https://open.spotify.com/show/50c7tIYpu9mfusoOr2qSrc?utm_campaign=PB-sendgrid-em...


The Levy Institute: "Move beyond conventional approaches. The tertiary economics departments maintain strict separation from other disciplines, resulting in a non-scientific study of economic reality."

Dispelling the 'taxpayer money funds government' myth, in one university at a time:

[note: the 'uni' is a monetary unit of account, in the following article]. 

https://www.aaup.org/article/stop-trying-find-money%E2%80%94create-it

Throughout the semester, the uni-issuing instructor outlines the currency assignment’s learning experience as well as the broader public purposes it is designed to serve. The power of taxation, students quickly learn, is not wielded as a funding mechanism. It is the source of demand for a monetary instrument, which activates meaningful social labor. No one in the class could pay the uni tax if the instructor did not spend it into existence in the first place. With this, students not only come to appreciate money’s basic structures and potential but also see through the men­dacity of taxpayer-funding narratives and the polarizing politics they regularly naturalize.

"Anything we can actually do, we can afford"

Keynes' famous remark, in its original context (from a BBC broadcast, in 1942): 

https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61537

Keynes: "For some weeks at this hour you have enjoyed the day-dreams of planning. But what about the nightmare of finance? I am sure there have been many listeners who have been muttering: “That’s all very well, but how is it to be paid for?”

Let me begin by telling you how I tried to answer an eminent architect who pushed aside all the grandiose plans to rebuild London with the phrase: “Where’s the money to come from?” “The money?” I said. “But surely, Sir John, you don’t build houses with money? Do you mean that there won’t be enough bricks and mortar and steel and cement?”

“Oh no”, he replied, “of course there will be plenty of all that”.

“Do you mean”, I went on, “that there won’t be enough labour? For what will the builders be doing if they are not building houses?”

“Oh no, that’s all right”, he agreed.

“Then there is only one conclusion. You must be meaning, Sir John, that there won’t be enough architects”. But there I was trespassing on the boundaries of politeness. So I hurried to add: “Well, if there are bricks and mortar and steel and concrete and labour and architects, why not assemble all this good material into houses?”

But he was, I fear, quite unconvinced. “What I want to know”, he repeated, “is where the money is coming from”.

To answer that would have got him and me into deeper water than I cared for, so I replied rather shabbily: “The same place it is coming from now”. He might have countered (but he didn’t): “Of course I know that money is not the slightest use whatever. But, all the same, my dear sir, you will find it a devil of a business not to have any …”

Had I given him a good and convincing answer by saying that we build houses with bricks and mortar, not with money? Or was I only teasing him?

…

For one thing, he was making the very usual confusion between the problem of finance for an individual and the problem for the community as a whole …

The first task is to make sure that there is enough demand to provide employment for everyone. The second task is to prevent a demand in excess of the physical possibilities of supply, which is the proper meaning of inflation. For the physical possibilities of supply are very far from unlimited. Our building programme must be properly proportioned to the resources which are left after we have met our daily needs and have produced enough exports to pay for what we require to import from overseas …

Where we are using up resources, do not let us submit to the vile doctrine of the nineteenth century that every enterprise must justify itself in pounds, shillings and pence of cash income, with no other denominator of values but this. I should like to see that war memorials of this tragic struggle take the shape of an enrichment of the civic life of every great centre of population …

Assuredly we can afford this and much more. Anything we can actually do we can afford. Once done, it is there. Nothing can take it from us."

The IMF - mired in the 'taxpayer money' ideology - wants its  $44 billion loans to Argentina repaid, praises Milei for his "strong" policies, despite the risk of increasing poverty already at 40%.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/companies/imf-backs-milei-s-reforms-says-risks-t...

"The IMF called Milei's stabilization plan for Argentina's embattled economy "bold" and "far more ambitious" than those put forth by his predecessors in the South American country, citing the reform mandate of his landslide election victory late last year as a positive given the challenges of its implementation.

"The authorities' strong ownership and electoral mandate to eliminate fiscal deficits and long-standing impediments to growth (many benefiting vested interests) mitigate implementation risks," the IMF said in a staff report on Argentina published on Thursday.
Yet the IMF acknowledged that risks to the program's success are high, given the "very difficult inheritance" from failed policies and a "complex political and social backdrop, with a fragmented Congress, falling real wages, and high poverty."

Yes - so much for the "reform mandate of his landslide election victory" ......from the 56% who aren't living in poverty.

Hence the flawed analysis from the IMF money-lending sharks.

..... "Instant Misery Fund", indeed.   

Latest news: Argentina's parliament rejects Milei's IMF- endorsed economic policies.

Proving the IMF are irrelevant ideologues, unable to deal with real world problems.

Hint: you have to decrease poverty in the land, not increase it....

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/legendary-investor-paul-tudor-jones-says...

Legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones says a 'debt bomb' set to go off in US - economy appears strong but is on 'steroids' masking major problems

...........

Another $billionare complaining about government debt - of course they don't want to pay more tax to reduce the government debt and deficit, they only want to cut public expenditures. 

Political realities mean governments will never be able to raise sufficient tax to pay down government debt, look at the kerfuffle over stage 3 tax cuts in Oz. 

Ignorant fools like Jones and Musk (ignorant re understanding the nature of money, not on how to amass it for themselves.....) are lucky government debt doesn't matter as long as the nation's productivity holds up and workers can keep producing the nation's essential goods and services.

"Balanced US budgets" (or even more idiotically, government surpluses)  - with the wall, Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, health care, pensions, etc,  all requiring funding, and with tax increases off the table - forget it.

   

Bobby says currency-issuing governments buy bonds (aka QE, performed during economic downturns);  and sell bonds to fund government, which can cause inflation. 

The point is: a currency-issuer doesn't have to borrow money, and inflation can be checked with price controls.

Stephanie Kelton  explains the meaning of the oddly-named IRA  - "Inflation Reduction Act":

Increasing  US manufacturing capacity in the renewables sector, which increases supply relience, avoiding 'supply -push' inflation (ie due to supply inadequacy).

Similarly for the Chips Act, bringing IC chips manufacture back to the US, subsized by massive government market intervention.

(The biggest contributor to inflation today is the increase in interest rates by central banks).