We is us. The entirety of the United States. The problem is not that the national debt exists. The problem is that the elite have stolen almost all of it.
👆The solution is not to “reduce the ballooning national debt” but rather to take what the elite have stolen, and prevent them from ever stealing it again. In other words, we need to address wealth AND income inequality.👇
👆Saying “we must reduce the ballooning debt and deficit!!” is no different than saying “We gotta stop the federal government from DOING STUFF.” We definitely need the government to do stuff. We just need it to do (way) more good and (way) less bad.👇
👆The idea of reducing the debt and deficit is nothing more than a tool for even more austerity. Because who always swoops in and takes almost all of it? And who’s always left to fight over the scraps and suffer the consequences?👇
👆Fight for BETTER federal spending, not less of it.
The United States dollar is a fiat currency. Fiat means “by decision”. They make money by deciding to make it! They DECIDE who to make it for and for what, and who to withhold it from. citizensmedia.tv/mmt-funding-is…
👆Stop believing Very Important People when they say “I wish we could but we can’t.” They’re really saying “We could easily choose to help you by merely making a decision to do so. We just don’t want to.”👇
👆The only way to fight for better spending is to get federal reps who actually represent us and our DECISIONS of how our gov’t should – and should not – use its absolutely immense powers. One of those powers is its money. OUR money.
“#MMT-ers sometimes come across a bit ‘cult-like.’ "
I think the cult word is disgusting. A 🧵
<soapbox>
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👆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.👇
👆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.”👇