The most prestigious law school admissions discussion board in the world.
|
 |
 
|
MODERN MONETARY THEORY is tcr. Taxes have nothing to do with govt spending.
Poast new message in this thread
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:19 AM Author: oomox Well they're indirectly related because Congress pretends like they're related and uses limited tax revenue as an excuse not to do anything to make our lives better.
But the government just prints money to do war and bank bailouts and whatever else it wants, it's honestly so obvious. But They don't want us to know. It's very fringe, almost nonexistent, in academia. |
 |
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:06 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface I don't think it's that simple, and I think that wealth being hoarded at an increasingly pointy top is a necessary feature for printing to wealth. If it actually gets spent in ways that hit main street, you can't avoid inflationary pressures that can be tamed simply by printing even more money
It's also important what the rest of the world is doing. A nation doing this in isolation would get financially demolished |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:11 PM Author: oomox Yeah I think it does have a lot to do with the hoarding. Could be bidirectional causality actually, but I haven't thought about it too hard yet. It all comes down to the idea that "money" is just Jewish numbers on a screen. (Well, ultimately the value of all cash is tied to real resources in the world; MMT is Keynesian. But beyond that, when it comes to monetary units in a given currency, it's just Jewish numbers.)
MMT says this is true of all countries that issue their own currency but I know approximately zero about international finance and how these systems interact with each other lol. My brother-in-law does international finance shit for work and my eyes just glaze over. |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:15 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface Hahaha, glazed eyes just mean that you're sane, particularly because at the really large scales, it really is just a bunch of numbers on a screen/in a database/conjured into the ether (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49897249) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:21 PM Author: oomox I'm interested in exploring ideas and systems that are either fully abstract or very concrete and predictable. Don't care about this in-between bullshit. Same reason I don't get involved in the stock market as you asked about in the other thread. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49897259) |
Date: May 22nd, 2026 4:25 PM Author: oomox (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894648) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 4:34 PM Author: Richard Ames Explain how this means that MMT is tcr. As far as I understand it, MMT is completely retarded and detached from the mechanical reality of raising federal debt. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894676) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 4:40 PM Author: oomox MMT says governments that issue their own currency can (and do) just do whatever they want as far as spending and printing money, with limitations coming from how they think the amount of money in circulation will affect everything on a macro scale.
It says that they collect taxes just to take money out of circulation to manage inflation. They're totally inverting it and lying when they pretend that tax revenue directly limits how much money the government can spend. |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 4:46 PM Author: Richard Ames This feels generally only true because of the petrodollar and our war machine. If not for the petrodollar, we would have real constraints on our ability to endlessly print money IMO. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894694) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 4:56 PM Author: oomox This was my impression too but MMT says they're not related in that way.
"From a foreign exchange/relations point of view, the fact that the United States is the “petrodollar” has important implications. From a domestic point of view, however, the petrodollar makes little difference to the United States’ capacity to provide for its people or the domestic value of the dollar. [...] [O]il does not, in fact, give the US dollar its value. The primary thing that gives it (and the pound, yen, yuan, $CA, $AU, etc.) value is the government’s ability to impose a tax in its currency." – https://activistmmt.org/reserve-currency
Not that so much of the world being dependent on the petrodollar isn't significant... but it's separate from the way the ruling class plays around with our currency here. |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:02 PM Author: Richard Ames MMT is completely retarded. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894731) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:04 PM Author: oomox (guy who doesn't want to let go of his precious orthodoxy) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894733) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:08 PM Author: Richard Ames "From a foreign exchange/relations point of view, the fact that the United States is the “petrodollar” has important implications. From a domestic point of view, however, the petrodollar makes little difference to the United States’ capacity to provide for its people or the domestic value of the dollar. [...] [O]il does not, in fact, give the US dollar its value. The primary thing that gives it (and the pound, yen, yuan, $CA, $AU, etc.) value is the government’s ability to impose a tax in its currency." – https://activistmmt.org/reserve-currency
Some MMT faggot stating that oil doesn't give the US dollar its value doesn't mean it is true. Posting some faggot MMT blog is not an argument. |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:26 PM Author: oomox It's not saying it doesn't give it its value internationally, I don't think. It's just saying the petrodollar is not what makes it so that the U.S. government can just arbitrarily determine how much of its self-issued currency is in circulation. It says that the petrodollar system is a SYMPTOM of American economic and military hegemony, not the reason we're able to do the spending we do.
I'm sure you know more than I do about the international implications of the petrodollar. That's not at odds with this theory. Just the causality you hypothesized is. |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:13 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface Perhaps it would help if you could explain how it is that the government could spend a ton of money on the things that make its people's lives better without fucking up our financial system even worse than it already is
You gave a nod above towards taxes being used to temper inflation. Is the idea that we can just have government provide everything, put us to work, and then tax all earnings away to avoid inflation? Sounds terrible if you don't trust the government to run your life better than you would (or that everyone earns equal outcomes)
Would you perhaps instead just substantially raise the tax rates to 60 or 80%? That's not as bad as the total confiscation route, but it's not tremendously different for most of us
If these are too simplistic, what is the argument?
NOTE that I think we could do this under our current system by just slashing defense to around $100 billion/year, but that's beside the point of how your view on MMT would actually work if funny money started hitting main street en masse |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:49 PM Author: oomox Right, I don't think MMT even needs to come in right away because there's a lot of spending we do that IMO would be a no-brainer to redirect to actually providing for the people. Totally agree about slashing defense; that's the first thing I was gonna say. Before I read your $100B I was actually just going to suggest taking it from $1.5T to $500B. We could easily do that without losing our status as the most formidable military or whatever. Really, the less money goes to the Pentagon the better IMO. They have never passed an audit. They're always doing insane covert shit abroad that destabilizes countries and makes the immigration crisis worse here. And they throw too much at bloated defense contracts as a result of bribery.
After that, the govt needs to stop subsidizing all of the insanely wealthy companies we're giving money to for literally no reason. The oil companies, MIC (whom we directly subsidize in addition to all the contracting LJL), bigtech, etc. Fuck all that, spend it on the people. Maybe there's an OK argument here or there but my understanding is we're 99% just funding them because their leaders bribe our government.
We should also do something like an actual good-faith DOGE because there really is so much Waste, Fraud, and Abuse I'm sure our minds would be blown.
And then as far as taxation, I definitely don't think anyone in the bottom like 99% should be taxed any higher WITH THE EXCEPTION that I think we should eliminate the SS tax ceiling of $176K. I make more than that and even though I am extremely resentful of each tax dollar I pay because of how our government spends money, I'd be fine paying a little more in that one category if it would help keep SS solvent (under the fraudlies premise that "solvency" is a thing, which we're forced to play along with). But other than that, all the changes need to be on the wealthiest among us. They're paying lower tax rates than the rest of us due to loopholes and technicalities. If we closed that shit up we'd have sooo much more ""tax revenue"" the swamp monsters would have a much harder time coming up with excuses not to give us things like universal health care, more funding for education, better public transportation, etc. |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:12 PM Author: The Facebook i almost made this poast like word for word this morning. if you think taxes are about "paying for things" you deserve completely what you get. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894751) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:29 PM Author: icanseemyneurons What am I getting (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894779) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:29 PM Author: xXxPARSIGOD420xXx (🧐) Poopy diaper (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894781) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 7:25 PM Author: oomox (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895061) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 12:14 AM Author: Emotionally + Physically Abusive Ex-Husband (oppose bitchbois) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895717) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:17 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface Anyone willing to exchange a poopy diaper for some pepperoni? Anybody? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49897253) |
|
Date: May 24th, 2026 1:09 AM Author: oomox Anyone willing to exchange a poopy diaper for some pepperoni deserves neither. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49897598) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:31 PM Author: oomox 180000. Yeah like how do people think we're paying for the war in Iran after cutting all those social services and saying there's no money for them? Lmao. And it's BEEN like this as long as I can remember. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894782) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:46 PM Author: ,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,..,.,.,,..,..,.,,..,.,,. i'm no econ masterman, but the keynes approach seems more intuitively correct in a lot of ways. his critics like the 'austrians'/milton friedman/etc. often seem to be describing something closer to a moral system than an economic one.
keynes correctly saw that economic modernity and technology were changing the way that human labor and output were interacting at a very basic level, and that 'money' was more like an incentive structure than a strict unit of accounting.
the fundamental limits are mostly based on resources, including human IQ, power generation, mining capacity, etc. rather than units of money as such. the 'factor endowment.' the reason you can't make everyone a big-living trillionaire is because of resource and production constraints rather than 'money.' cash is just notation.
keynes's most basic theory was that the financial crises of the past (from his perspective in the early-1900's) had been caused by lack of immediate liquidity rather than a lack of actual productive capacity. 'money' was a means of bridging the gap between production capacity and production/labor reality, which is constrained by instantaneous money supply due to the structure of how labor and other goods are acquired in terms of payment.
it seems blatantly obvious that he was right about that. he never claimed that there is no ceiling to liquidity, and he specifically advised for budget surpluses when possible and the creation of general funds for future usage as liquidity pools during financial emergencies.
literally none of that was wrong.
|
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 5:47 PM Author: icanseemyneurons how many eggs do you eat per diem (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894802) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 6:05 PM Author: oomox Tyft, very well put. MMT evolved from Keynesianism and I believe it actually agrees with almost all of this. Cash is just notation and value is tied to real-world resources. (That is, the total value of all the money in circulation is tied to resources. The value of individual units is determined by how much cash is out there.) According to Gemini the only difference is the part about the surpluses and that's just because of modern realities. Back in his time the world was still tied very closely to the gold standard, so cash was more tightly coupled to physical constraints. So the idea of squirreling away cash for a future emergency was coherent and advisable. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49894859) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 10:21 PM Author: The penis mightier MMT is Keynesianism for retards (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895515) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 12:09 AM Author: oomox Why? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895715) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 12:17 AM Author: Emotionally + Physically Abusive Ex-Husband (oppose bitchbois) Huh, that's crazy. Is there some way that they could just put like $10M in my First Hawaiian Bank account and everything would still be fine? Who do I talk to about this? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895721) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 8:49 PM Author: oomox (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49897207) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 7:46 PM Author: Emilio Estevez circa 2032 Modernity is 180 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895095) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 8:52 PM Author: oomox (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895260) |
|
Date: May 22nd, 2026 8:58 PM Author: Emilio Estevez circa 2032 (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49895277) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 8:57 PM Author: lfo This was attempted in Biden 2021-2022 with a massive cash infusion, then the economy as expected ran red hot with inflation, Congress couldn't claw back cash, and we are in a shit show. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5868038&forum_id=2в#49897223) |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:02 PM Author: oomox MMT is descriptive and it describes how things have been for a while, not just under Biden, but yes that's a great example where we got to see that happen.
The takeaway of looking at things through a MMT lens, at least from where I'm standing, is that they're LYING TO US when they try to act like the government "spends" our "tax" "money." There's no direct relationship. Taxes just take money out of circulation to control inflation. But the ruling class is always just gonna print as much money as they want to do whatever they want. And then tell us they can't afford to do anything for us. |
|
Date: May 23rd, 2026 9:22 PM Author: Fucking Fuckface Yeah, this is my view as well. I for sure think the top governments of the world can conjure money out of the air to do all types of shit without much problem, as long as the "money" is locked away from the circulating economy
I have a hard time understanding how government can spend money on ongoing services-types jobs without fucking us royally. Infrastructure expenses, on the other hand, might actually work, because the money that would hit main street would simply be in the form of wages during construction and then limited amounts for ongoing maintenance
I'm a retard though and don't know anything about finance or monetary theory. So maybe it's a bad sign that I think you're right |