Sunday, October 3, 2021

Do You Need Proof They're Following Modern Monetary Theory?

Thanks to Francis Porretto at Liberty's Torch, there's no need to speculate that the Evil Party has fallen completely for Modern Monetary Theory.  Francis links to Breitbart, with this summary:

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) said that $3.5 trillion in spending under the reconciliation bill “is pretty inconsequential when you consider all the benefits to the American people,” and “The federal government can afford anything that it feels it needs to do.”

Yarmuth said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) “has no understanding of how the federal government monetary system works. When he compared it yesterday to his household income, that has no relevance to what we can do. It’s not a question of what we can afford. The federal government can afford anything that it feels it needs to do. And right now, that’s what we ought to be focused on.”

Francis also includes a 32 second long video that you might want to watch (either at his place or here) but that's the complete transcript of what the congress critter said. 

The words to focus on the are the two sentences before the last one: “It’s not a question of what we can afford. The federal government can afford anything that it feels it needs to do.”  [Bold added: SiG]  That's almost the definition of MMT.  In the very first post I wrote on MMT, back in January of '19, I borrowed a quote that later turned out to be a common MMT refrain.  The quote was that football referees can't run out of points, with the implication that therefore the government can't run out of money.  No, they never really explained the connection.  MMT theorists say: 

Because the first three of those statements refer to things that aren't real, the hidden message is that dollars aren't real.  To me, this tweet raises the perpetual question of, "are they really that stupid or do they just think we are?"

  • The carpenter can run out of inches of wood, or inches of anything that is used to create real things.  The word "inches" means nothing without adding inches, "of what."
  • Stadiums don't give out points.  Teams get them from following rules.  The stadium can run out of seats, food, and anything real they sell.  If a stadium put points on the scoreboards the teams didn't score, they'd be sued out of business.  No team would want to play there and no league would allow it.
  • The airline can run out of Frequent Flier miles that they can redeem: they can run out of seats to put passengers in. 
  • The US can run out of dollars if we want them to be worth something. 

Bill Mitchell, an Australian economist, is supposed to be the creator of MMT, but the name we see in the most in the US is that Dr. Stephanie Kelton, who was Bernie Sanders' senior economic advisor in the '19 presidential campaign.  She argues the government can create all the money it wants.  

Sometimes I think Dr. Kelton really came up with a good scam.  There must be books out there, public appearances for her and the other MMT acolytes so they can rack in the wheelbarrows full of money from the Democrat apparatchiks and do something with it before it becomes worthless.  Down through history, there has always been profit in telling the king he can do whatever he wants; Dr. Kelton is simply this year’s royal advisor.  Does she really believe it or is she simply telling people what they want to hear?  I have no way of knowing. 

The answer to Rep Yarmoth, as many people have said, is why do you tax us, then?  If you can create the money to do anything you want, then deficits don't matter, so why collect taxes?  Why not just make up every penny you spend rather than just what the unbelievers call the "deficit spending"?  Saying you need to collect some tax but can create the rest out of thin air implies you don’t really believe “The federal government can afford anything that it feels it needs to do.”   You're not a True Believer in MMT, you're a heretic.

Maybe there's hope for you.

 

 

18 comments:

  1. The entire value of an "inch" is that it does not mutate.

    The value of "inches" would be totally destroyed if I took a 96" board and claimed "This board is now 192" long". Every measurement taken before that claim would be invalidated. Every tape measure would be useless. Moreover, another yob would come along and claim "This board is now 1920" long."

    The value of "inches" and other units of measurement is precisely because they cannot be conjured out of thin air.

    Pity the retired couple who scrimped and saved to have a little extra in their retirement. They are about to be bulldozed into penury.

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    1. Compare a 1920 2x4 to a 2020 2x4, and see if they're the same.

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    2. If you mean size, 2x4's were 2" by 4" then. Now they still call them that even though you get the finished milled size instead of rough sawn.

      If you mean quality, well, heck. We ran out of old timber.

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    3. Years ago I was working on plywood shelf and used a 3/4" router bit to cut dadoes for 3/4 plywood. The plywood was loose as can be. I'd done that before and it was tight fit. At the time, I read it was due to switching to metric dimensions at the plywood factories. Even that doesn't make sense because 19mm is .002 smaller than 3/4" and wood isn't that dimensionally stable. More than likely the plywood factories figured out how to make their veneers always on the low side of their 3/64" tolerance and get an extra sheet or two of veneer out of every log.

      This has nothing to do with MMT. What the MMT folks are saying is still "the carpenter can't run out of inches" not that any piece of wood can't be the right size. Again, can't run out of inches of what? What they're saying is meaningless.

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    4. Make sure you're comparing rough cut to rough cut, and finished to finished. From what I've heard, most lumber bought in 1920 was rough cut, while today you have to look for it. You'll only find finished 2x4s in Lowes, Home Depot, etc. A finished 2x4 started as a rough cut 2x4 (approximately), and loses about 1/4 inch on each side, making it about 1.5"x3.5". If my memory isn't playing tricks on me.

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  2. This is not going to end well, and the end will come rapidly.

    The root problem, as I see it, is that the governing/ruling/policymaking class has become completely insulated from real everyday life. We have seperated into two classes - the commoners, and the aristocrats. Something like the late 1700's, in a European country ......

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  3. YouTube videos by G.Edward Griffin on the Federal Reserve are good information.

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  4. If the government can afford anything it wants, can it afford to not collect taxes? If not, why not?

    Asking for 300 million friends.

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  5. The vast majority of politicians...especially leftists....are in politics because they have zero useful skills. They flunked grade school math and some are so stupid they believe islands like Guam can actually TIP OVER. It truly is a system where the inmates are running the asylum.

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  6. It always (always!) ends in tears.

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  7. "The carpenter can't run out of inches [...]"

    It's a meaningless statement which does not correspond to reality. It's just a lie to manipulate people with, like lottery tickets and religion. Imagine Hillary smiling and clapping her hands while getting a crowd to repeat it. Enough people are willing to half-believe it prior to reality slapping them in the face, that evil people can get a lot of evil accomplished.

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  8. The woke morons are -- when all is said and done -- morons. Yes, of course they're evil. They're Democrats. It's the party that supports the slaughter of unborn babies.

    It's just the Daily Outrage, SiG.

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  9. The purpose of taxes is twofold.
    1) To punish those the Party does not like.
    2) Propaganda to their constituency.

    Any actual collection of revenue to run the government is incidental.

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  10. For the Democrat communists, taxes are not about raising money. They are about the power to punish behavior you don't approve of.

    BTW, Google blocks comments when this site is viewed via a VPN. I guess it hinders their ability to assign a social credit score.

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    1. Since, as far as I know, my site is no different than any other of the 99 bazillion blogspot.com addresses, it must be the same everywhere.

      That's interesting to know. The other aspect of "to assign a social credit score" is to keep records on everyone. Makes it easier to sell your profile to advertisers.

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  11. This particular deception pivots on the conflation of money with currency. Currency is worth what you can get for it. There's got to be a pony here somewhere, and there has to be a pea under one of these shells.

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  12. These Communists dont believe what they are selling. They are well positioned by wealth and power to survive any disaster of their own making. The think there are only two Democrats standing between National Socialism and Freedom. Two. Only two.

    Moving to the border, the acts of the Communist Biden Regime and nothing short of treason against the American people, our children and their children. And no one has had the will to stop the unchecked millions of illegals, diseased and all from entering our country.

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  13. As an aside, today is Sputnik Day--The opening act of the Space Age.

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