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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2042 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Modern Monetary Theory in Revolutionary France

I'm no economist, either. What I will say is that neoliberal hit pieces must outnumber honest reflections at least 50:1 because I've probably read 50 articles hating on MMT and not a single one in its defense. Like I said - the pundits are losing their shit more than they did over Bitcoin.

Venezuela's problems have a lot more to do with cronyism than economics; when you fire everyone who knows how to do something and hire someone who's loyal, you end up with a bunch of loyalists who don't know how to accomplish anything. The Soviet Union had similar issues where one's predictability and loyalty to the party had more impact on one's hiring than one's ability to actually, you know, do the job. The printing of currency is more of an effect than a cause. It's not like Venezuela started printing money because things were fine.

What entertains me is the exact same pundits who think MMT is anthrax lollipops or some shit are totally 100% AOK with "inflating away the debt" or "declaring a debt jubilee." After all, Argentina did this and things are fine now. Just fine. Meanwhile they're mostly white Republicans in their 60s who sorta go "yeah you know fixed income? It's kinda fucked. And since I make so much more money than I'll ever get out of social security, let's just flush that shit. Inflate it away. Solve the pension problem by making a dollar worth a fifth of a dollar. Then our imports will be great there will be lots of foreign investment and all the old people will be dead sooner rather than later because they won't be able to afford cat food and things will be fine. But say "modern monetary theory" and suddenly they're clutching their pearls about Venezuela.

Forbes is apparently kinda serious about a reasonable discussion of MMT. I don't see any real differences between MMT and FDR's New Deal. If people need jobs, make work. End of story. The problem I see is that economies were a lot less entangled back then and a domestic make-work project is very different from injecting cash into the economy, which is about the only prism Republicans can see monetary theory through.

I mostly linked to the article because of the observation that whenever the currency is manipulated, those closest to the manipulation benefit while those furthest away tend to get fucked. Wage inflation is going to clobber everyone who can't work, and the 'boomers are in the process of retiring, thanks much.