The Handbook Of Extremist MMT

This is a comedic chapter title! None of the aphorisms in this chapter are “from MMT”. They are all my own opinion. However, it is not satirical or parody in any _other_respect but the chapter title and heading. Or is it? 🤣

If in doubt: a good aphorism is often a humorous half-truth, the funny bit about it is because the bit that is a lie is completely beside the point but will nevertheless be misconstrued by all and sundry potatoheads. In this case, the latter are all professional economists.

Extremist MMT Aphorisms

MMT’ers are not economists, they are legal realists and anthropologists, despite whatever else they tell you.

Gold has never been money, but the money has sometimes been made of gold.🤯

Definition: Money is everywhere and always an I.O.U of the issuer.

Nominal inflation is never a financial nor economic problem, the policy response is the problem.

Inflation is an effect not a cause.

Real inflation is a big frickin’ problem, but has little to do with nominal inflation. The two need not even be well correlated, and can easily be anti-correlated over some time periods. That was not an aphorism, but the note had to be made. The aphorism is that you comment your code, but not so liberally that no one ever reads your code.

“Ballooning government deficits and debt” enable the non-government sector to fly.

“Living beyond our means and borrowing from China!” is what reactionary conservatives feverishly type into social media streams all night to train the LLM’s. But it is also what well-educated progressives have no retort or counter-response towards, which means we are all screwed and ruled over by idiots.

There are only about 1% of humans alive who are living beyond our means. Unfortunately, when they say, “We need to cut government spending because we are living beyond out means!” the last clause is true.

There will never be an AI Singularity with such LLM training texts.

Left-wing politics is pro-worker, period. But so should be right-wing politics: that the latter is not is a total moral disgrace.

The real costs of unemployment in one decade exceed the real costs and social fabric destruction of all wars in all human history, so inflation fear mongering is a mental illness.

The government deficit is the non-government sector surplus, but only if you are not an economist.

The government debt is “paid off” (retired) every single accounts settlement day, so every month… without a single tax-payer in sight. But tell that to the economists and they will not believe you.

If a government body says or tries to borrow their own currency off the banks they created by state licence, the appropriate remedy is to vote them out of office on mental illness grounds alone.

When the government is “spending like a drunken sailor”, the appropriate response is to shut-up and take their money.

Inflation is a de facto tax on hoarded wealth. Wait… where was the aphorism? The aphorism is that Austrian School lunatics are not always wrong about everything, just about most things.

Yes, oligarchs and their price mark-ups cause an undesirable form of inflation through relative price adjustments, the harm is caused by hysteresis in wage adjustments not by the inflation per se, but it would not occur with a wise government.

Never worry about inflation. Fully employ anyone willing to work for tax credits, and give them the freedom to decide how to contribute to their community if they do not despite public sector jobs.

Never worry about private sector causes of inflation. Just don’t allow them. (This aphorism can only be aimed at a currency monopolist, not you or me, if aimed at you or me it is a poisonous snake, in the sense of blame on the victim for their inaction.)

Political inaction from the demos is not the fault of the workers, they are slaving to eat to survive. Any workers making just demands on their government are heroes, superior to Captain American and Superman (but only because the latter two people are fictional🤣).

One must sometimes give comic book geeks a comic… to learn MMT from.

Knowledge of MMT is not wisdom. MMT wisdom is knowing the fair and just policy response available.

A wise government is by definition a strong government.

A strong government does not need a large army to a first approximation, because strength is in the love of the people. They will then rise to their own defence, and their government’s, and in defence of other people of other nations, in un-numbered guerrilla ways if attacked.

You people cannot rise to their own defence is you immiserate them through an unemployed labour buffer scheme, or other fiscal austerity (and the rest).

Cryptocurrency is a plan cooked up by compsci nerds to (sort of legally) take money off silly people with their full consent. It is pretty ingenious. But morally and ecologically repugnant, which means not all genius is good to have.

Full employment is not a conspiracy theory policy and CIA Op. It is justice. The idea of a “job” however needs to be updated, to mean any spiritual endeavour in a trade, craft, art or profession that serves one’s community.

One (of sound mind and moral clarity) never compensates spiritual endeavour with a pittance of a UBI.

One should always fully compensate spiritual endeavours if One is the currency monopoly. There is no reason not to.

If I knew know what the human soul is, I’d be essentially like a god, and would not be stuck here writing these extremist MMT aphorisms.

If you say there is no soul, then you are not even dumb, though could likely beat me at chess. Which tells you something about chess.

(How did these aphorisms get onto this page dognabit!)