No one buys, sells, borrows, or lends with “money.” Production buys and sells production, while borrowing and lending are an exchange of products over longer stretches of time in return for more products (interest). It’s worth keeping in mind as members of the Austrian School claim that the only limit to government borrowing is […]
The $39 Trillion National Debt Is a Loud Tell That the U.S. Isn’t “Printing” Read More »
The burden of government consumption is now, and frequently felt in gruesome, heartbreaking ways right now. The debt burden left behind to the sainted grandchildren is easy compared to what we’re enduring, and it’s not even close. What you’ve just read is not the consensus, however. In a recent AIER piece, Stefan Barti wrote that government
A Government Limited by Past Debts Is the Ultimate Inheritance Read More »
No individual, corporation, or government ever gets to choose how much money to borrow. Only in academic and pundit circles is such a fanciful notion accepted as realistic. A recent op-ed penned for a think tank purported with alarm that “Congress Knows It Has a Spending Problem, But Won’t Fix It.” And at Fox News last
A $50 Trillion National Debt In 2030 Will Signal Opposite of Debt Problem Read More »
The minute immigrants touch land in the United States, their economic value soars. That’s because the workers, machinery and training that they get to match their talents with in the U.S. well exceeds what was previously available to them. Only for the immigration story to get even better. U.S. Immigrants are abnormal, in a
David Bier Is Correct About Immigrants, Incorrect That They Lower Debt Read More »
No one just chooses to borrow money. What an obnoxious conceit, one that imagines lenders are blithe about those loaned to. More realistically, those with title to money decide who can and cannot borrow. And they’re very strict. Individuals with credit cards know this well. We don’t choose how much debt to run up,
Gavin Newsom Would Be “Cheap” If Governor of Mississippi Read More »
Bloomberg recently reported that Amazon is set to raise $15 billion in an upcoming bond sale. The funds will be used to continue Amazon’s AI buildout. Better yet for the purposes of this piece, the sizable bond issuance signals impressive market confidence about Amazon’s future. Entities that are doing well, and expected to do better,
If You’re Desperate, You Likely Don’t Have Much Debt Read More »
Money buys nothing, while products always and everywhere buy products. Which means governments that produce nothing can only spend insofar as they have taxable access to private sector production, not an active printing press. Without the former, they have no spending power. None. The obvious requires stating firstly because Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is having
If the U.S. Treasury Employed Fraudulent “MMT,” It Would Have No Debt Read More »
The federal debt will soar in the coming decades. The previous truth can be found in the monolithic nature of the proposed debt solutions. Harvard’s Greg Mankiw is hardly alone in saying posssible debt fixes include enormous amounts of economic growth, government default, so-called money creation, sizable reductions in government spending, and substantial tax
Greg Mankiw’s Solutions Are the Path To Much More Federal Debt Read More »
Responding to me, Duke professor Michael Munger writes that, “If the real hawks like John Tamny get their way [full SALT deduction], with the cap going up to $100,000 or more, the loss in tax revenue could top a trillion in the next ten years.” To be clear, I don’t think Munger thinks we
Replying to Michael Munger Replying to John Tamny On SALT, Debt Read More »
Debt is an effect of wealth, not desperation. That’s true for individuals and corporations, but also governments. The power of compounding vivifies this truth, and explains why Apple has lots of debt but the corner store doesn’t, and the U.S. has tens of trillions of debt, but Haiti next to nothing. The Washington Post’s
There’s No Such Thing As ‘Exorbitant Privilege,’ There’s Just Production Read More »
