Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
AP’s Today in History for October 6th
Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat assassinated; Yom Kippur War breaks out in Mideast; Top U.S. arms inspector reports on Iraq’s WMD; Actress Bette Davis dies; ‘The Jazz Singer’ heralds talking pictures.
Breakfast Tune Jake Staggers – Going Down The Road Feeling Bad
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
- How America Can Free Itself From Wall Street
Ellen Brown
Something to think about over coffee prozac
MODERN MONETARY THEORY GRAPPLES WITH PEOPLE ACTUALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO IT
Rachel M. Cohen, The Intercept
WHEN DONALD TRUMP signed a huge corporate and upper-income tax cut into law in December, it seemed like there was one small bright spot. With the GOP-backed bill projected to increase the national deficit by $1.9 trillion over the first decade, at the very least the Democrats could finally quit saying that an increase to the national debt — the vice that trapped so much progressive legislation — was per se political suicide.
In fact, as many Democrats reckoned at the time, if they reclaimed power, they could then repeal those Republican tax cuts and redirect the revenue to new social programs.
But this month, despite the sky decidedly not falling from the Trump tax cuts, Nancy Pelosi confirmed her intent to bringing back the “pay-go” rule, which requires all new spending to be offset with budget cuts or tax hikes. Pelosi first instituted the rule in 2007, effectively barring Congress from taking up progressive legislation that would increase the national debt.
This stark contrast between Republicans and Democrats was front-and-center at the second annual Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) conference, held last weekend at the New School in New York City. The MMT movement, started in the 1990s by a few heterodox economists, has since grown into a vocal and eclectic mix of academics and activists, trying to change the way we think about government spending.
In a nutshell: MMT proponents believe that the government can safely spend far more money than it currently does, and increasing the federal deficit is not a bad thing in and of itself — a public deficit is also a private-sector surplus, after all.
While typically we hear rhetoric that our political leaders must first “find” money through new taxes or budget cuts in order to pay for new programs, MMT proponents say that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how money works. In so-called fiat currency systems (meaning societies in which money isn’t backed by physically valuable commodities like gold or silver) governments literally create the money and tax it later to control for inflation and keep it in demand.
Inflation is still a risk, MMT advocates say, but it’s a much more remote risk than mainstream economists let on, and it’s one that can be addressed down the line if it arises, without so much pre-emptive austerity.
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