Or perhaps his valiant defence of his misunderstandings of MMT against the Venezuela example.
And the last claim – that inflation is caused by a government creating new money to finance spending above the income from taxation – is absurd. Any government can spend beyond their ability to raise money by taxation: the UK has since 1694, and has prospered greatly as a result. So this generalisation is another drawn from the undergraduate textbook that is, simply, incorrect because it ignores so many causes for inflation, many of which are external to any economy. What it also ignores is the fact that a government may want to spend in this way to boost economic activity. In other words, the comment ignores the whole of the understanding of fiscal policy based upon Keynesianism.
Well, no. The printing of money to pay for government spending is the monetisation of fiscal policy. It’s a monetary policy therefore, not a fiscal one.
Sigh.
It’s also not new as it can indeed cause inflation and hyperinflation. As varied examples tell us, Hungary, Weimar, Zimbabwe etc.
As, err, MMT says it will if you don’t tax enough.
There is, of course, a hyperinflation problem in Venezuela. But it did not result from printing too much paper. And it’s crass to say it is. I am not, when saying so, also suggesting that the government has no part in the problems the country faces: it obviously has. But let’s have a mature debate and explanation, and not this nonsense that suggests the printing press is the route to hell in a monetary handcart.
Absolutely everyone else is insisting that Venezuela’s hyperinflation has come from the government monetising fiscal policy, by their habit of just printing money to go spend. This is so completely countervailing to basic theory and understanding that I’m in danger of actually being interested in what Ritchie thinks the cause of this hyperinflation is if it isn’t an expansion of the base money supply. It’s not the banks doing it by extending credit after all, is it?
Much as I hate going to the shithole, I was curious as to what he thought the reasons for the inflation were.
I should have known what the soppy cunt’s response would be.
I’m not telling you and you are obviously a far-right troll for asking and I am going to ban you.
He’s a real piece of work isn’t he?
“Someone needs to get beyond their first year economics textbook”
Lol. Chutzpah raised exponentially.
The balanced budget was an idolon of Victorian England, which saw the greatest % rise in GDP in recorded history, so his claim that the UK has prospered since 1694 by overspending is a lie, a blatant lie, a stupid lie because I can point out without checking anything that it’s a lie.
[Those who do not know that the government fell because Dizzy got a sum wrong and his first budget did not balance may be shocked, but …]
There was some twat on Sky News this morning doing the newspaper review. I didn’t catch his name,because my eyes were full of tears of rage. They were discussing Venezuela and the presenter opined that perhaps this was the “wrong kind of socialism”.
Twat agreed and said that we had 40 sucessful years of socialism here in the UK after the war and the NHS was living proof that a socialised health system works wonderfully.
Fuck me ragged.
@ BnLiA
I can remember the last years of the Attlee government and the first years of 1951-64 Conservative government which transformed the UK. All the success between 1945 and 1985 was thanks to the Conservatives!
I am relieved that I didn’t see that.
Grist
There is no more evil commentator labelled ‘respectable’ extant in Cyberspace certainly
“and the NHS was living proof that a socialised health system works wonderfully.”
Yet is always in crisis and consistently underperformes more market-based systems on the Continent…
abacab,
Depends how you measure it.
If you ignored neo liberal stuff like outcomes then it does quite well.
@BiND – yeah, damn those neoliberal cancer survival rates, time required to see a specialist and so on. Blame Fatcha!
Surely Venezuela simply failed to tax enough to soak up the inflation.
Of course had it done so the result would have looked like a balanced budget.
@john 77
“The balanced budget was an idolon of Victorian England, which saw the greatest % rise in GDP in recorded history, so his claim that the UK has prospered since 1694 by overspending is a lie, a blatant lie, a stupid lie because I can point out without checking anything that it’s a lie.”
Well pointed out