But what he actually fails to note is that MMT says that a currency issuer cannot have debt denominated in the currency it issues because that is a tautological impossibility.
Yer wha’?
But what he actually fails to note is that MMT says that a currency issuer cannot have debt denominated in the currency it issues because that is a tautological impossibility.
Yer wha’?
How much longer can he continue with this stuff before his head explodes? Any psychiatric vulcanologists care to hazard a guess?
Not only do I not understand what he is saying, this claim is so fucking retarded I can’t even work out what he is trying to say.
Is this not just another way of saying that if I have a printing press in my bedroom that prints £20 notes, and I borrow some cash from a mate on a night out, then I don’t really have a debt to my mate because I can just print him one when I get home? That is to say in net terms I can never be in debt, because of my infinite supply of £20 notes?
It’s a helpful thought experiment, Jim. Imagine if you were on a night out and you found yourself out of cash when it was your round. The bar only accepts pounds. Your friends are thirsty. But it’s OK! They will buy you a drink and you will give them 10 Jimdollars, printed on your special printing machine at home!
Ah, but what is a Jimdollar? Well, it will prove to be either convertible into pounds or it’s convertible into beer. Eventually, upon threat of ultraviolence from your friends.
The only other alternative is that your friends decide they would rather drink with someone who doesn’t regularly fuck them about, and the Jimdollar suffers extreme inflation.
(Incidentally, the btl comments at Ritchie’s place are more than ordinarly rancorous this morning!)
aaa. Thanks. I was hesitating to venture over to the dark side but will do now. Nothing like shitprof taking a kicking.
Is he really saying that the UK and US governments cannot issue debt in sterling and dollars? It seems incredibly stupid even by his standards
I see that Ann Pettifor is now on Spud’s hate list. He seems to delight in creating enemies
I took it to mean that government borrowing in foreign currency is the only kind of borrowing that government can’t tinker with to its own advantage.
We’re only a step away from his suggesting that the BoE set interest rates at -5% as a means of reducing borrowing by increased borrowing.
Quite bonkers!
It’s great to see the Mighty Spud taking a massive kicking from Alfie. It has really cheered me up. The way he keeps referring to the Phillips curve when talking about stagflation is comedy gold, especially since Alfie keeps reminding him of its irrelevance to his argument
yes diogenes..his refusal to engage and throw in incidentals like the philips curve is pretty instructive of how comical his thought process is..Alfie eventually met with the inevitable “you do not understand” stuff”so don’t come back here”..his argument now centres around inflation hasn’t been around for 40yrs so we don’t need to worry…how interesting if Murphy is able to combine MMT with Scotland gaining independence and its own currency..was a test case that would be and a complete disaster further down the road..
Diogenes
This is always ‘music to my ears’
“You just reveal that you do not understand what I am talking about
I think your time here is up”
Translated it means:
‘I’ve been exposed as full of shit thanks to your superior knowledge – therefore I’m going to bar you from exposing me any further’
His blog is the modern equivalent of “Diary of a Nobody”
It surely can’t be long before Murphy invents definitive anti-gravity and perpetual motion machines as well as commercially viable nuclear fission.
*fusion obvs
@Diogenes
You are being too generous.
Despite his absurdities, there is something likeable about Mr Pooter that is entirely absent in Prof Potato.
Is this not just another way of saying that if I have a printing press in my bedroom that prints £20 notes, and I borrow some cash from a mate on a night out, then I don’t really have a debt to my mate because I can just print him one when I get home? That is to say in net terms I can never be in debt, because of my infinite supply of £20 notes?
Agreed. You might add. If you didn’t pay him back – you taxed him £20. If you paid him back £19, you sold him a negative rate bond, and at £25, he did very well for a one night punt. But you set the price, whatever the FT said next day about Jim bond yields. Such is the world of the currency issuer in MMT.
I always assumed, ‘you can never be in debt to yourself’ something that accountants teach on a Double Entry 101 course.
@ Diogenes. Indeed. Not far from Pooter to Potato.