[OutsiderFan]

And in case you're wondering about the case against MMT, here's Krugman's take: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/opini...nkish.html

But yes, there's a reason I've been repeatedly saying that congress should authorize the fed to send money directly to citizens for as long as it takes. There's no downside to anyone except inflation, which was too low anyway before this hit, and is probably only going to go lower and lower. May as well send the money to people directly instead of trying to trickle it down via lower taxes or discretionary spending, etc.

What’s funny is the Fed chairman said the Fed isn’t authorized to send money directly to Americans. I’m like, are you kidding me? We’ve broke and re-written so many rules and norms we used to have, why the hell not just make up a rule to do this? 

Not to get too far afield here, but I was talking to a guy today about the pain in ass it is to submit proposals for government RFPs. He told me there is now AI to do this. I said, oh great, another entire job class being eliminated. My point is this is the kind of stuff that moves us close to needing a UBI, and the Fed May want to really get serious about developing the capacity to give money directly to Americans. It makes more sense to give the money to citizens than it does to buy bonds that create a debt obligation for tax payers.

Then again, Hamilton (IIRC), thought debt would always yield an asset or activity that balanced the debt. Like, for every $1 of debt you create, there is $1 of value created. So the reality is even though we don’t have a balance sheet that tracks the asset developed in exchange for a liability that we track, effectively, this is what is going on and we could put such a balance sheet together if we had the information to do so.

[OutsiderFan]

And in case you're wondering about the case against MMT, here's Krugman's take: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/opini...nkish.html

But yes, there's a reason I've been repeatedly saying that congress should authorize the fed to send money directly to citizens for as long as it takes. There's no downside to anyone except inflation, which was too low anyway before this hit, and is probably only going to go lower and lower. May as well send the money to people directly instead of trying to trickle it down via lower taxes or discretionary spending, etc.

What’s funny is the Fed chairman said the Fed isn’t authorized to send money directly to Americans. I’m like, are you kidding me? We’ve broke and re-written so many rules and norms we used to have, why the hell not just make up a rule to do this? 

Not to get too far afield here, but I was talking to a guy today about the pain in ass it is to submit proposals for government RFPs. He told me there is now AI to do this. I said, oh great, another entire job class being eliminated. My point is this is the kind of stuff that moves us close to needing a UBI, and the Fed May want to really get serious about developing the capacity to give money directly to Americans. It makes more sense to give the money to citizens than it does to buy bonds that create a debt obligation for tax payers.

Then again, Hamilton (IIRC), thought debt would always yield an asset or activity that balanced the debt. Like, for every $1 of debt you create, there is $1 of value created. So the reality is even though we don’t have a balance sheet that tracks the asset developed in exchange for a liability that we track, effectively, this is what is going on and we could put such a balance sheet together if we had the information to do so.