Rury 4y ago
    What you tend to see is some MMT proponents use this argument to state that government deficits aren't a problem, since they can't default on their debt. But the debt can still be a problem, not because a government indebted in its own currency can't default, but because it still has second order effects... So the entirety of that statement is toothless.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      But we have seen that countries who did more QE had even less inflation like Japan. The reason for that is that interest rates hit zero and therefore debt does not grow from interest which means less inflation is needed to erode debts. The second order effects that limit money creation are highly fluid but the fact that governments with their own currency cannot default is set in stone.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
Far right doesn't mean reagan ist anymore. MMT is quite popular among populists, probably because they hate the elite and MMT is pretty explicitly about elite economists being wrong.

Only because they think it means "Its __My__ Money Today!"

It's unlikely that this politician explicitly believes in MMT, but the belief that you can somehow wish debt away in in-line with MMT. And of course, any philosophy exists within the zeitgeist of the times. After the GFC, a lot of people in the world started to believe that money is somehow imaginary.

mindslight 4y ago
> the belief that you can somehow wish debt away in in-line with MMT The belief that you can wish debt away is rooted in the Keynesianism/Reaganomics of the past five decades. MMT basically just accepts the realpolitik that the enormous handouts to the financial industry will never be stopped, and says that we might as well use some of the new money deliberately. From my economically conservative Austrian perspective, at least MMT appears intellectually honest. MMT also corrects/shortens the feedback path from monetary creation to price inflation, rather than relying on the roundabout feedback path that has created this ever-growing asset bubble.
- imtringued 4y ago
  It would be more appropriate to say that Keynesians understand the system well enough to say that it is impossible to get rid of debt without negative interest rates so the only way out is to have slow burning inflation and the most effective way to generate inflation is not via the central bank but by government spending. I advocate replacing slow burning inflation with negative interest on cash. When that is done, debts can be repaid.

anm89 4y ago

I think you'd be surprised the degree to which many far right politicians would be supportive of some versions of MMT. MMT is attractive to essentially all politicians. It says you can spend without consequences. You don't have to spend that on a welfare state although many MMT advocates take this line. You could just as easy spend it on the military or surveillance.

madhadron 4y ago
> [MMT] says you can spend without consequences. Really? I thought it said that money exists because a government prints it, so a government cannot default on a debt denominated in its currency unless it chooses to, and that inflation is a second order effect resulting from the money supply increasing faster than the pool of goods and services it's chasing.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory The name implies that it is mainstream modern economics, but it isn’t.
- Rury 4y ago
  What you tend to see is some MMT proponents use this argument to state that government deficits aren't a problem, since they can't default on their debt. But the debt can still be a problem, not because a government indebted in its own currency can't default, but because it still has second order effects... So the entirety of that statement is toothless.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    But we have seen that countries who did more QE had even less inflation like Japan. The reason for that is that interest rates hit zero and therefore debt does not grow from interest which means less inflation is needed to erode debts. The second order effects that limit money creation are highly fluid but the fact that governments with their own currency cannot default is set in stone.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

Far right doesn't mean reagan ist anymore. MMT is quite popular among populists, probably because they hate the elite and MMT is pretty explicitly about elite economists being wrong.