| ▲ | mrngld 5 hours ago | |
Sounds like a reheated version of MMT, modern monetary theory. The "just print money" approach exploded in a mushroom cloud of inflation during the COVID years, just as any economist even remotely aligned with the Austrian school of thought could've predicted. And you're still seeing the inflation, it's just partly hidden in and taking place in frothy equity markets. MMT isn't inevitable. You're describing a path to where Argentina was before Milei. A path to amplifying all the social issues that started in the US with the creation of the welfare state. The alternative would simply be fiscal restraint. The only real problem or question is if democracy is capable of restraint. The answer is unclear, seems like it may be 'no'. | ||
| ▲ | EGreg 5 hours ago | parent [-] | |
Mild inflation (in global terms) is fine and actually rebalances money from savers/hoarders to spenders. Look at the Miracle of Worgl. And the inflation is only the result of the money supply being increased, due to the politicians fear of raising taxes on the corporations. You need to increase taxes on corporations and automation if you want to prevent inflation, otherwise you aren’t removing money from the economy. Printing money on the one hand can be counterbalanced by taxing the money on the other hand — if you actually burn the money collected by the taxes in a giant hole. But instead the money from the taxes can be used to pay the treasury holders, and make them whole. This is in fact what the Grace commission found in the 80s under Reagan: With two thirds of everyone's personal income taxes wasted or not collected, 100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the federal debt and by federal government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services that taxpayers expect from their government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Commission | ||