Economist Stephanie Kelton on The Deficit Myth

[Horatio Parker]

The only reason debt is issued is because the law requires it. So change the law and stop. It's just corporate welfare.

 

[Bomb#20]

Analogies between personal or business finance and government finance fail for three reasons: 1) governments basically are infinitely lived while people and businesses are not,
2) governments can print money while people and businesses cannot, and
3) government can tax while people and businesses cannot.

Tell that to the King of France.

France had a couple of problems the U.S. doesn't have. They were next door to Britain, which conducted its finances less irresponsibly. And their tax system was massively chaotic and regressive. If the King had been able to tax the nobles and the church effectively he probably would have kept his head.

 

[Bomb#20]

Ah, 19th century Americans and early 20th century Americans did not pass on huge debts to the unborn.

Sure they did -- that's how the Civil War and WWI were paid for. Not as huge as what we're doing now; but then their unborn were less able to afford it than ours will be.

 

[J842P]

Babbling about the non-existent king of France is not a convincing argument.

Ignorance of history does not aid your position. You seem to want money for nothing and the checks for free.

Oh, this is great.

Please, explain how hyperinflation happened in Zimbabwe. Hint: it wasn't due to Zimbabwe using a credit card.

Of course, it isn't free. It's debt, silly. Now explain how the debt levels described in the OP would lead to hyperinflation like Zimbabwe.

More generally, do you have substantial to add to this discussion, or as usual, do you only deal in low-brow, right-wing memes? I mean, at least a lettered conservative rebuttal would be constructive. Or anything that wasn't directly addressed in the OP. You should stick to twitter.

 

[J842P]

What gets me is how incredibly immoral it is for the present generation to benefit from spending the credit while leaving the payment of the debt to future generations.

Yes, it's immoral for businesses to do capital investment now, when it is the future shareholder who will have to deal with the debt.



Good lord, please read a book or something.

 

[Trausti]

What gets me is how incredibly immoral it is for the present generation to benefit from spending the credit while leaving the payment of the debt to future generations.

Yes, it's immoral for businesses to do capital investment now, when it is the future shareholder who will have to deal with the debt.



Good lord, please read a book or something.

I meant the national debt. If a business goes belly up, so what? If a country goes belly up?

 

[J842P]

What gets me is how incredibly immoral it is for the present generation to benefit from spending the credit while leaving the payment of the debt to future generations.

Yes, it's immoral for businesses to do capital investment now, when it is the future shareholder who will have to deal with the debt.



Good lord, please read a book or something.

I meant the national debt.

I knew what you meant, I was pointing out why it is an asinine conclusion. Because it assumes that only the people in the current generation benefit from the debt, which is not something you have established, you've merely assumed it to be the case. It's not even the standard conservative rebuttal, it is something ripped straight out of the the dregs of the right-wing, low-brow, twitterverse. Par for the course, really.

Again, go read a book or something.

 

[Trausti]

Babbling about the non-existent king of France is not a convincing argument.

Ignorance of history does not aid your position. You seem to want money for nothing and the checks for free.

Oh, this is great.

Please, explain how hyperinflation happened in Zimbabwe. Hint: it wasn't due to Zimbabwe using a credit card.

Of course, it isn't free. It's debt, silly. Now explain how the debt levels described in the OP would lead to hyperinflation like Zimbabwe.

More generally, do you have substantial to add to this discussion, or as usual, do you only deal in low-brow, right-wing memes? I mean, at least a lettered conservative rebuttal would be constructive. Or anything that wasn't directly addressed in the OP. You should stick to twitter.

Good grief. If countries could get rich running endless debts they'd all do it. They'd all be rich. But that's not what we see.

 

[Trausti]

I meant the national debt.

I knew what you meant, I was pointing out why it is an asinine conclusion. Because it assumes that only the people in the current generation benefit from the debt, which is not something you have established, you've merely assumed it to be the case. It's not even the standard conservative rebuttal, it is something ripped straight out of the the dregs of the right-wing, low-brow, twitterverse. Par for the course, really.

Again, go read a book or something.

How the fuck are future generations benefiting from our 24T debt? Tell me. How? Our crumbling infrastructure? Our endless entitlements? Bonds issues by local governments to be builds schools, roads, etc - yeah, that's debt that makes sense. But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

 

[J842P]

Oh, this is great.

Please, explain how hyperinflation happened in Zimbabwe. Hint: it wasn't due to Zimbabwe using a credit card.

Of course, it isn't free. It's debt, silly. Now explain how the debt levels described in the OP would lead to hyperinflation like Zimbabwe.

More generally, do you have substantial to add to this discussion, or as usual, do you only deal in low-brow, right-wing memes? I mean, at least a lettered conservative rebuttal would be constructive. Or anything that wasn't directly addressed in the OP. You should stick to twitter.

Good grief. If countries could get rich running endless debts they'd all do it. They'd all be rich. But that's not what we see.

I'll note you didn't address the question at all, any of the points in the OP, just some low-brow, twitter-level straw-man. I take this as an admission that you have no idea what you are talking about, although that is clear enough already.

 

[Trausti]

I meant the national debt.

I knew what you meant, I was pointing out why it is an asinine conclusion. Because it assumes that only the people in the current generation benefit from the debt, which is not something you have established, you've merely assumed it to be the case. It's not even the standard conservative rebuttal, it is something ripped straight out of the the dregs of the right-wing, low-brow, twitterverse. Par for the course, really.

Again, go read a book or something.

How the fuck are future generations benefiting from our 24T debt? Tell me. How? Our crumbling infrastructure? Our endless entitlements? Bonds issues by local governments to be builds schools, roads, etc - yeah, that's debt that makes sense. But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

Illinois is doing great.

 

[J842P]

But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

No it isn't. This is just your incapacity to see anything outside the confines of mediocre (not even entertaining) right-wing memes.

Why don't you establish this first. Then we can continue having a rational discussion.

 

[Trausti]

But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

No it isn't. This is just your incapacity to see anything outside the confines of mediocre (not even entertaining) right-wing memes.

Why don't you establish this first. Then we can continue having a rational discussion.

Yes, it is. The OP is advocating deficit spending to get what it cannot otherwise afford.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I meant the national debt.

I knew what you meant, I was pointing out why it is an asinine conclusion. Because it assumes that only the people in the current generation benefit from the debt, which is not something you have established, you've merely assumed it to be the case. It's not even the standard conservative rebuttal, it is something ripped straight out of the the dregs of the right-wing, low-brow, twitterverse. Par for the course, really.

Again, go read a book or something.

How the fuck are future generations benefiting from our 24T debt? Tell me. How? Our crumbling infrastructure? Our endless entitlements? Bonds issues by local governments to be builds schools, roads, etc - yeah, that's debt that makes sense. But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

Because govt debt = private savings. 'course 7 trillion is held by furriners...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How the fuck are future generations benefiting from our 24T debt? Tell me. How? Our crumbling infrastructure? Our endless entitlements? Bonds issues by local governments to be builds schools, roads, etc - yeah, that's debt that makes sense. But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

Illinois is doing great.

31,000 infected and 1,300 dead is great??

 

[Bomb#20]

What gets me is how incredibly immoral it is for the present generation to benefit from spending the credit while leaving the payment of the debt to future generations.

Yes, it's immoral for businesses to do capital investment now, when it is the future shareholder who will have to deal with the debt.

Not saying Trausti is right on the merits; but good lord, that has got to be the mother of all bad analogies.

Each future shareholder will have a choice to buy the stock or not, and she'll get to take into account how much debt the company has run up when she's deciding how much she'll pay for the stock in order to make sure she benefits from the arrangement. The future taxpayers who will have to pay the principle and interest on government debt are going to be taxed by force whether they benefit or not. Just sayin...

 

[SimpleDon]

What reduces the national debt is the moderate inflation that we tolerate every year. Inflation reduces the value of the national debt every year. The crushing national debt that Reagan said we were passing on to future generations, including the generations since 1980 alive now, that the future generations would never be able to pay off, was 1 billion dollars. Veritable chump change today.

What is undesirable about our current national debt is,

• that it is largely the result of providing tax cuts benefiting the already rich, which provides little benefit to the economy and no benefit to future generations.
• that some of it reflects the balance of payments produced in foreign trade from shipping our high paying manufacturing jobs to provide jobs and a boost to the communistic economy of the one certain geopolitical and military enemy we have left, all done to boost corporate profits in the US and the incomes of the already rich.
• that some of it reflects us fighting wars of choice, that we didn't have to fight.
• that instead of concentrating on increasing the incomes of the rich we could have used the national debt to build a world class infrastructure to pass on to future generations.
• that we could have used the money to better educate the future generations, to make their lives better and to boost the society as a whole.
• that rather than boosting corporate profits by suppressing the wages of the 99% we could have had higher growth in our economy to leave a stronger economy to future generations.
• that rather than boosting corporate profits by running up the national debt we could have used just a fraction of that money to increase wages to eliminate poverty, this because wages circulate in the economy boosting it, the rich put their money into savings, removing it from the economy.

You can't listen to mainstream, neoclassical economists. Their models of the economy ignore money, debt, and the entire banking system. Kelton is a post-Keynesian economist, who study what money is and how it is created, who include the banking system in their models as well as the rest of the financial sector with its instabilities, who in fact rather than model the economy as a 164 variable (and counting) differential equation with only five constraints and dozens of simplifying assumptions, produce a model based on the flow of money through the economy.

 

[laughing dog]

But the OP is about gimmie gimmie gimmie.

No it isn't. This is just your incapacity to see anything outside the confines of mediocre (not even entertaining) right-wing memes.

Why don't you establish this first. Then we can continue having a rational discussion.

Yes, it is. The OP is advocating deficit spending to get what it cannot otherwise afford.

The entire reason for borrowing - private or public - is to get something one cannot otherwise afford. So, did you have an actual point?

 

[laughing dog]

What gets me is how incredibly immoral it is for the present generation to benefit from spending the credit while leaving the payment of the debt to future generations.

Yes, it's immoral for businesses to do capital investment now, when it is the future shareholder who will have to deal with the debt.



Good lord, please read a book or something.

I meant the national debt. If a business goes belly up, so what? If a country goes belly up?

You claim to be a student of history. What does happen to a country that goes belly up?

There have been countries that have defaulted on their debt. Guess what? They usually have no trouble getting access to financial markets after a couple of years.

 

[Canard DuJour]

If MMT's description of the monetary system is wrong, critics have yet to say why. Supposed heavyweights like Kenneth Rogoff and Larry Summers* have done little more than misrepresent it. Most of MMT is implicit in Keynes.

My only caveat would be the following : https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/13/the-use-and-abuse-of-mmt/



(* and I really don't understand why he isn't living in some remote shack under an alias)