GhostOnTheHalfShell2d ago

RE: https://urbanists.social/@danwentzel/116281946102446567

I am pleasantly surprised to see how many of us landed on the article like a nuclear bomb. A lot of people here have already learned about MMT and why currency sovereign can’t fail to pay.

The government spends money into existence. The deficit ceiling is an artificial construct to force ridiculous drama every year over budgeting.

The problem we really face is whose bank accounts the money sloshes into. Elon Musk crypto Donald Trump concentration camps.
1/2

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH
@GhostOnTheHalfShell
Mar 24 at 1:36pmWeb
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell2d ago

@donhawkins

I never read the book, but in some ways, I don’t need to because I’m like marinated in MMT.

Our problems with deficit spending are the billionaires and their corporations.

If we tax them out of existence and smash the corporations, it ends the incredible distortion in economic and political decision-making power that allows them to steal money.

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH2d ago
@GhostOnTheHalfShell I get a lot of windshield time in my j-o-b, so I listened to the audiobook. One thing that I was surprised by was the author wasn’t in favor of UBI. Perhaps her views have changed more recently, I dunno.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell2d ago

@donhawkins

You might know that there are two often highly ideological factions split on the topic of ensuring everybody an income.

Those that are against UBI are instead for a work guarantee. I fit into the UBI box largely but there’s so much work that could be done by the community anyway that there always should be work available because there’s always something to do.

I favor UBI because I believe in people figuring out useful things to do themselves. Art invention, or a company.

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH2d ago
@GhostOnTheHalfShell I favor UBI because it’s our economy to begin with & we are the engine that sustains it and because it solves a myriad of government & social ills.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell2d ago

@donhawkins

No argument there. The general sense I have of the job guarantee crowd is most of the time they work from the premise that it it a UBI cheats workers which doesn't make sense to me because it's universal. And we shouldn't get something for nothing but the government makes money from nothing.

I have a lot more faith in people with the time and resources to figure out what to do with those. I consider that to be a work program created by people directly.

Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell2d ago

@donhawkins

In other words, people become the body that makes the decision of what to do, and if there needs to be larger numbers of people, we can use a community government. And it would be a government where everyone would have the time and resources to participate in decisions

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH2d ago
@GhostOnTheHalfShell Yup. I am not in favor of work requirements. I am confident that UBI would free pent-up creative forces. I suspect the volume of entrepreneurial forces that would be unleashed would school the toxic capitalists.
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShell1d ago

@donhawkins

It was the chief point of outrage of Silvio Gesell. He was a proponent of money reform in to give it the gift of death.

The fundamental identity in economics is one man's spending is another man's income. Every manufacturer is under the imperative to sell their product, but the person who has money can simply hoard it. People become victims of money hoarders because they take the means of exchange out of the economy and use it to coerce tribute by renting it out