What Modern Monetary Theory Is and Why Leftists Love It

What Modern Monetary Theory Is and Why Leftists Love It

• Everyone knows governments need to tax before they can spend. 
• What Modern Monetary Theory presupposes is, maybe they don't.

"Tall, bearded, with gentle brown eyes, Occupy Wall Street veteran Jesse Myerson spends his days knocking on doors in the rundown neighborhoods of southern Indiana reminding voters of the enormous wealth of their country. 

His message, as an organizer for the progressive grassroots group Hoosier Action, is that the United States is a spectacularly rich nation and some of that wealth could, and should, be spread to the poor people of southern Indiana.

...He says his group’s biggest competition for the hearts and minds of poor Indianans is a white supremacist group called the Traditionalist Workers’ Party. 

...His optimism about government spending is due to his exposure to Modern Monetary Theory, a school of economics that says our panic over government budget deficits is delusional, a misguided and atavistic remnant of the gold standard. 

MMT has become increasingly influential on the left, giving progressives like Myerson a reason to believe that a high price tag shouldn’t stop the US from instituting wide-ranging social reforms like Medicare for all.

Modern Monetary Theory’s basic principle seems blindingly obvious: 

Under a fiat currency system, a government can print as much money as it likes...Read all.