Silly point by George Selgin.

 

George Selgin makes a very obvious and rather boring point - see above.

Actually Ben Dyson (founder of Positive Money), Richard Werner and others recognised that problem about  ten years ago and suggested a neat solution (as did Ben Bernanke more recently), namely to have the central bank decide the SIZE of the deficit, while politicians decide the NATURE of the deficit (e.g. whether it takes the form of more public spending or tax cuts, and if the extra money is to go to public spending, whether it should go to education, law enforcement, state pensions or whatever).

Ann Pettifor, who is as clueless as Selgin on this point agrees with Selgin’s point on Twitter. Selgin, Pettifor etc really need to study the literature a bit more before opining on this point.

The moral is that if you produce a nice simple solution to a problem in economics (and doubtless other subjects), most leading members of the profession won’t be remotely interested, despite professing an interest in new ideas.

BTW: Ben Dyson left Positive Money several years ago for a job at the Bank of England.