They never had to know much about it. As TX Gov. Ann Richards said of Bush I, "he was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple." Her remark about the garbled words of Bush II fits as well: "he can't help it; he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." Point is the alleged successes of this duoarchy are largely the product of family wealth and connections.
The problem with MMT folks is they don't seriously discuss how the oligarchs and kleptocrats are currently abusing MMT for their self-interests instead of for We the People.
It's not a fault of MMT. It is a flaw of human nature. But certainly a government that does not act for broader public purpose, but merely an instrument of predatory capitalism is a major problem, regardless of whether one accepts the insights of MMT or not.
As a blue collar worker for 30 years, I can attest to the appeal of "job guarantee." Especially given the innate cruelty of an econ system controlling inflation by maintaining a deliberate percentage of unemployment. Add the moral scolds who urge pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps...a physical impossibility. Also the Dem party bailing out the Wall St. vultures of '08. For the millions who lost jobs, pensions, homes? Nothing.
PS--love the name. Is your alter ego Eugene Veblen?
Why is this an obligation of the MMT people? MMT'ers have been explaining the money system for decades. What people do with that knowledge is up to them.
- Bonds sold to Fed count in Federal debt calculation even if Fed is part of govt and essentially "left pocket borrowing from right pocket", hence periodic Debt Ceiling drama.
Once this is explained and understood, you get 100% buy-in from civilians.
In the 1965 movie, "The Sound of Music," a song was included that didn't appear in the original Broadway score--"Something Good." The lyric goes: "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good." If you're a romantic like me, you think it's sweet. If you're a cold-hearted brute, you think it's sappy. It's been reported that Christopher Plummer was not particularly fond of the movie.
What makes my head explode is the idea propagated by quantum physicists that nothing CAN come from nothing because "nothing" is an unstable state. I don't know what to do with that thought, so I'll leave it alone. But let's be precise when we talk about the U.S. dollar being created "out of thin air." Does "something"--the U.S. dollar--really come from "nothing?"
Of course not! The dollar owes its existence to the PROMISE of the sovereign entity--in this case the U.S. gov't--that if you exchange your labor for this thing we call "money" you are guaranteed the ability to exchange that money for stuff of your choosing commensurate with the labor you have provided. That's why it says "Legal tender for all debts public and private" on all paper currency.
Now when the gov't deficit spends, it increases the number of promises it has pledged to keep. Deficit hawks complain that there will come a day when the gov't will find it impossible to keep its promises. That is, the dollars you receive for your work are no longer able to be exchanged for as much stuff as you were promised in the past.
MMT teaches us that the gov't can't betray its promise to Americans as long as the additional
promises it makes are made to otherwise unemployed citizens. And this is because human beings have this incredible knack for being able to produce more than they consume. In other words, if the gov't can ensure that supply always exceeds demand, then inflation--the betrayal of the govt's promise--won't happen.
Whether we're talking about business contracts or managing the govt's deficit spending, it's all about keeping promises.
To be precise, economists must use professional language. Like MMT.
We fans may use whatever is helpful. Like Quantum Money Theory. "Quantum" can be faddish, but it fits here. Zero Point Energy (ZPE) means even at absolute zero temperature there are fluctuating quantum fields; the nothing from which everything emerges.
Look up ZPE; it's fascinating. The Wiki entry is a good summary...as far as I can tell. I've been reading about the implications of quantum physics for decades, but I will not pose as any kind of expert.
IMO ZPE shows that the mystics have been right all along because they've all said that being focusedly but serenely in the present moment is the way to meet/have the experience of god. Its just that what they said got abstracted into various orthodoxies that confuse the map for the topogrophy.
Experiencing the present moment directly like a 1 year old child who hasdn't learned words/abstraction IS the experience of god, but what you're (nascently) experiencing is simply the electro-magnetic flux science tells us is going on all around us continually. The experience of it is utterly and basically natural and yet is simultaneously ecstatic. Just another trinitarian integration of opposites phenomenon.
ZPE is as yet a tentative interpretation. To assert it proves the mystics correct is a disservice to both mysticism and empirical science.
Besides, which mystics? To assert we're all the same is a misleading leap of faith that assumes a god-like position from which to judge Yes, I realize in some ways we are able to connect no matter what faith background; I've been in groups when that happened and even the non-mystics present saw it in us. Nor is what we experience limited to mystics. The are many ways...but speaking from a non-divine perspective, I won't claim they lead to the same summit.
Defining god as that which is experienced in the present moment is only one way of experiencing the divine. Eastern religion tends to emphasize impermanence and the unreality of physicality. When I was a Tibetan Buddhist, I saw that way, too. Ultimately, I couldn't deny the sheer diversity of biological life nor my responsibility as a labor activist to be involved with the pol and econ systems.
The west does have mystics like Meister Eckart and Blake's "eternity in an hour," but the tradition predominantly recognizes the flow of time. Leonard Cohen's "And mind itself is magic, Coursing through the flesh And flesh itself is magic, dancing on a clock, And time itself the magic length of God."
Summed up by the quantum physicist Niels Bohr: "The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true." In my 50s, I thought I'd stumbled onto The One Great Truth; I'd encountered the Trinity. Now in my late 70s, I know I don't know.
ZPE is a fact. Whether or not there is a way to technologically tap into and direct it is the question. Again I congratulate you on your search for and experience of wisdom, but it seems you're in a kind of unmocking/unknowing mode about it. Intellect has a way of over thinking things. The ultimate epistemological state is knowing/knowingness and right below knowingness on the epistemological scale...is unknowingness. Combine this with the fact that the most basic action of consciousness is reaching (inwardly or outwardly) to know, and withdrawing in order to unknow and know something else. This dramatizes Bohr's "The opposite of a great truth is also true."
By the way money creation via accounting with equal debits and credits that sum to zero reflects the quantum flux where particles pop into and out of temporal existence from the zero point.
If I agree to shine your shoes, and you agree to pay me, the government is not involved in the value I created by shining your shoes. The government's responsibility is to provide enough stable currency, paper or electronic, for us to conduct the exchange of debt.
That's a very limited view of gov't responsibility. If you're shining shoes on a street corner, who built the street? And what makes you think you're not going to get robbed?
Yes the Musks of the world (every monetary conservative on the planet) are stuck in a false moral conflict which has been acculturated since the Sumerian empire which is "you can't create new money in any form other than debt!" and "You, the individual, must pay full price, and repay full indebtedness of extended credit!" However, now that we have double entry bookkeeping and digital technology, instead of enabling Finance to dominate everyone and insure periodic economic crises, we could use these tools to free everyone instead. All you need do is implement a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale and a 50% Gift of Interest/Debt Jubilee policy at point of loan signing. This DEMONSTRATES with equal debits and credits that sum to zero the incredible benefits every individual would experience and would resolve the deepest economic problems we are apparently chained to. All you have to do is ANALYZE ON THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL INSTEAD OF ONLY ON THE SYSTEMIC LEVEL, i.e. the current monopoly monetary paradigm of DEBT ONLY IS THE MOST BASIC PROBLEM and STRATEGICALLY INTEGRATING MONETARY GIFTING INTO THE DEBT ONLY SYSTEM BREAKS UP THAT MONOPOLY AND ENABLES TEMPORAL UNIVERSE AND MENTAL RESOLUTION.
By the way, Mosler, Keen, et al, get full credit for RE-awakening to the way our money is created, but C. H. Douglas of the world wide Social Credit movement between the world wars knew that "money is most basically accounting" 70 years before them.
Now even new paradigms need additional analysis to enable their full beneficial effects and workabilities. For instance helio-centrism actually was less accurate in predicting astro-physical movement of the planets then Ptolemaic geo-centrism until Kepler discovered that planetary orbits were elliptical instead of perfect godly circles. Then the truthfulness and accuracy of the new concept became apparent. Similarly, C. H. Douglass was culturally bound to the classical economic theory of general equillibrium. Thats why his very smart policy of a compensated retail discount remained a palliative that could be easily gamed instead of enabling all the benefits of a complete paradigm change...like my 50%+ retail discount which compels universal participation by commercial agents and creates beneficial abundant monetary disequillibrium.
MMTers: If you want to dispell the mental and moral conundrum of the words "national debt" and "deficit"? Then strategically implement the new monetary paradigm of Gifting.
I'd bet my blue collar co-workers would hear "Gifting" as scam; just another pol/econ ruse to continue trickle up. There has to be something concrete, some obviously achievable first step before we can trust any proposed alternatives.
Thats mostly just present monetary and economic acculturation which Finance will be happy to have us argue over for another hundred years until 7 billion of us are gone from climate change and Finance and the rest of the oligarchy emerge from their bunkers to restart the process.
However I think acting out the benefits and temporal universe realities of the policies I suggest so that they actually see and feel their effects would convince and enthuse most people. As Hugo said: "If there's one thing all of the armies of the world cannot resist, it is an APPLIED idea whose time has come."
But isn't the issue that Musk will likely claim any creating new money is inflationary (unless it serves Billionaires), thus he will try to re-design the system in a way that serves that endless addiction to money & power that himself and his billionaire friends have?
And so that is the narrative to address, and what serves Billionaire money/power Addictions VS Public Interest?
And I feel we need to encourge the poorer and middles class americans to help each other more to get through the next 3 years of difficulty and survive.
You point out to them and, more importantly broadcast to the general populace, that
50+% Discount/Rebate policies at retail sale and point of loan signing would enable everyone to purchase $100 worth of groceries for $50 and a $500k house for only $125k....therefore implementing beneficial price and asset deflation via increasing the money supply. Most would simply scoff and thats why you ignore them and keep on braodcasting to everyone else. It might be entertaining watching Trump and Musk's head explode trying to invalidate the simple accounting operations and simple algebra of -5 + 5 = 0 cost increase, deflation and yet more purchasing power for everyone.
I've read most of the relevant MMT writers (plus New Dealers and Keynesians) so I agree with the idea here. But as someone who was a blue collar worker for 30 years, wave numbers in front of me and I start to freeze up mentally. Worse if accompanied by arcane econ jargon.
Remember, most of us were repelled by math as school kids. As adults we are expected to defer to our betters, even when we realize they're idiots, because they have the power. The corporate lite Dems abandoned us decades ago; we're suspicious of political authorities. Especially since their main function seems to be enabling the rich to grow richer.
Therefore alt. econ must be presented as making sense intuitively and emotionally, not merely as just more off-putting numerical abstractions. Perhaps visuals and graphics would help. Experienced educators would know.
I agree that dems are simply reps lite. Thats the clue that you have a non-resolving duality that requires an integrative thirdness as in trinity/unity/greater oneness resolution...which is the signature result of every historical paradigm change and is also why wisdom has always been associated with "the third way". Thats why I titled my book Wisdomics-Gracenomics.
Trinity is all over the place if you look at it like Hegel's thesis, antithesis and synthesis and chemical synthesis which takes two separate compounds and by combining them creates an entirely third compound.
Duality is the apparency of life and trinity/unity/oneness is the actual reality in life.
The natural philosophical concept of grace/graciousness as in love in action and as in its personal experience is the ultimate intuitive message for anyone who has loved another and felt the powerful emotional unity thereof. Its also the greatest GIFT (aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace) our evolution and the nature of quantum reality bequeaths us...if we choose to look at it and apply it to the money system and the economy.
Visuals and graphics depicting the new monetary paradigm is an excellent idea also.
3rd way paradigm used a lot, including for jazz+classical, political models, philosophy, theology. Chemistry where 2 elements combine for a 3rd quite different. That's at the heart of chaos/complexity theories also--emergent properties not predictable yet produce stability; strange attractors.
I've used the 3 pillar Tree of kabbalah as a model for years. Not just for the 3, which I'm not convinced is The Truth; looking through a reality tunnel constructed as such...well, then of course we select for 3s. KBL also helps me to see what is missing plus it recognizes the negatives. Simplified version I label them right pillar, way of being; artists, mystics, religion as feeling, etc. Left pillar way of doing; the prophetic (theology term meaning social justice,) philosophy, science, etc. The middle pillar as knowing; bringing the other ways together, gnosis by experience, relationship. A caveat--Da'ath in formal Jewish KBL is a non-sephirah, not exactly there, IMHO a warning that knowledge is not wisdom.
Fits with characteristics of the hemispheres of the human brain. Not New Age fluff. Read Iain McGilchrist's 1559pp magnum opus //The Matter with Things (Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World)//. It's enlightening for being unEnlightenment; scientific evidence of how that went wrong. Left hemisphere wants certainty, parts, the explicit, precision, abstractions, inanimate. Right hemisphere does flow, gestalts, context, the unique, metaphor, and meaning. It is aware of the LH, but the reverse it not so.
Over decades I've had many mystical experiences and direct encounters with the Transcendent, including profound connections with something I can only describe as a field of Light and Love. Not naive superficial luv 'n' lite, either--Its sheer power is not always positive. As I grew old, I grew to appreciate Carl Jung's recognition of personal and collective Shadow. The universe was created in violence and destruction.
I'm deeply aware of unity. However, I've come to insist on my right to duality as it were; containing aspects of (or at least access to) the Divine yet also deeply rooted in this Earth; related by genetics to its myriad physical lifeforms. I do not believe the only point of incarnation on Earth is to escape it. And I'm an artist--I see infinite possibilities, combinations and expressions beyond 3. How about i, the square root of -1, the imaginary numbers? Another hint.
PS--I've had similar conversations in the engine rooms of ships. The main difference is we used f*ck or f*ckin' as descriptors much more than academics tend to.
Wisdom is wisdom...and you've contemplated it to your great credit and enhancement. I congratulate you. I would only add that viz trinity all realities are real its just that some are more completely real than others....and that duality is the anatomy and definition of problems and trinity is the signature and accomplishment of solutions.
Trinity works if you begin with that as a given. I can think that way, too, but don't consider it the end of the story. To me, too close to the argument style of Friedman and the Chi School of Econ, mostly based on assertions from assumptions. Carl Jung said the symbol of trinity was incomplete; 4 is a symbol of completion. As for two as positive, how about Jesus as divine and human? I recommend the books of Jeff Kripal (Rice U.) on the metaphor of the human as two; his work on what he calls the Superhumanities. As an elder, I've found that I haven't found the one definitive Answer to Everything despite, as my writing shows, I've really tried. Or even one single answer to anything.
Long awaited congratulations to you and Warren in such an unexpected, odd way. Now, I wonder which way they will turn? They just pulled the rug out from under the feet of their own decades-long narrative. What's your guesses on how they will reset, or will they reset their narrative game plan?
"If agree to shine your shoes, and you agree to pay me, the government is not involved in the value I created by shining your shoes. The government's responsibility is to provide enough stable currency, paper or electronic, for us to conduct the exchange of debt." One of the ways government introduces currency into the money supply is through deficit spending.
In the clip highlighted, Senator Ted Cruz seemed to be genuinely shocked by this "new" insight.
Leaving that aside, the problem is how this "magical money" is being deployed. Huge fiscal capacity is a wonderful thing if it means a genuinely humane and comprehensive healthcare system, or significant additional funding for high quality education. It's not a great thing if it simply means converting the state into an instrument of cronyism and predation, as might occur under Trump/Musk.
Does Elmo think that PayPal, Space X, StarLink, and Tesla “made,” i.e. “created” money? And where did he imagine the federal government “found” the money to pay his Space X and StarLink contracts and his Tesla subsidies? The arrogant, destructive, self-satisfied ignorance of the illiterate Doge-boys is unbounded.
So the real lesson here appears to be that even Elon Musk, the dumbest person on earth and potentially in the universe, can understand MMT, if it's simply presented to him in such a straightforward manner. The problem is that he will try to use his newfound knowledge only to his advantage since he, like all of the elected Republican (and many Democratic) officials since Ronald Reagan's 1981 inaugural address where he stated that "Government is the problem", suffer from the Scarcity Mindset. Specifically, there's not "enough" of "whatever" (typically, money) for everyone to have the opportunity to live a safe and fulfilling life, so we need to engage in austerity measures whereby the Government through misguided policies decides the winners and losers in life.
They never had to know much about it. As TX Gov. Ann Richards said of Bush I, "he was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple." Her remark about the garbled words of Bush II fits as well: "he can't help it; he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." Point is the alleged successes of this duoarchy are largely the product of family wealth and connections.
I love it! I shared the video this morning, along with comments, of course. I bet some people are saying, "Shut up, Elon," right now!
The problem with MMT folks is they don't seriously discuss how the oligarchs and kleptocrats are currently abusing MMT for their self-interests instead of for We the People.
Perhaps you are familiar with MMT's job guarantee?
Other than that, "oligarchs and kleptocrats" have been abusing the true character of money since money was invented. And you find this a fault of MMT?
It's not a fault of MMT. It is a flaw of human nature. But certainly a government that does not act for broader public purpose, but merely an instrument of predatory capitalism is a major problem, regardless of whether one accepts the insights of MMT or not.
As a blue collar worker for 30 years, I can attest to the appeal of "job guarantee." Especially given the innate cruelty of an econ system controlling inflation by maintaining a deliberate percentage of unemployment. Add the moral scolds who urge pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps...a physical impossibility. Also the Dem party bailing out the Wall St. vultures of '08. For the millions who lost jobs, pensions, homes? Nothing.
PS--love the name. Is your alter ego Eugene Veblen?
MR Veblen you are too kind
Why is this an obligation of the MMT people? MMT'ers have been explaining the money system for decades. What people do with that knowledge is up to them.
It all makes sense if you remember that Elon is a drug-addled, psychopathic idiot.
Excellent! But always a good idea when presenting the "keystroke money into existence" theme to mention the mechanisms of money creation:
- Fed provides temporary overdraft facility to Treasury,
- Fed buys Treasury bond/note, credits/creates reserves in reserve account, doesn't overdraft Treasury account.
- Bonds sold to Fed count in Federal debt calculation even if Fed is part of govt and essentially "left pocket borrowing from right pocket", hence periodic Debt Ceiling drama.
Once this is explained and understood, you get 100% buy-in from civilians.
In the 1965 movie, "The Sound of Music," a song was included that didn't appear in the original Broadway score--"Something Good." The lyric goes: "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, so somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good." If you're a romantic like me, you think it's sweet. If you're a cold-hearted brute, you think it's sappy. It's been reported that Christopher Plummer was not particularly fond of the movie.
What makes my head explode is the idea propagated by quantum physicists that nothing CAN come from nothing because "nothing" is an unstable state. I don't know what to do with that thought, so I'll leave it alone. But let's be precise when we talk about the U.S. dollar being created "out of thin air." Does "something"--the U.S. dollar--really come from "nothing?"
Of course not! The dollar owes its existence to the PROMISE of the sovereign entity--in this case the U.S. gov't--that if you exchange your labor for this thing we call "money" you are guaranteed the ability to exchange that money for stuff of your choosing commensurate with the labor you have provided. That's why it says "Legal tender for all debts public and private" on all paper currency.
Now when the gov't deficit spends, it increases the number of promises it has pledged to keep. Deficit hawks complain that there will come a day when the gov't will find it impossible to keep its promises. That is, the dollars you receive for your work are no longer able to be exchanged for as much stuff as you were promised in the past.
MMT teaches us that the gov't can't betray its promise to Americans as long as the additional
promises it makes are made to otherwise unemployed citizens. And this is because human beings have this incredible knack for being able to produce more than they consume. In other words, if the gov't can ensure that supply always exceeds demand, then inflation--the betrayal of the govt's promise--won't happen.
Whether we're talking about business contracts or managing the govt's deficit spending, it's all about keeping promises.
Sorry for writing quickly. I meant to say about quantum physics: "SOMETHING can come from nothing because nothing is an unstable state. Mea culpa!
To be precise, economists must use professional language. Like MMT.
We fans may use whatever is helpful. Like Quantum Money Theory. "Quantum" can be faddish, but it fits here. Zero Point Energy (ZPE) means even at absolute zero temperature there are fluctuating quantum fields; the nothing from which everything emerges.
"The nothing from which everything emerges." I hope you'll expound on that. You've piqued my interest!
Look up ZPE; it's fascinating. The Wiki entry is a good summary...as far as I can tell. I've been reading about the implications of quantum physics for decades, but I will not pose as any kind of expert.
Thanks for the tip. This is way above my pay grade, so it's going to take me a while to slog through it. Wiki looks like a good intro.
PS--take a look at the comments below...
Rafi,
IMO ZPE shows that the mystics have been right all along because they've all said that being focusedly but serenely in the present moment is the way to meet/have the experience of god. Its just that what they said got abstracted into various orthodoxies that confuse the map for the topogrophy.
Experiencing the present moment directly like a 1 year old child who hasdn't learned words/abstraction IS the experience of god, but what you're (nascently) experiencing is simply the electro-magnetic flux science tells us is going on all around us continually. The experience of it is utterly and basically natural and yet is simultaneously ecstatic. Just another trinitarian integration of opposites phenomenon.
ZPE is as yet a tentative interpretation. To assert it proves the mystics correct is a disservice to both mysticism and empirical science.
Besides, which mystics? To assert we're all the same is a misleading leap of faith that assumes a god-like position from which to judge Yes, I realize in some ways we are able to connect no matter what faith background; I've been in groups when that happened and even the non-mystics present saw it in us. Nor is what we experience limited to mystics. The are many ways...but speaking from a non-divine perspective, I won't claim they lead to the same summit.
Defining god as that which is experienced in the present moment is only one way of experiencing the divine. Eastern religion tends to emphasize impermanence and the unreality of physicality. When I was a Tibetan Buddhist, I saw that way, too. Ultimately, I couldn't deny the sheer diversity of biological life nor my responsibility as a labor activist to be involved with the pol and econ systems.
The west does have mystics like Meister Eckart and Blake's "eternity in an hour," but the tradition predominantly recognizes the flow of time. Leonard Cohen's "And mind itself is magic, Coursing through the flesh And flesh itself is magic, dancing on a clock, And time itself the magic length of God."
Summed up by the quantum physicist Niels Bohr: "The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true." In my 50s, I thought I'd stumbled onto The One Great Truth; I'd encountered the Trinity. Now in my late 70s, I know I don't know.
ZPE is a fact. Whether or not there is a way to technologically tap into and direct it is the question. Again I congratulate you on your search for and experience of wisdom, but it seems you're in a kind of unmocking/unknowing mode about it. Intellect has a way of over thinking things. The ultimate epistemological state is knowing/knowingness and right below knowingness on the epistemological scale...is unknowingness. Combine this with the fact that the most basic action of consciousness is reaching (inwardly or outwardly) to know, and withdrawing in order to unknow and know something else. This dramatizes Bohr's "The opposite of a great truth is also true."
By the way money creation via accounting with equal debits and credits that sum to zero reflects the quantum flux where particles pop into and out of temporal existence from the zero point.
If I agree to shine your shoes, and you agree to pay me, the government is not involved in the value I created by shining your shoes. The government's responsibility is to provide enough stable currency, paper or electronic, for us to conduct the exchange of debt.
That's a very limited view of gov't responsibility. If you're shining shoes on a street corner, who built the street? And what makes you think you're not going to get robbed?
Yes the Musks of the world (every monetary conservative on the planet) are stuck in a false moral conflict which has been acculturated since the Sumerian empire which is "you can't create new money in any form other than debt!" and "You, the individual, must pay full price, and repay full indebtedness of extended credit!" However, now that we have double entry bookkeeping and digital technology, instead of enabling Finance to dominate everyone and insure periodic economic crises, we could use these tools to free everyone instead. All you need do is implement a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale and a 50% Gift of Interest/Debt Jubilee policy at point of loan signing. This DEMONSTRATES with equal debits and credits that sum to zero the incredible benefits every individual would experience and would resolve the deepest economic problems we are apparently chained to. All you have to do is ANALYZE ON THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL INSTEAD OF ONLY ON THE SYSTEMIC LEVEL, i.e. the current monopoly monetary paradigm of DEBT ONLY IS THE MOST BASIC PROBLEM and STRATEGICALLY INTEGRATING MONETARY GIFTING INTO THE DEBT ONLY SYSTEM BREAKS UP THAT MONOPOLY AND ENABLES TEMPORAL UNIVERSE AND MENTAL RESOLUTION.
By the way, Mosler, Keen, et al, get full credit for RE-awakening to the way our money is created, but C. H. Douglas of the world wide Social Credit movement between the world wars knew that "money is most basically accounting" 70 years before them.
Now even new paradigms need additional analysis to enable their full beneficial effects and workabilities. For instance helio-centrism actually was less accurate in predicting astro-physical movement of the planets then Ptolemaic geo-centrism until Kepler discovered that planetary orbits were elliptical instead of perfect godly circles. Then the truthfulness and accuracy of the new concept became apparent. Similarly, C. H. Douglass was culturally bound to the classical economic theory of general equillibrium. Thats why his very smart policy of a compensated retail discount remained a palliative that could be easily gamed instead of enabling all the benefits of a complete paradigm change...like my 50%+ retail discount which compels universal participation by commercial agents and creates beneficial abundant monetary disequillibrium.
MMTers: If you want to dispell the mental and moral conundrum of the words "national debt" and "deficit"? Then strategically implement the new monetary paradigm of Gifting.
I'd bet my blue collar co-workers would hear "Gifting" as scam; just another pol/econ ruse to continue trickle up. There has to be something concrete, some obviously achievable first step before we can trust any proposed alternatives.
Thats mostly just present monetary and economic acculturation which Finance will be happy to have us argue over for another hundred years until 7 billion of us are gone from climate change and Finance and the rest of the oligarchy emerge from their bunkers to restart the process.
However I think acting out the benefits and temporal universe realities of the policies I suggest so that they actually see and feel their effects would convince and enthuse most people. As Hugo said: "If there's one thing all of the armies of the world cannot resist, it is an APPLIED idea whose time has come."
But isn't the issue that Musk will likely claim any creating new money is inflationary (unless it serves Billionaires), thus he will try to re-design the system in a way that serves that endless addiction to money & power that himself and his billionaire friends have?
And so that is the narrative to address, and what serves Billionaire money/power Addictions VS Public Interest?
And I feel we need to encourge the poorer and middles class americans to help each other more to get through the next 3 years of difficulty and survive.
You point out to them and, more importantly broadcast to the general populace, that
50+% Discount/Rebate policies at retail sale and point of loan signing would enable everyone to purchase $100 worth of groceries for $50 and a $500k house for only $125k....therefore implementing beneficial price and asset deflation via increasing the money supply. Most would simply scoff and thats why you ignore them and keep on braodcasting to everyone else. It might be entertaining watching Trump and Musk's head explode trying to invalidate the simple accounting operations and simple algebra of -5 + 5 = 0 cost increase, deflation and yet more purchasing power for everyone.
I've read most of the relevant MMT writers (plus New Dealers and Keynesians) so I agree with the idea here. But as someone who was a blue collar worker for 30 years, wave numbers in front of me and I start to freeze up mentally. Worse if accompanied by arcane econ jargon.
Remember, most of us were repelled by math as school kids. As adults we are expected to defer to our betters, even when we realize they're idiots, because they have the power. The corporate lite Dems abandoned us decades ago; we're suspicious of political authorities. Especially since their main function seems to be enabling the rich to grow richer.
Therefore alt. econ must be presented as making sense intuitively and emotionally, not merely as just more off-putting numerical abstractions. Perhaps visuals and graphics would help. Experienced educators would know.
I agree that dems are simply reps lite. Thats the clue that you have a non-resolving duality that requires an integrative thirdness as in trinity/unity/greater oneness resolution...which is the signature result of every historical paradigm change and is also why wisdom has always been associated with "the third way". Thats why I titled my book Wisdomics-Gracenomics.
Trinity is all over the place if you look at it like Hegel's thesis, antithesis and synthesis and chemical synthesis which takes two separate compounds and by combining them creates an entirely third compound.
Duality is the apparency of life and trinity/unity/oneness is the actual reality in life.
The natural philosophical concept of grace/graciousness as in love in action and as in its personal experience is the ultimate intuitive message for anyone who has loved another and felt the powerful emotional unity thereof. Its also the greatest GIFT (aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace) our evolution and the nature of quantum reality bequeaths us...if we choose to look at it and apply it to the money system and the economy.
Visuals and graphics depicting the new monetary paradigm is an excellent idea also.
3rd way paradigm used a lot, including for jazz+classical, political models, philosophy, theology. Chemistry where 2 elements combine for a 3rd quite different. That's at the heart of chaos/complexity theories also--emergent properties not predictable yet produce stability; strange attractors.
I've used the 3 pillar Tree of kabbalah as a model for years. Not just for the 3, which I'm not convinced is The Truth; looking through a reality tunnel constructed as such...well, then of course we select for 3s. KBL also helps me to see what is missing plus it recognizes the negatives. Simplified version I label them right pillar, way of being; artists, mystics, religion as feeling, etc. Left pillar way of doing; the prophetic (theology term meaning social justice,) philosophy, science, etc. The middle pillar as knowing; bringing the other ways together, gnosis by experience, relationship. A caveat--Da'ath in formal Jewish KBL is a non-sephirah, not exactly there, IMHO a warning that knowledge is not wisdom.
Fits with characteristics of the hemispheres of the human brain. Not New Age fluff. Read Iain McGilchrist's 1559pp magnum opus //The Matter with Things (Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World)//. It's enlightening for being unEnlightenment; scientific evidence of how that went wrong. Left hemisphere wants certainty, parts, the explicit, precision, abstractions, inanimate. Right hemisphere does flow, gestalts, context, the unique, metaphor, and meaning. It is aware of the LH, but the reverse it not so.
Over decades I've had many mystical experiences and direct encounters with the Transcendent, including profound connections with something I can only describe as a field of Light and Love. Not naive superficial luv 'n' lite, either--Its sheer power is not always positive. As I grew old, I grew to appreciate Carl Jung's recognition of personal and collective Shadow. The universe was created in violence and destruction.
I'm deeply aware of unity. However, I've come to insist on my right to duality as it were; containing aspects of (or at least access to) the Divine yet also deeply rooted in this Earth; related by genetics to its myriad physical lifeforms. I do not believe the only point of incarnation on Earth is to escape it. And I'm an artist--I see infinite possibilities, combinations and expressions beyond 3. How about i, the square root of -1, the imaginary numbers? Another hint.
PS--I've had similar conversations in the engine rooms of ships. The main difference is we used f*ck or f*ckin' as descriptors much more than academics tend to.
Wisdom is wisdom...and you've contemplated it to your great credit and enhancement. I congratulate you. I would only add that viz trinity all realities are real its just that some are more completely real than others....and that duality is the anatomy and definition of problems and trinity is the signature and accomplishment of solutions.
Trinity works if you begin with that as a given. I can think that way, too, but don't consider it the end of the story. To me, too close to the argument style of Friedman and the Chi School of Econ, mostly based on assertions from assumptions. Carl Jung said the symbol of trinity was incomplete; 4 is a symbol of completion. As for two as positive, how about Jesus as divine and human? I recommend the books of Jeff Kripal (Rice U.) on the metaphor of the human as two; his work on what he calls the Superhumanities. As an elder, I've found that I haven't found the one definitive Answer to Everything despite, as my writing shows, I've really tried. Or even one single answer to anything.
Long awaited congratulations to you and Warren in such an unexpected, odd way. Now, I wonder which way they will turn? They just pulled the rug out from under the feet of their own decades-long narrative. What's your guesses on how they will reset, or will they reset their narrative game plan?
Don't minimize the "points that are awarded by the scorekeeper". It's probably the best way for lay people to understand the construct.
I like to explain it this way:
"If agree to shine your shoes, and you agree to pay me, the government is not involved in the value I created by shining your shoes. The government's responsibility is to provide enough stable currency, paper or electronic, for us to conduct the exchange of debt." One of the ways government introduces currency into the money supply is through deficit spending.
In the clip highlighted, Senator Ted Cruz seemed to be genuinely shocked by this "new" insight.
Leaving that aside, the problem is how this "magical money" is being deployed. Huge fiscal capacity is a wonderful thing if it means a genuinely humane and comprehensive healthcare system, or significant additional funding for high quality education. It's not a great thing if it simply means converting the state into an instrument of cronyism and predation, as might occur under Trump/Musk.
Does Elmo think that PayPal, Space X, StarLink, and Tesla “made,” i.e. “created” money? And where did he imagine the federal government “found” the money to pay his Space X and StarLink contracts and his Tesla subsidies? The arrogant, destructive, self-satisfied ignorance of the illiterate Doge-boys is unbounded.
I wonder if Musk will go back and review his economics texts to finally eradicate loanable funds and money multipliers???
The richest guy in the world and yet, such a simpleton!
So the real lesson here appears to be that even Elon Musk, the dumbest person on earth and potentially in the universe, can understand MMT, if it's simply presented to him in such a straightforward manner. The problem is that he will try to use his newfound knowledge only to his advantage since he, like all of the elected Republican (and many Democratic) officials since Ronald Reagan's 1981 inaugural address where he stated that "Government is the problem", suffer from the Scarcity Mindset. Specifically, there's not "enough" of "whatever" (typically, money) for everyone to have the opportunity to live a safe and fulfilling life, so we need to engage in austerity measures whereby the Government through misguided policies decides the winners and losers in life.