Commentaries (some of them cheeky or provocative) on economic topics by Ralph Musgrave. This site is dedicated to Abba Lerner. I disagree with several claims made by Lerner, and made by his intellectual descendants, that is advocates of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). But I regard MMT on balance as being a breath of fresh air for economics.
Wednesday, 11 January 2017
Blatant Republican lies on the deficit support Positive Money’s ideas.
Republicans spent the last eight years or so crying wolf about the deficit (pretty obviously so as to knobble Obama). Then, before the new Republican president, Trump, is even sworn in, Republicans (Trump in particular) say the deficit for some strange reason no longer matters.
Put another way, Republicans are more than happy to shaft the unemployed if that helps them in turn to shaft Democrats. And this is nowhere near the first time this blatant dishonesty in relation to the deficit has happened: regular as clockwork over the last fifty years, when Republicans come to power, the deficit (which they claim to disapprove of) goes thru the roof.
This all supports the idea put by Positive Money, the New Economics Foundation and Richard Werner that decisions on the SIZE OF the deficit should not be in the hands of politicians. I.e. decisions on the size of a stimulus package should not be in the hands of politicians.
In contrast, it’s fair enough for obviously political decisions, like what % of GDP is allocated to public spending to remain with politicians.
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Totally agree.We have had money first issued by Kings/Rulers,who messed up,then banks who also messed up.So now its time to try the next step in evolution.....a group of independent experts issue the money.
ReplyDeleteOK I accept they may well mess it up too ,but at least they will not have a vested interest.Which at the end of the day has been was has been unacceptable issue in all previous methods of money creation.