I never understand anything about money until I translate it meaningfully into time terms. Like 2T in deficits... how many future years have we mortgaged away, and to what extent? How do we measure that? How many more hours will you have to work for comparable standard of living?
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This is where the MMT con falls aparty - when you do the conversion with real life (time).
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I'm not sure that the translation can be done. Nations really are not like households, and national debt is not like your credit card.
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I’m not relying on the household metaphor... I’m talking direct money-time connection, which exists in every economic system. It may not be like household debt, but it is still a pre-commitment of time to generate growth etc.
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There are about 100 million US households above the poverty line, so the math is easy for big numbers:
Every $1 Billion = $10.00 to your household
The $1T budget deficit last year = $10,000 your household spent above what it took in
$2T bailout = $20,000/US household
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Also the 2T number likely doesn’t include Fed lines of credit. Which are complicated: another 6T ish. But get paid back? But influence economy before getting paid back anyway...
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The top 1% in the US own $30T.
So we impose on them a one-time social solidarity surcharge of 7% of their wealth and be done.
It's not a hard problem -- if you WANT to solve it...
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Such a temporal frame befits the author of Tempo ;).
I like 's Money View take. He applies it to the present here: sites.bu.edu/perry/2020/03/
The pandemic so scrambled *continous* settlement/valuation/allocation that the highest backstop intervened like never before.
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