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by jasode 2742 days ago
>, tinfoil hatters' failure to understand MMT.

I wasn't the one who downvoted you but as a fyi... this particular article is about corporate debt. MMT is about government debt.

When non-government entities such as businesses and consumers take on too much debt that they can't service, bad economic things happen.
3 comments
stephen_g 2741 days ago
MMT still has plenty to say about the private sector, as well as non-monetarily sovereign monetary systems, etc. It’s the common fiscal policy recommendations informed by MMT that mostly have to do with Government debt. It’s important to separate the theory from the policy - MMT is way more than just overt-money financing.

But yeah, the parent comment is confused, corporate debt (and private debt in general) is the real looming threat to worry about in a currency-issuing country that only issues bonds denominated in their own currency (such as the US) - not the Government deficit or debt.

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zozbot123 2741 days ago
Heck, when government entities take on too much debt, the bond vigilantes get involved, interest rates spike upwards and bad economic things happen! Inflating your debt away will just save you from outright sovereign default - it won't save you from the bond vigilantes and from spiking nominal rates.
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stephen_g 2741 days ago
Yes, clearly, just like they did in Japan. Oh, wait, no, Japan only proved that the Government is fully in control of the bond market.

The private sector wants Government bonds. If they won’t buy all of them at the interest rate the Government wants to sell them for, there’s no practical reason they can’t just sell excess bonds to the central bank (except for silly policy in some countries).

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time-domain0 2741 days ago
Obviously, Sherlock. The govt with the Fed are (or should be, if things don't spiral out of control) the economic governors. You can't talk about either one in isolation because they are symbiotic, not mythologically-utopian, hermetically-closed model boxes that can exist without the other.

The Fed will be pressured to reduce interest rates because corporations are playing Russian roulette too-big-to-fail brinksmanship and will expect a bailout as per usual.. an action the majority undertake will always be excused in a democracy because of political pressure.

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ilikeatari 2741 days ago
But can we be kinder to each-other in these discussions?
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