Stephanie Kelton: The big myth of government deficits | TED

Sure is tough to buy a house or even pay rent nowadays. Driving up asset prices through inflation is a terribly regressive system, i guess we wont call it a tax though.

MMT is to fiat currency what sub prime loans were to mortgages

Can we get an update Ted talk with her explaining inflation?

apparently money does grow on trees! or on computers.

Not long after she spoke about government's need to control inflation, we had the highest rate of inflation in 40 years.

She says inflation is the real limit. I guess that limit got hit pretty fast…having this talk right before the biggest inflation period since the 70s 😂

If we can just print money why am I getting taxed?

If the issuer of currency can never run out of money, why do we have taxes? Some of the largest growth the country has seen was before there was an income tax.

She completely glosses over the fact that our government deficit, or debt is borrowed money. People invest in government bonds, because they expect a return on their investment. If there is no return, there is no investment. You also can’t just print, or virtually create money out of nowhere, because it devalues the currency.

The scary part is.she kept a straight face throughout. her presentation.

when you can't lose and only win, somewhere lies a fallacy😳

When someone dismisses a question by saying, "It's the wrong question" (2:55) what that person is really saying is, "You are asking a question that I don't want to answer, therefore you are wrong for asking it." One of the first thing students will be told in an introductory economics class is that "There is no such thing as a free lunch." The notion of something for nothing is a fallacy, and deficits will ultimately have to be paid back in some way; therefore, questions as to how repayments will be made are legitimate and should be fully addressed.

ARGENTINA

If you follow her logic why do we even pay taxes?

By extension of the logic, there is no need to ever issue government debt, or impose any taxes to obtain revenue. You just print it. Seems like flying blind, using ‘inflation’ (whatever that is) as a sort of financial altimeter while adjusting speed based on the fuel gauge. Could be dangerous in the mountains.

Wonder what she thinks about modern monetary theory now…as the MMT proponents say, the only thing we have to worry about is inflation…you think? That’s like saying we can jump out of airplanes as much as we want, all we have to worry about is hitting the ground…

Fiat money has always baffled me, banks create it out of thin air, and I (and the rest of us) spend practically the rest of our life, working away paying back with interest, a mortgage ...its basically an I.O.U system the whole world of money runs on.

inflation is an invisible tax on people who dont have enough money to invest. if you really "care" about inequality and minorities then stop printing money, stop bailing out banks, and start helping people understand what fiscal responsibility entails. its easy to claim MMT will work, but if people cant invest then your saving accnt interest will never keep up with inflation and thus the CPI will slowly outstrip their ability to live comfortably... this is why millennials like myself have a more difficult time affording housing than our parents. also its really easy to say printing money will fix things when you have a tenured position that safe and hermitically sealed off from the markets at large.. shaking my head sadly right now...

“I’m one of a handful of economists “
On the government pay roll.

This is what happens when basic human common sense and economic prudence is overridden by pseudo intellectualism and fundamentally leftist policy. I think the very learned economist forgot about the problem of inflation and how common people that she is referring to suffer because of it. In this global financial system, if a country is overleveraged, Sri Lanka showed us what would happen. So for god's sake don't let basic human common sense be forgotten while thinking about economics. Yes. The government must spend on infrastructure and other areas for the betterment of enterprise, people and society.. however.. everything must be paid for. There's no alternative