Taxes and Spending

The government's plan for "contact tracing" to prevent the spread of COVID-19 relies on huge amounts of government spending, plus unproven science as to the nature of the disease.

It's easy to dismiss MMT out of hand, but the impulse to create something from nothing resides deep in the human psyche.

"The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other."

The good news is that Stephanie Kelton has written a book on MMT that is very readable and will strike many readers as persuasive and clever. The bad news is that Stephanie Kelton has written a book on MMT that is very readable and will strike many readers as persuasive and clever.

When people are scared they let the authorities get away with all sorts of nonsense. We're seeing this with the Federal Reserve right now.

Decades of Keynesian policy have crippled the Japanese economy. Only a turn toward free markets offer a real way out.

The ECB can disguise the risk for a while, but the reality of the mounting debt and tax burden ahead is probably going to end in a debt crisis.

The eurozone needs to understand that if it decides to increase taxes to address the rising debt due to the COVID-19 response, its ability to recover will be irreparably damaged.

Governments can increase GDP numbers simply by spending more, and this can reduce debt as a percentage of GDP. But what if we calculate GDP using only private spending?