“#MMT-ers sometimes come across a bit ‘cult-like.’ "
I think the cult word is disgusting. A 🧵
<soapbox>
👇
👆I think the cult word is disgusting. There’s no possible positive justification for it. It’s nothing more than a way to dismiss and diminish the disadvantaged and discriminated against – the minority of the minority, who are desperately treading water in order to not drown – 👇
👆 – as behaving less than perfectly mature while under incredible duress. Whoever uses this term needs to take a step back and look at what caused that “cult-like” behavior, instead of assuming it came out of blue, unprompted.👇
👆Not to mention, if you don’t get MMT, then of course you’re going to find what they say, even if it were delivered with total maturity, as strange right off the bat.👇
👆(It also takes one or several bad personal experiences and ramps it up to slam the entirety of the MMT project, and all its academics and supporters. **All you gotta do** is say “that guy acted like a complete jerk and it was a really terrible experience.” That’s fine.👇
👆Utilizing the word cult as part of that complaint, however, is no longer a complaint but a not-so-passive encouragement to others to discriminate further against them, making the “cult like” assessment even more likely to come true.)👇
👆It’s no better than “Police killing black people is of course terrible, but Black Lives Matter REALLY shouldn’t be burning buildings down.”
Centuries of systemic racism is SLIGHTLY worse than some random yahoos damaging some random inanimate objects.
</soapbox>
/end
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👆Delaying checks in order to ensure the rich don't get them causes orders of magnitude more death and suffering for the poor, than in preventing the further luxury of the rich. (Do you really think billionaires would celebrate were a $2k check to arrive in their mailbox???)👇
👆People are dying right now. Let's stop screwing around and help them.
Also, means testing to prevent the rich from getting some pittance of a benefit (from their perspective) forces the poor to PROVE they deserve that benefit. Also an inexcusable thing to do in this crisis.👇
Welcome to ep 66 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with @DEhnts & @AskerVoldsgaard about their 2020 paper responding to a 2019 mainstream paper expressing the concern for the long-term fiscal sustainability of gov't spending & its corresponding debt & interest. A brief highlight.👇
Welcome to ep 66 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with @DEhnts & @AskerVoldsgaard about their 2020 paper responding to a 2019 mainstream paper expressing the concern for the long-term fiscal sustainability of gov't spending & its corresponding debt & interest. A brief highlight.👇
👆Since #MMT demonstrates that much more spending on public spending is perfectly safe (and desperately needed), the concern is often directed at the MMT project itself.
Welcome to ep 59 of Activist #MMT. Today's part 2 of my 2pt-conversation with Marxist academic, blogger, & MMTer, Jim Kavanagh (@ThePolemicist_). Jim talks more about how MMT is necessary but not sufficient for Marxism. Here's a brief highlight:👇
👆Jim has taught at Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, and Wesleyan Universities. He was also a regular guest on the internet radio show Loud and Clear with @BrianBeckerDC and @JohnKiriakou. He is currently an author at @NatCounterPunch and editor at The Polemicist.👇
First, the federal government doesn't "print money." It issues currency. It does this by making accounting entries bigger and, when it collects revenue via taxation/bond sales, it reduces those same numbers. It "expands and contracts balance sheets."👇
👆This is how all federal revenue and spending works, and has always worked, since the first dollar was issued around 222 years ago. This is the case regarding funding laws, purchasing and selling gov't securities, QE, and etc. There are no exceptions.👇
👆Giving a physicality to federal money it is plainly incorrect and highly misleading. Physical money is only created (actually, literally printed or minted) in response to citizens explicitly requesting it from a bank teller or ATM. Before that point, it's purely electronic.👇
I found this page, especially the graph & the final para referring to it, particularly challenging.👇
👆Here’s the (full) final paragraph in the above page-screenshot.
It says “the real wage” is equal to both "the marginal product of labor" and "the marginal disutility of work” and that “None of this is the least bit controversial, and Keynes does not take issue with either.”👇
1/ Banks create the vast majority of money in the economy, but it‘s credit, not currency. Currency doesn’t have to be paid back. Most receive it as a paycheck for doing labor.
2/ Bank credit Is in the form of credit cards or loans, and must be paid back 100% plus interest. Once paid back, it disappears.
3/ The fact that more than 90% of money in the economy is created from banks is (A) a bad thing that the government could change (by regulating or providing more for its people) but doesn’t and (B) does not provide anyone wealth.