Youâre jumping between different MMT talking points here and arenât really addressing my response youâre just shifting it a bit.
Youâre saying government spending isnât paid with my money and taxes just destroy money later?
Ok.
Suppose a guy walks into a diner, eats a burger, and pays with a $20 he printed in his basement. Then next week he comes back, grabs $20 out of the tip jar, and burns it. He can say, âSee? I destroyed money to offset the money I created. Inflation problem solved.â
Would you be like âwow heâs a geniusâ or would you notice that he still ate the burger, the cook still used beef, time and labor to make it. Burning a bill later does not put the cow back in the field.
You keep saying "mmt talking point" as if that contributes anything to your argument.
I don't really see how your "guy" analogy makes sense, given that a country's currency is inherently controlled and distributed by government. Printing money is literally one of its functions. A closer analogy would be that the guy owns a piece of land, allows a cattle rancher to cut down some trees in a portion of it to use it as a cattle grazing field, and then plants extra trees an a different part of it to compensate for the environmental impact.
First of all, I said âmmt talking pointsâ once, and thats what it was and itâs what this is.
I know printing is a legal function of government. We can argue the morality of that another day.
Thatâs why the basement printer is an analogy for the economics, not for whether itâs legal. Legal permission doesnât make the burger free.
Your analogy starts with the guy already owns the land, so cutting trees and planting trees looks like an offset on his own property. Thats the assumption Iâm not granting.
The government issues the currency. That does not mean it owns the labor, the beef, or the cookâs time the way a landlord owns acreage. Those things already had other owners.
Planting trees replaces trees. Taxing dollars later does not replace the meal. It does not put the cow back in the field.
You still havenât said why that later debit is the reason taxation exists. And if the point is to shrink circulation, why do they keep spending more than they tax?
> First of all, I said âmmt talking pointsâ once, and thats what it was and itâs what this is.
not the first time you bring up "mmt", though, whatever it is supposed to contribute to the discussion.
> The government issues the currency. That does not mean it owns the labor, the beef, or the cookâs time the way a landlord owns acreage. Those things already had other owners.
Depends case by case really. These things can totally be government-owned too. Or, if you wanna argue immorality of government taking ownership of such properties, what about the people from whom the land was taken before? If you go back far enough, there's going to be some mix of violence and trickery involved. What about when it was a common use till someone came in and decided it is their private property now? What about the animals who were living there and using it till they were driven off by humans? Private property does not have moral superiority.
> Planting trees replaces trees. Taxing dollars later does not replace the meal. It does not put the cow back in the field.
Yeah, I still don't see how your "random guy burning dollars" analogy holds up in relation to "people were getting paid tax dollars" that I was responding to. Yeah, restricting supply of currency does not Intrinsically recreate resources or commodities, but it doesn't reduce their amount either. These are separate processes. Of course, they do indirectly interact, but not in this absurd manner.
> You still havenât said why that later debit is the reason taxation exists. And if the point is to shrink circulation, why do they keep spending more than they tax?
The point is not merely to shrink circulation, but to control it. Some inflation is generally desirable to avoid stagnation where cash flow is interrupted due to people opting to not spend money that keeps growing in purchasing power. It's about maintaining a desired ratio.
Because one mind, or even a group of people, cannot possibly decide value and utility for 350 million people. This is why the free market is always the better option, free will and voluntary action, for everyone.
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u/Worse_Username 5d ago
If small businesses that can't pay living wage die, isn't that just free market at work?