Spoetnik
20-05-12, 20:16
Why does it seem like there isn’t enough money to pay for the things we really need? The headlines are filled with stories about our nation’s “debt problem” and dire warnings about our impending “bankruptcy.” As an architect who fills his waking hours thinking up all kinds of wonderful things we could be building, I’m alarmed by the idea there isn’t enough money to pay for any of them. Before wasting more time dreaming, I had to find out: Is it really true? Are we really too poor to put America back to work making and building the things we need to maintain a prosperous nation?
Searching for an answer, I discovered a small (but growing) group of economists (see here, here, here, here, here, here) who represent an emerging school of thought known as “modern monetary theory” (MMT). These men and women are valiantly trying to make us all understand a paradigm shift that occurred some forty years ago, when the world abandoned the gold standard. Their key insight shocked me: A sovereign government is never revenue constrained when it is the Monopoly issuer of its own pure fiat currency; it has all the money that’s needed to put its citizens to work building anything—and providing any service—that is desired by the public (provided the real resources are available). Even more remarkable, sovereign “deficits” in the fiat currency are just the accounting record of the surpluses that have been injected into the private economy. Eliminating the sovereign currency deficit by imposing austerity will not make the economy healthier; it will, in effect, bankrupt the citizens!
If this seems to defy logic, stay with me for just a few minutes. I’m going to propose a simple exercise that will help you “see” this reality for yourself. The exercise is simply that everyone join me in a familiar game of Monopoly. By the end of the game, I hope to convince you that MMT is correct and that we could be doing better, much better – for ourselves and future generations—if we just understood and took ad vantage of our modern monetary system.
Let’s begin.
Voor meer volg de link
J. D. Alt: Playing Monopolis Monopoly: An inquiry into why we are making ourselves so miserable « naked capitalism (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/j-d-alt-playing-monopolis-monopoly-an-inquiry-into-why-we-are-making-ourselves-so-miserable.html)
Ik ben het zelf met name eens met een van de reacties:
"For those who fear the CIG (Currency Issuing Government) might overspend, the solution is to allow other currency issuers but whose money is only acceptable for private debts. The CIG would retain its monopoly of creating legal tender for taxes but now note that if the CIG overspent with regard to taxation and economic growth that taxes would be EASIER to pay in real terms for the other currency users since government money would be cheaper. To avoid an inflationary spiral the CIG would then have to raise taxes (unpopular and an admission of error) or reign in its spending till economic growth caught up with its money supply. Btw, the solution of coexisting government and private money supplies is implied in Matthew 22:16-22 (“Render to Caesar …”)."
Maw ik ben het eens met het idee dat de overheid niet langer de monopolie mag hebben op het creeeren geld. Private bedrijven moeten hun eigen geld kunnen uitgeven, de AH Florijn if you will, als balans tegen geld gecreeerd door de overheid.
Searching for an answer, I discovered a small (but growing) group of economists (see here, here, here, here, here, here) who represent an emerging school of thought known as “modern monetary theory” (MMT). These men and women are valiantly trying to make us all understand a paradigm shift that occurred some forty years ago, when the world abandoned the gold standard. Their key insight shocked me: A sovereign government is never revenue constrained when it is the Monopoly issuer of its own pure fiat currency; it has all the money that’s needed to put its citizens to work building anything—and providing any service—that is desired by the public (provided the real resources are available). Even more remarkable, sovereign “deficits” in the fiat currency are just the accounting record of the surpluses that have been injected into the private economy. Eliminating the sovereign currency deficit by imposing austerity will not make the economy healthier; it will, in effect, bankrupt the citizens!
If this seems to defy logic, stay with me for just a few minutes. I’m going to propose a simple exercise that will help you “see” this reality for yourself. The exercise is simply that everyone join me in a familiar game of Monopoly. By the end of the game, I hope to convince you that MMT is correct and that we could be doing better, much better – for ourselves and future generations—if we just understood and took ad vantage of our modern monetary system.
Let’s begin.
Voor meer volg de link
J. D. Alt: Playing Monopolis Monopoly: An inquiry into why we are making ourselves so miserable « naked capitalism (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/j-d-alt-playing-monopolis-monopoly-an-inquiry-into-why-we-are-making-ourselves-so-miserable.html)
Ik ben het zelf met name eens met een van de reacties:
"For those who fear the CIG (Currency Issuing Government) might overspend, the solution is to allow other currency issuers but whose money is only acceptable for private debts. The CIG would retain its monopoly of creating legal tender for taxes but now note that if the CIG overspent with regard to taxation and economic growth that taxes would be EASIER to pay in real terms for the other currency users since government money would be cheaper. To avoid an inflationary spiral the CIG would then have to raise taxes (unpopular and an admission of error) or reign in its spending till economic growth caught up with its money supply. Btw, the solution of coexisting government and private money supplies is implied in Matthew 22:16-22 (“Render to Caesar …”)."
Maw ik ben het eens met het idee dat de overheid niet langer de monopolie mag hebben op het creeeren geld. Private bedrijven moeten hun eigen geld kunnen uitgeven, de AH Florijn if you will, als balans tegen geld gecreeerd door de overheid.