The force of your insistence that everyone believes what you believe is beginning to sound like we are listening to a priest from the sixteenth century.
Suppressing my first instinct to be very cross with you, Daisy Anne I just think that's very amusing...
If you ask the public now if they want a "sound economy", they would, almost certainly say yes. So, we mainly agree about the wider argument. Your "Taxation doesn't fund spending!" doesn't matter a jot to most people. If it were a matter of their life and death, people would agree.
It is actually a matter of life and death for some people when welfare benefits are cut on the excuse that 'we can't afford the'm, or to force people into work, and where claims are so tardily processed that people die of terminal illness or starvation waiting for their claims to be settled. Or people die on hospital waiting lists because the NHS is being kept short of funds. Not just on waiting lists either, they die in ambulances queuing outside A&E departments, or even just during the several hours wait at home for ambulances to arrive...
And, quite frankly, people should care a jot about whether taxation or spending comes first because a massive deception is being practised on the population when government claims that they have to tax before they can spend. Understanding that this is not true allows for much better informed political choices when it comes to voting in general elections where the accusation of parties being 'spendthrift' hold a great deal of weight with voters. I like the idea of people knowing the truth or otherwise of what they are being told.
These are not the economics currently taught. What if taxes don't actually "fund spending"? What if they can print all they want? Those proponents of MMT, many grinding their political axe, will tell you that if the government spends too much, the excess demand will also cause inflation
No they don't. They tell you that putting money into the economy ad lib without there being sufficient resources available for that money to buy will cause inflation. Which is why taxation has such a key role in keeping the supply of money under control.
As for it 'not currently taught', there is a whole swathe of economy professors teaching MMT. Just as there are monetarists, neo Keynesians and a host of others.
Taxation probably doesn't fund spending in a direct exchange, but it is a shorthand for the circulation that takes it back into the funding pool. So why does it matter?
It matters as I have said above. A belief that a country is like a household and constrained by the same budgetary rules gives a completely different perspective on one's view of how the country's economy is being handled from the view from the perspective of, given certain constraints to control inflation, a country can spend what it pleases on what it feels is important for its economy and its citizens without having to raise the money from its citizens first.
If we all want a sound economy and we want the best for all, perhaps we have to get together and discuss ideas instead of shouting slogans at one another.
Well, that is what I am trying to do. 'Shouting slogans' is a good way to arouse interest. It's such a radical concept for many people. Sorry if it bores you.
What has to be understood is that MMT isn't a 'theory' It is an account, based on evidence and research, of how a state obtains its finance. It is completely apolitical.
The state can use its self financing powers in any way it wants to. it can give it all to the wealthy or it can give it all to the poor, or it can just use it to enable a more equable distribution. It can withhold money and put 'the markets' above all else, or it can use it to provide services for the population. The ultimate deciders of how the money is spent is the voting population who make a choice about which party's plans sound the best. It should be an informed choice.
I have spent my life championing 'minority' causes of one sort or another, based on evidence. I won't stop now....
might help.
