[VHRanger]

It's extremely HackerNews-ish of you to propose that the author of the article ignores your pet theory.

The author of the linked article is Barry Eichengreen, widely recognized as the premier scholar of the Great Depression. The article references about 900 pages worth of other articles, believe me: your pet theory about the 1920's events is considered in the conclusion. They're not ignoring it because they read fewer books than you.

> The US president talks, without a hint of embarrassment, about the need to borrow to continue to service debts.

Governments don't work like a household. What matters is borrow costs and use of funds. If a government can borrow and the net growth generated is greater than the interest rate on the debt, it's a good thing to borrow. Like any business debt.

A government can be in debt forever, the only thing that matters is borrowing costs and growth rate (and how the growth is generated see eg. Chinese real estate for malinvestment).

[aazaa]

> It's extremely HackerNews-ish of you to propose that the author of the article ignores your pet theory.

What pet theory is that? All I did was to mention two historical episodes that preceded the event under discussion, and which the paper fails to mention.

> The author of the linked article is Barry Eichengreen, widely recognized as the premier scholar of the Great Depression.

So what? We're talking about the paper, not a person.

> The article references about 900 pages worth of other articles, believe me: your pet theory about the 1920's events is considered in the conclusion.

On what pages does the paper take up the issue of the speculative bubble leading up to the Great Depression?

> Governments don't work like a household. What matters is borrow costs and use of funds. If a government can borrow and the net growth generated is greater than the interest rate on the debt, it's a good thing to borrow. Like any business debt.

A main MMT talking point. Yes, I've read Kelton's book and yes, a government that prints its own currency is not like a household.

MMT is an experiment. For all our sakes, I hope its proponents are right.

> A government can be in debt forever, the only thing that matters is borrowing costs and growth rate (and how the growth is generated see eg. Chinese real estate for malinvestment).

What if malinvestment looks like investment until it doesn't?

[dnautics]

> Governments don't work like a household.

That's right. If a individual accumulates too much debt, then the individual can choose to discharge obligations through bankruptcy resulting in loss of credit, or death of the debtor, and ultimately the lessor is on the hook for the risk, and those two parties with agency over the debt contract are the only two who directly must suffer consequences. (yes there is tangential collateral damage, like if there are dependents, but it's not a whole lot).

If a government goes into debt, it externalizes the consequences of the spending to the public. "well, we vote for our representatives who spend". But that's not true. Suppose you were 16 (or, even more extremely: -1 years old), and couldn't vote against representatives voting for something stupid, like, say the US government invading Iraq. You are still on the hook for paying off the costs of those decisions. Sovereign debt is an end-run around the principle of "no taxation without representation", and it's in a much more morally questionable place.

Or, you can choose to reject the principle of "no taxation without representation", which if you are happy to do that explicitly and publically I will shut up.

Finally, the burden of amortizing sovereign debt is often achieved through the printing press, which in the long run causes inflation. Households usually can't do this. This disproportionately hurts the poor, so that adds onto the moral objection to sovereign debt.

[handrous]

> Or, you can choose to reject the principle of "no taxation without representation", which if you are happy to do that explicitly and publically I will shut up.

That "principle" covers some territory a lot broader than the specific way you're requesting it be interpreted. The idea that those born into a country cannot be held accountable for debts accrued before they were born—or anything relating to the situation of the budget before they have a say in government, I suppose—is, I think it's fair to say, not a common interpretation of the slogan's meaning, now or (most certainly) in the past.

That's not even to say you're wrong, morally or whatever, but your tactic of trying to pin someone down with these words isn't a good one.

[dnautics]

> but your tactic of trying to pin someone down with these words

Sir, this is hacker news.

Ok, but seriously, to put it in a less-memey way. Many of the posts that I post about topics where I feel like "the word must be spread" are performative but interesting. I actually don't give a shit about convincing the parent poster of mine. Most of those people are going to be closed minded, bias-confirming, and unreceptive to rethinking their belief structures. I care about giving ideas to receptive people who are reading it with a memorable twist. Probably most people have not considered the injustice of sovereign debt explained in the context of "taxation without representation". These folks can then digest what I have to say, and re-articulate it with their own personal touch (possibly more effectively than the way that I did), and then spread the word to 100 unreceptive people with a low yield (say, 2%) and 100 more receptive people, who will then spread it, etc.

Anyways, given your response it seems to already have worked. Here you have given an alternative way to deliver the same message. Fantastic. Also, my response has enough upvotes for me to think, "gee, here are X more people now have this brainworm about the fundamental unfairness of sovereign debt".

[handrous]

> Sir, this is hacker news.

You make a very good point. I stand corrected. :-)

[SilasX]

>Governments don't work like a household. What matters is borrow costs and use of funds. If a government can borrow and the net growth generated is greater than the interest rate on the debt, it's a good thing to borrow. Like any business debt.

If that was an attempt to show a difference from households, I don't see it, since those thing are equally true of households.

[VHRanger]

A household spends to consume or enjoy leisure. You might invest it as well, but that's not "spending"

A business spends to generate ROI.

[SilasX]

A house hold can spend to consume or invest, and I was only replying to the remark you made, not whatever new argument you might make later to salvage it.