• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

MMT = Moronic Monetary Theory

Xerographica

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Sep 16, 2010
Messages
2,071
Reaction score
163
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
MMT is incredibly moronic.

Imagine that it's Trump versus Clinton. Let's say that Trump loses the election by 125 electoral votes. But what are electoral votes? They are simply electronic numbers... they aren't by any means real. Therefore... we could simply give Trump more electoral votes than Clinton and voila! Trump would be our next president! Yay for fiat votes! Yay for subverting the will of the people!!!

The point of voting is to figure out who should have more influence. And the incredibly obvious thing about influence is that it is mutually exclusive. This is painfully obvious. It's stupidly obvious. Influence is a zero-sum game? Yes... DUH.

Let's say that all the MMT members of this forum decide to dollar vote for me. We'll pretend that there are 10 MMT members and each one of them paypals me $1000 dollars. That's a lot of dollar votes! I would gain $10,000 dollars worth of influence. But, because influence is a zero-sum game... it was only possible for me to gain this influence because each one of these 10 members was willing to voluntarily give up a $1000 dollars worth of influence. My gain was their loss. Their loss was my gain. This is how influence works.

Now let's apply this incredibly obvious concept to our entire economy. But, let's keep it simple stupid and say that our entire economy only produces two goods...

1. food (a private good)
2. defense (a public good)

The private sector produces food and the public sector produces defense. What would happen if we gave the defense producers more influence? Clearly this would mean that the food producers would have less influence. As a result, defense producers would be able to compete more of society's limited quantity of "Einsteins" away from food producers. More Einsteins solving defense related problems means less Einsteins solving food related problems. So we'd see more improvement/progress in the supply of defense and less improvement/progress in the supply of food.

If Forest Gump had been a real person then even he would have been able to understand this. His IQ was theoretically 75. Anybody who fails to understand how and why MMT is incredibly moronic must have an IQ that's lower than 75.

If you can understand how and why MMT would subvert the will of the people... then clearly your IQ is over 75. But is your IQ over 95? Let's find out.

In the private sector we all use our dollar votes to determine how influence should be distributed. And since your IQ is over 75... you understand that influence is a zero sum game. So what happens when, via democracy, we give people like Barak Obama and Elizabeth Warren more influence? It means that the people that we dollar voted for will have less influence.

If you can understand how and why democracy subverts the will of the people... then clearly your IQ is over 95.

Here are two ways that we can help prevent the will of the people from being subverted...

1. Replace voting with spending
2. Allow people to choose where their taxes go
 
It really doesn't matter how many times you come back, or how many times you reframe your idea with more and more ludicrous analogies...

It's still an awful idea, it was when I destroyed it years ago and it still is.

:shrug:
 
It really doesn't matter how many times you come back, or how many times you reframe your idea with more and more ludicrous analogies...

It's still an awful idea, it was when I destroyed it years ago and it still is.

:shrug:

honestly I couldn't tell what he was arguing in that load of nonsense.
 
honestly I couldn't tell what he was arguing in that load of nonsense.

The basis of every post is the idea that people should directly allocate their tax money where ever they want it to go, so if they want, they can allocate their entire taxation to the DOD or Education or whatever.

It's such an awful idea... Just awful.
 
The federal government is in charge of the money supply.
It use to be states had their own money and could issue their own currency.

however this did not work out well and a lot of banks went under.
this paved the way for what would become the federal reserve.

it is the job of the federal reserve to manage the money supply in the economy.
the current system is much more flexible than the gold standard.
 
The basis of every post is the idea that people should directly allocate their tax money where ever they want it to go, so if they want, they can allocate their entire taxation to the DOD or Education or whatever.

It's such an awful idea... Just awful.

technically you send extra money to the government just for that.
however that is in addition to the extra tax money you have already paid.

however yes that is a very bad idea.
 
The federal government is in charge of the money supply.
It use to be states had their own money and could issue their own currency.

however this did not work out well and a lot of banks went under.
this paved the way for what would become the federal reserve.

it is the job of the federal reserve to manage the money supply in the economy.
the current system is much more flexible than the gold standard.

The Fed's primary goal was supposed to be to stop depressions and market crashes. But these things continued long after the Fed was set up. In fact, the worst depression in American history happened under the Fed's watch. The greatest period of economic growth in US history happened before the Fed came into being. To put it quite simply- the Fed is a terrible waste of money and resources.
 
The Fed's primary goal was supposed to be to stop depressions and market crashes. But these things continued long after the Fed was set up. In fact, the worst depression in American history happened under the Fed's watch. The greatest period of economic growth in US history happened before the Fed came into being. To put it quite simply- the Fed is a terrible waste of money and resources.

:doh

only if you ignore massive bank defaults and bank closers with people losing all of their savings etc ...
You also for get that we were operating under the gold standard during the great depression.

there was only so much that the fed could do. their were pretty limited by the gold reserves we had.
which is one of the issues with the gold standard.
 
The Fed's primary goal was supposed to be to stop depressions and market crashes. But these things continued long after the Fed was set up. In fact, the worst depression in American history happened under the Fed's watch. The greatest period of economic growth in US history happened before the Fed came into being. To put it quite simply- the Fed is a terrible waste of money and resources.

It was created in response to financial crisis but it purpose was never to prevent depressions and market crashes as that would be impossible and it has no power to do so. The US has seen both massive economic expansion and recession with and without the federal reserve. The Federal Reserve is necessary but it needs specific goals.
 
The Fed's primary goal was supposed to be to stop depressions and market crashes. But these things continued long after the Fed was set up. In fact, the worst depression in American history happened under the Fed's watch. The greatest period of economic growth in US history happened before the Fed came into being. To put it quite simply- the Fed is a terrible waste of money and resources.

Economists now understand central banking having figured out what caused the Great Depression so sailing should be much smoother from here on out at least as regards monetary policy. Odd that you forgot to say what you would put in its place and why!
 
. The Federal Reserve is necessary but it needs specific goals.
Actually it does have specific goals in the form of its "dual mandate". Its job is no inflation and maximum employment.
 
there was only so much that the fed could do. their were pretty limited by the gold reserves we had.
which is one of the issues with the gold standard.

Yes, we had a gold standard and Federal Reserve central bank. Friedman and Bernanke agree Depression was caused by Fed not following gold standard and thus allowing money supply to shrink by 33% and the number of banks to shrink by almost the same percent. Now, a gold standard and /or central bank would work fine since have now have enough valuable experience with both to know what to do.
 
Actually it does have specific goals in the form of its "dual mandate". Its job is no inflation and maximum employment.

It is actually maximizing employment and price stabilization which does not mean no inflation but manageable inflation. If you economy has no inflation, that is very bad thing. Those are not specific, the Bank of Canada's goals are specific, to keep inflation between 1% and 2%. The Federal Reserve's goals are vague.
 
Yes, we had a gold standard and Federal Reserve central bank. Friedman and Bernanke agree Depression was caused by Fed not following gold standard and thus allowing money supply to shrink by 33% and the number of banks to shrink by almost the same percent. Now, a gold standard and /or central bank would work fine since have now have enough valuable experience with both to know what to do.

That valuable experience is that the gold standard does not work.
 
That valuable experience is that the gold standard does not work.

you mean nothing worked until about 1960 at which point Milton Friedman cracked the code. Now a gold standard, fiat standard or mixed standard would work because we understand central banking now.
 
how can no inflation and no unemployment be vague????

Because they are not specific, you cannot have no unemployment and no inflation unless you are a communist society. Like I said, no inflation is bad. Unemployment cannot and never will be zero. The Federal Reserve needs specific goals, like between 1% and 2% inflation with 4%-5% unemployment, that would be specific.
 
Wrong. Why do you post on economic matter when you have such horrible understanding of it?

actually if its wrong you have to say why to establish that you know more. Isn't thinking fun?
 
you mean nothing worked until about 1960 at which point Milton Friedman cracked the code. Now a gold standard, fiat standard or mixed standard would work because we understand central banking now.

That gold standard has no place in the modern world, even Switzerland ditched in the early 2000s.
 
Because they are not specific, you cannot have no unemployment and no inflation

actually economists feel 2% inflation is ideal and unemployment of 4-5% is full employment, allowing for frictional unemployment, so they are in a very specific range.
 
That gold standard has no place in the modern world, even Switzerland ditched in the early 2000s.

as I said if you know how to manage the standard it make little difference what standard you have. When Ron Paul asked Bernanke why we don't switch to a gold standard he said " we manage the Fed as if it was on a gold standard."
 
actually economists feel 2% inflation is ideal and unemployment of 4-5% is full employment, allowing for frictional unemployment, so they are in a very specific range.

Those would be specific goals, but the actual goals of the Federal Reserve are price stabilization and maximizing employment, vague goals like I said before.
 
actually if its wrong you have to say why to establish that you know more. Isn't thinking fun?
No, when it comes to basic understanding of the FED, I don't have to prove to you that their mandate does not involve keeping inflation at "0%". As a matter of fact, I'll let you show from any source you prefer that your claim is true. Show us that the FED's mandate is to keep inflation at "zero".
 
Back
Top Bottom