A deficit occurs when any organization—a family, a company, or a government—generates expenses that exceeds its revenues.
Most call this a "net loss," but for governments it is typically called a deficit.
But how can the US government continually spend more than it earns?
Simple: the US government can print more US dollars ("points" as she calls them) to cover its deficit.
US dollars (and all fiat currencies) are simply a claim on the savings of society—redemption certificates for the goods, services, and knowledge generated by productive people.
When the US government "awards points," it is reallocating claims on savings from those holding US dollars to those who receive newly produced US dollars first (google "the Cantillon Effect").
Politicians that makes these decisions produce no value, they survive by stealing.
Contrary to @StephanieKelton's assertion, the US government is not "the scorekeeper that sits outside of the game." Like any organization, the US government is a social institution that operates in its own best interest. And its prime interest is protecting its central bank...
If the US government is a benevolent and neutral "scorekeeper that neither has nor needs points", then why does it protect The Federal Reserve's monopoly on money, which yields a 6% annual dividend (payable in US dollar "points) to a group of undisclosed, private shareholders?
Apparently, our benign scorekeeper—like all social institutions run by corruptible people—is itself a bit corrupt.
Follow the incentives and find the outcome. With no exposure to the downside of their decision making—no skin in the game—politicians always resort to printing.
This is why #Bitcoin matters—it is a "game" with rules that cannot be bent or broken.
Bitcoin is antithetical to the deception of MMT—an attempted justification for the US government to continue harvesting the surplus of productive people through US dollar supply inflation.
To assert that the US government can improve the "game of life" for productive people by corrupting their money is either ignorant or malevolent...
I can't tell if @StephanieKelton believes what she says, or is intentionally deceiving people, but either way, MMT is a lie.
Imagine believing that a game could be better played by constantly and unpredictably changing the rules of the game...
That is exactly what MMT asserts: that the (apparently omnipotent) US government can change the rules as necessary to "contribute points to scorecards"
Fortunately for players in of this rigged game in the 21st century, there is a new game in town: a firmly fixed supply of 21 million #Bitcoin.
The rules? No inflation. No counterfeiting. No stealing.
Just unstoppable, incorruptible, honest money.
For a deeper dive on the truth of fiat currency, and how it is the largest pyramid scheme in human history, check out recent piece "Masters and Slaves of Money"
1/22. In the spirit of independence day weekend, I just published my latest writing: “Masters and Slaves of Money" where we explore why central banking is an institution of time-theft and #Bitcoin is a weapon for peace.
2. In 1776, the US declared its independence from England. For years, the decentralized state network resisted the implementation of a central bank, knowing the evils it had caused in eras past. Today with Bitcoin, people globally are declaring their independence from The Fed.
3. Money is a tool for trading human time. Central banks, the modern-era masters of money, wield this tool as a weapon to steal time and inflict wealth inequality. History shows us that the corruption of monetary systems leads to moral decay, social collapse, and slavery.
When fiat currency dies, conditions tend toward deflation first (since money becomes more valuable when uncertainty looms), before becoming increasingly inflationary and, finally, hyperinflationary. #Bitcoin was purpose-built for this.
A thread on my current macro view on USD:
Economic uncertainty is extremely high. Market participants are stashing dollars to self-insure against this uncertainty. Consumers are delaying discretionary and major purchases.
This behavior further constricts economic activity in a consumer-driven society, leading to more economic fallout, more uncertainty, and so on recursively. Policy responses are increasingly uncertain (so much so that the charts are broken temporarily):
Many people have asked me to share the notes from my appearance on the @APompliano podcast where we discussed "An Open Letter to @RayDalio re: #Bitcoin"
This thread is a distillation of those notes, let's begin⏬
Everything we say, do, or make starts out as an idea. The purpose of the world economy is to generate and share useful ideas through trade. As we trade, our ideas become better, giving everything we say, do, or make more specialized qualities
Consider how our transportation technologies have gone from wagons, to automobiles, to airplanes. In trade, everything is valued at some ratio of everything else. For instance, this car might be worth 132 chairs, or this house worth 11 cars.
@RayDalio recently published the second chapter in his series “The Changing World Order.” Chapter 2 is titled “Money, Credit, and Debt” and explains these concepts in some depth.
In this thread, we will go deeper on these explanations. Let’s dive in:
Ray starts: “All countries can print money to give to people to spend or to lend it out. However, not all money that governments print is of equal value.”
It is important to first realize, that all government currencies began as warehouse receipts for monetary metals.
Historically, monetary metals were the best technologies in terms of money’s five traits: divisibility, durability, portability, recognizability, and scarcity. Of these, gold was relatively the most scarce, and therefore it outcompeted others as the soundest store of value.
1/33. I just published “The Number Zero and Bitcoin”
Bitcoin represents the discovery of absolute scarcity for money, an unstoppable idea that is changing the world tremendously, just like its digital ancestor: the number zero.
2. Many believe that Bitcoin is “just one of thousands of cryptoassets." This is true in the same way that the number zero is just one of an infinite series of numbers.
3. In reality, Bitcoin is special, and so is zero: each is an invention which led to a discovery that fundamentally reshaped its overarching system—for Bitcoin, that system is money, and for zero, it is mathematics.
1/75. In celebration of the Genesis Block’s 11th anniversary yesterday, I am sharing a tweetstorm summary of my latest essay “Bitcoin and the Tyranny of Time Scarcity” recently published in the 2nd Edition of @TimelessBitcoin
2.Time scarcity is our immortal tyrant. Innovation liberates us from its grip by increasing our productivity: the art of attaining the greatest results with our limited time. Money, our metaphor for time, has been exploited by government for too long... it's "Time for Plan ₿"
3.Time is the grand paradox of nature: the healer of all wounds and destroyer of all things. All human action occurs within time. The flow of time is impersonal, irreproducible, irreversible, and unstoppable; our allotment of intrapersonal time is absolutely scarce.