buswolley writes:
"Is the United States or the EU really too poor to afford to build the things each needs to maintain prosperous nations? Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) posits that America is not too poor in real resources to do the things it needs to do, and now proponents of the theory have adapted the rules of the classic board game Monopoly to demonstrate their case. For those that do not know what modern monetary theory is about, a suitable primer on the topic might be Warren Mosler's Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economy Policy or Diagrams and Dollars, either as a book on Amazon or on-line for free at NewEconomicsPerspectives.org.
While the Modern Monetary Theory perspective tends to elicit disbelief and even rage, I think it is important for any scientist and geek to weigh the evidence carefully, and by doing so understand better about how and why money is created and destroyed."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @03:40PM
If you have specific questions I'll do my best to give you specific responses.
Nope. The measure of tolerable rates of government intervention is a serious question in the fields of political and behavioural economics, so your surmise isn't outlandish.
Well, Chairman Mao said that political power grows from the barrel of a gun, but money is certainly a proxy for certain elements, so I'll go along with your approach here. Yes, the government's fiat money backing fiat employment is massively destabilising (and inflationary, because of its role in the supply and demand for money).
So, if I understand what you mean, it would be something like every 25 year old getting a lump sum without any particular preconditions.
Effectively just another government transfer. Arguably most of that cash would be squandered quickly, so it would amount to a fairly conventional enforced reduction in saving (by removing money from the hands of those with it, who would otherwise have saved some proportion) and increase in expenditures (minus the frictional costs of tax administration) because it's pretty much a cinch that most 25 year olds will see that money evaporate pretty darned quickly.
And since it happens pretty much every year (because a new cohort reaches 25 years of age, or whatever age you pick) it just turns into a regular money churn, with the government machinery picking up a percentage every year. Honestly, it's kind of anti-libertarian.
Alternatively, if you're back to the money-printing option, it turns out every bit as inflationary as any other money-printing option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17 2014, @07:39PM
I married libertarians to popular fiscal policy.
Libertarians are fond of contracts.
Advance a loan to each citizen with interest. Payment is due in 10,000 years. If you are of legal age you can sign and get the citizen loan. Winners will be productive. The others' demand push will provide the grit for each winner. Old growth forest is important, but the Forest dies without new saplings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @07:29PM
The contracts have, in contractarian philosophy, to be actually enforceable and plausible and to otherwise contain no invalidating terms.
I can't see any contractarian going for this. If you consider the debt to be a transferrable asset, which is typical, then you're still not avoiding theoretically plausible, crippling debt (or complete devaluation to the point of meaninglessness, through inflation). In regimes in which debts and assets get sorted out in probate planning, you're just applying some kind of penalty to the estate. And what about bankruptcies?
Short answer, this is at best a meaningless helicopter drop of money with a veneer of respectability of no substantial value. Alternatively, the government is just buying perpetuities as a masked way of raising taxes.
If I were in such a regime? I'd either assess it and find it to be insane, and ride that pony into the ground, or run screaming. I see no way of guaranteeing a balanced outcome.