Why Don't Governments Just Print More Money? | MMT Myth | IEA Interview

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]I think MMT was born out of an accounting mistake. They pretend that the government can run out of money because they don't want to happen.

[00:00:09]>> Right. Yeah.

[00:00:09]>> Virtually every government has done this, including some very leftwing governments.

[00:00:13]>> Yes.

[00:00:13]>> It's just a conspiracy theory. As far as I can see, >> MMT haven't been great at formulating what that is because their theories are terrible.

[00:00:28]Hello and welcome to another IIA podcast. I'm Dr. Christopher Snowden here at the IIA. I'm the head of lifestyle economics and I am delighted to be joined by the author of a new book. His name is Emanuel Majori. The book is called If You Can Just More Money, Why do I pay taxes? And it is about modern monetary theory, which many of our viewers will be familiar with, but probably not all of them. So, could you tell me what it is? Just give me the the the steelman case for it.

[00:00:57]>> All right. So, let's um let's say MMT is a lens, a way to analyze >> economic questions. So, let's apply the lens to Chris Snowden. Okay. Yeah. Let's let's let's do it that way. So, let's assume Chris has an unlimited credit card. You can spend no all you want.

[00:01:20]Mhm.

[00:01:20]>> There needs to be some money creation somewhere to be able to do that, right?

[00:01:24]So, let's say you have access to the money printer. So, let's make this assumption for a second because that's, you know, one of the assumptions of MMT. It's about the central government, not about Chris Nenm, but let's focus on you for now.

[00:01:37]And, um, now we can draw some conclusions that have been very publicized, right? So, one of them is that Chris cannot run out of money. He's not financially constrained, >> right?

[00:01:51]>> Yep.

[00:01:51]>> Um, you are constrained by real resources though. You can't there's there there are things that money can buy. Let's say you want to build a skyscraper in a month.

[00:02:02]>> Yep.

[00:02:02]>> You can't do that physically, right? So, you're not going to be able to do that.

[00:02:06]However, if you want to buy, you know, we're in Westminster now, so if you want to buy all the buildings, you know, around us, maybe even the parliament, >> I can do that.

[00:02:14]>> You can do that. Yeah. You're you're not financially constrained, right? Um, this could cause a mess though, right?

[00:02:21]Because if you interfere with or you you add demand for things that other people want, you're going to increase the prices.

[00:02:29]>> Yeah.

[00:02:30]>> Right. So, >> we're going to give you this credit card under one condition, which is that you only will buy things or build things using idle resources.

[00:02:42]>> Yeah.

[00:02:42]>> And they're idle just because. So there's no market mechanism to actually use those resources, right? So let's say you want to build a house, you hire unemployed y >> workers who can build a house, right?

[00:02:58]Let's say they have the right skills, but nobody wants them, right? There's no, you know, no demand for their services and there are piles of materials, you know, lying around, a piece of land that nobody wants. Y >> So we let you print money and then you go and build a house. And this is a sort of free lunch in a way because you've increased economic capacity, right?

[00:03:19]There's more housing.

[00:03:20]>> Mhm.

[00:03:21]>> But there are no adverse consequences because you're not competing for the same resources.

[00:03:27]>> Yeah.

[00:03:27]>> Right.

[00:03:28]>> Okay.

[00:03:29]>> And now apply that to the central government. All that chain of thought to the central government and that's MMT.

[00:03:35]So we can essentially go and say we assume the central government let's say Rachel Reeves is allowed to print money right uh we can think in practice she could tell the bank of England what to do right for instance buy my bonds you know >> and uh then she could well she's not going to be financially constrained anymore right and then provided that she doesn't she just exploits let's say or utilizes idle resources she's going to achieve things that can be achieved Yeah.

[00:04:05]>> Right now >> without creating inflation.

[00:04:07]>> Yes.

[00:04:08]>> So this is the theory. So the I mean you've been very fair I think there to the MMT because you you emphasize this aspect about the being idle resources and there usually are some idle resources. There's nearly always some workers who are unemployed and often there are it depends what you call idle resources really. I never quite know if like the coal in the ground is an idle resource or not. You know >> sand. We got lots of sand. is that we've got unlimited amounts of sand and therefore probably unlimited amounts of concrete probably. Um so it's you make a very compelling case obviously. So what's what's is there a flaw in this theory as well?

[00:04:42]>> Yeah, there are quite a few issues. So we can take it from the very beginning, right? So I said let's assume that you're giving an unlimited credit card.

[00:04:50]Right? Now that's a fictitious world because in the world we're in there are rules that limit the spending by the central government. Right. And um these rules exist. They exist for a reason actually, but they do exist. And what MMTs do is they ass they assume these rules do not exist >> without saying it very often.

[00:05:14]>> Right? So they go straight to the conclusion. They say the government is not financially constrained. But in reality, what they're trying to say is if we assume that the central government is allowed to print money, then it can run out of money. Which is sort of truism, right? It's like it's obvious, right? Mhm.

[00:05:29]>> Um but essentially the first issue with MMT is that it applies to a world where some of the real rules have been kind of ignored.

[00:05:39]>> When you say real rules, do you mean fiscal rules? These are self-imposed rules to some extent, right? Because we could get the central bank printing in large amounts of >> money. Yeah. And that's the point. It it is true we could, right? But we don't for good reason.

[00:05:52]>> Yes. For a good reason. So what's that reason? So that reason is that well first of all do idle resources exist like that just for no reason in the economy?

[00:06:04]>> Um it's likely that not really not to the extent that MMT you know uh says that happens.

[00:06:13]>> Yeah.

[00:06:14]>> But even if there were idle resources can the government really identify those res resources and only spend that money >> idle. Yeah. exactly the right amount or even free up resources because they say you can use taxation to free up resources so that then the government can use them. But there's something in economics called inflation bias. We're talking hardcore economic theory, right?

[00:06:37]That says that um if you let the government do whatever it wants with a money printer, there's an incentive to say it will do one thing >> which is I will not print money, right?

[00:06:49]and then try to use surprise money printing right to achieve things right because the expectations of people are dec I'm not going to increase my prices preemptively because the government is you know >> so essentially there's an incentive to break your own rules right so uh much of the criticism against MMT comes from the political economy are politicians really going to do this you know, will they really say, "I'm going to, you know, only mobilize idle resources. I will increase taxes."

[00:07:25]>> Yeah.

[00:07:26]>> But I guess to be fair, then they say, "Well, this is just what we think we should do. We can't help it if governments get it wrong." And I know some of these people say, "Well, actually, the Bimar Republic, they didn't do it properly. Venezuela didn't do it properly. Zimbabwe, no one's actually ever done it properly. We've just been unlucky with bad leagues." But going back to these fiscal rules, the fiscal rules are there basically to avoid hyperinflation ultimately because you cannot you cannot in in practice actually print unlimited amounts of money.

[00:07:51]>> Yeah. Because there's also another point. This all sounds great when you put it because the way you just put it almost sounds like there's a good way to do this but we don't trust politicians.

[00:08:01]Resources are all mobile. You can repurpose resources very easily, right?

[00:08:06]And I think with you know MMT again the theoretical part isn't very good but we could think of okay let's give them the benefit of the doubt and let's see what uh what um sorry what they what they can do in terms of uh policym what could could they suggest in terms of policym they have an article where they explain how you can pay for the green new deal I mean this package of measures uh or reforms in the US uh environmental reforms are also social reforms and how you're going to pay for that. And um this was a good chance for them to show in practice what is that good way of doing things even if you know potentially politicians could not do it that way but what is the good way of doing MMT uh and uh the paper is I mean I think everyone should should read it because I'll just give you an example um they start with the resource question right we need to analyze resources instead of money right what are the resources is needed for environmental transition.

[00:09:12]Right? But two paragraphs later, they say this is too difficult. So let's just think in terms of money, the cost of resources, >> right? Which is already kind of weird.

[00:09:21]Uh and then they say um let's say we socialize health care in the US. That means health care spending will go down because in general singlepayer healthcare like the one in the in the UK costs less.

[00:09:35]>> And that means less spending on healthare. This means resources are going to be liberated.

[00:09:41]>> Okay?

[00:09:41]>> Which means you can do more greening, right? So an insurance broker like a health insurance broker is now installing solar panels. So all the resources just moved, right?

[00:09:52]>> Yes.

[00:09:53]>> Which has a lot of flexibility.

[00:09:55]>> A lot of flex all resources are alike.

[00:09:57]>> Yeah. Exactly.

[00:09:58]>> Right. So you can just repurpose all of the resources and a lot of another thing uh free college. That's one of the proposals and free college that would certainly take resources but it would pay for itself because the increase in productivity of people workers thanks to free college perfectly offsets all of the resources required to provide free college. So essentially >> completely freelance. Yes, we haven't found that in the UK since we started sending so many people to university.

[00:10:32]Hard to say, but there so yeah the practical case the the policy uh view of MMT is very very I would say naive and halfbaked. Yes, >> it would be great if they had you know a good proposal that maybe it's difficult to implement but but they don't have that.

[00:10:50]>> I mean I find I find it amazing that this is taken off in any way at all. I mean it's obviously not a mainstream idea still.

[00:10:57]>> Yeah. But I mentioned it to my daughter several years ago when she was like 10 or something >> and she said, "Well, that's going to make prices go up, isn't it?" You know, it's like it's so it's so obvious what the problem is with if you're always trying to dig into it as you have in your book and let's try and take this seriously. Maybe I'm missing something.

[00:11:13]But there really isn't anything to miss.

[00:11:15]It's just a very childish view of how the economy works and full of wishful thinking and kind of word play as well.

[00:11:22]And I've noticed I I wrote an article about this when um Zach Palansky was basically promoting it >> um a few months ago and I got a lot of sort of abuse on on Twitter, but all very much from a sort of script. It's like they seem to have four or five phrase they use again and again. You wonder if even they really understand >> Yeah.

[00:11:42]>> what these things. I I found it fascinating because I I rejoined Twitter or X not too long ago and I started >> speaking with MMER and I discovered the way they think and I was impressed you know I was like or I was unimpressed >> because there is they have a playbook there's nothing that will ever change their minds >> but the playbook is very sly because what they do is they change the meaning of words very often. So you prove them wrong about something and then they will tell you something in response that is technically true >> but they redefine the word deficit to mean something else for instance >> right >> so yeah but we're now talking about something else or when you point out that there are rules that prevent the government currently from spending without restrictions they will tell you but who cares the rules could be removed >> well they're right about that the rules could be removed but when you ask them I mean one question I a fairly obvious question really I asked well if It was so easy to finance virtually unlimited government projects. Why haven't any governments kind of openly done it? I mean, you can argue that various governments have done it.

[00:12:50]>> I can touch what say.

[00:12:52]>> Well, they they say it's a deliberate attempt to to crush the working man basically, won't they?

[00:12:56]>> Yes. Essentially, they say that some people are opposed ideologically to helping people.

[00:13:02]>> Yeah.

[00:13:03]They call them neoliberals or you know and because of that they have bias against people essentially or helping >> crazy but that makes it very seductive right >> perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Very seductive.

[00:13:28]Yeah. uh but much of the criticism uh to MMT comes from left-wing people which is something a lot of people don't know because there's a lot of superficial criticism of MMT let's say you find it you know in very short newspaper articles >> but there are some academics that have tried to analyze MMT deeply by reading the MMT work and publish articles >> the people who've done this and have been critical of MMT are people who want bigger government >> but they say this is not the way this is you know it's a red herring.

[00:14:00]>> You're quite right. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone who's got any kind of understanding of economics really would would you get why this isn't isn't going to work somehow.

[00:14:07]What about the idea that um deficits make us richer? Isn't that one of the claims?

[00:14:13]>> Yeah. Again, lots of things that MNT say are technically true >> but economically untrue. So, a deficit makes you financially richer because you have Sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me today. So a deficit makes you richer because you have more bonds in your hands, >> right? So technically >> you mean the government.

[00:14:34]When we say we, who we talking about here, the people like me, you or the government?

[00:14:37]>> Me and you. So when the government issues bonds Yeah.

[00:14:41]>> or money.

[00:14:41]>> Yeah.

[00:14:42]>> Either it prints money or it issues bonds.

[00:14:45]>> That increases the financial wealth of people >> in nominal terms >> because they hold government bonds.

[00:14:51]>> Yeah. So I will give you an example.

[00:14:53]>> More money more money in uh I will give you an example in in Argentina which is where I grew up uh people have managed to save millions of pesos thanks to uh government deficits. Yeah.

[00:15:04]>> Right.

[00:15:05]>> So they've become uh richer. Yeah. But it is technically true that a government deficit puts more financial wealth in nominal terms in enhanced people.

[00:15:16]>> No nominal terms being nominal terms.

[00:15:17]This is very interesting because if you look at Stephanie Kelton's book, the the deficit method, bestseller, mainstream bestseller, it's at every airport, right? Where she builds a case for MMT.

[00:15:29]She explains this and every time she says that a government deficit puts more wealth in the hands of the public. She uses the word financial before. She never explains why she's using this word. She says it increases wealth in financial terms. you know the financial because it's paper money what that means it's paper money right >> which is not wealth of course yeah >> it's not wealth so it is technically true but economically untrue and I'll give you another example >> an MMT style government cannot default on his debt technically >> because you can always print money >> right >> but it can still default on its debt economically why because if you know if I owe you a thousand pesos and I you know I pay you back the thousand pesos 10 years Mhm.

[00:16:15]>> You can't do much with it. You if there's any surprise inflation between, I'm kind of defaulting on my debt economically speaking.

[00:16:21]>> Yes.

[00:16:21]>> Right. And MMTs do this all the time.

[00:16:24]They ignore the effects of inflation. So they they say things that are technically true but economically untrue. And this, in my opinion, has caused a very dangerous aha moment in people who pick up Stephanie Kelson's book >> because they're like, "Hold on, government debt can always be repaid.

[00:16:42]Why are we speaking of default or debt ceiling when the government can always pay its debt? But it's an incomplete explanation because >> as an Argentinian, you know this better than most, right?

[00:16:50]>> Yeah.

[00:16:51]>> Because Argentinians defaulted on its debt.

[00:16:54]>> Yeah. I mean, >> but they could in theory if carry off.

[00:16:57]>> Yeah. We're talking national debt here.

[00:16:58]So the debt that you owe in your own currency. Yeah. Right. uh which technically true, you know, the the UK may never default on its debt because it could technically get the central bank to to print money >> of course >> to pay it off, but it will default economically. Yeah.

[00:17:13]>> On his debt if it's >> things would be awful. Yeah.

[00:17:15]>> Yeah. Because if anybody gave money to the government thinking I'm going to be able to do this with the money when because that's what what saving means, right? Is I withhold consumption, right?

[00:17:25]I don't go to my holiday in the Mediterranean because I want to put that money uh and I help the government presumably do things instead, right? Uh but my reward is that in 10 years I'll get that money back and I'll be able to go on a bigger holiday. Yeah, >> that's how it works, >> right? Not a worse holiday.

[00:17:45]>> Not a worse holiday.

[00:17:46]>> If I go on a worse holiday, you've defaulted on your debt economically. At least if it was a surprise, right?

[00:17:51]Right? When inflation is predictable and stable, you could, you know, plan accordingly. But when there's any surprise inflation in between, >> then that's effectively an economic default.

[00:18:04]>> So the the big one I think in terms of these slogans that these people use is that a government budget is not like a household.

[00:18:12]>> Yes.

[00:18:12]>> Uh this is what Zach Blansky said. I wasn't quite sure if he actually understood the implications of what he was saying. Uh but you hear it a lot from people. We've kind of touched on it already really because this is just like the the umbrella term for everything we're talking about. But what's wrong with that analogy?

[00:18:26]>> Look, I think uh again very very confusing um because the way MMTers sell this idea. MMT confuses what is with what could be. So I'll give you a specific example of the US. Um in the US the Treasury cannot run an overdraft.

[00:18:44]It's not allowed to have negative money in its accounts. So it always needs taxes or bond sales to replenish the accounts. So it is like a household >> in reality, right? Yeah. Um again, that's artificial because we could change the rules.

[00:19:01]>> Yeah.

[00:19:02]>> We could change them for you too. You we could allow you to have an unlimited overdraft, right? Or we could let local governments because MFT is always about the central government changing the rules for the central government but not for local governments, right? So um what is at the moment is that in the US it is technically like a household by design right but MMTers pretend that these rules have been removed there's a reason for that I can tell you in a second but they pretend that the rules have been removed so now we're in the could be era >> but they usually don't tell you that they are assuming that so they say the government is not like a household but that means you assume that we either let the government have an unlimited overdraft or we remove central bank independence or we do QE in a way that is at the discretion of the treasury and not the central bank >> right so QE to fund the government not to do monetary policy um so essentially we enter this hypo hypothetical world without saying it and this is one of the biggest sins if you want of MMT is that they say they could be as if it's the the the actual rules and that's what confused to Zach Palansky, right?

[00:20:14]Because uh Zach Palansky thinks that the rules don't exist or the hypothetical world is the the real world, >> right? Um and I think this has been very very confusing to a lot of people.

[00:20:27]>> It is confusing because like a lot of what they say there is an element of truth to it.

[00:20:31]>> Yeah.

[00:20:32]>> And I think what they primarily mean with this, it's not like a household thing is that the the household can't print its own money basically, right?

[00:20:40]Well, okay. It can't.

[00:20:42]>> But as with a lot of these things which are kind of uh >> trivially true, let's say >> it misses the fundamental point which actually is that a household is a lot like the government finances in that as with a household borrowing, >> the government has to pay that money back with interest. That's the important thing people need to know about the government finances. Not that in theory they could print a whole lot of money.

[00:21:04]And then they kind of compound that with another of their little cliches, which is that MMT isn't really a a policy.

[00:21:13]It's a description of how things are.

[00:21:16]>> Yes. As you say, it's not actually a description of how things are, is it?

[00:21:19]No. But I can tell you where this comes from. Um, >> I try never to start the conversation with what I'm about about to tell you now because then it's so bad the work that they've done that you would probably want to end the podcast, you know, because it's like it's just let's go. Well, I think MMT was born out of an accounting mistake.

[00:21:39]So when the people who kind of formulated MMT did their work in the end of the 1990s, they analyzed the operations of the US Treasury and the central bank incorrectly. Right? So they misunderstood how things work. They thought that whenever the central government, so the federal government in the case of the US, whenever it collects taxes or tax payments, the money disappears. They literally destroy the money.

[00:22:07]>> This is such a weird belief, but they do believe that it does. Yeah.

[00:22:10]>> Uh and then when the government spend spends, it creates new money.

[00:22:13]>> And if you forget to count some of the account balances, which is the accounting error that they made, >> indeed it will seem as if they are creating money every time they spend.

[00:22:25]But that's categor categorically untrue.

[00:22:27]So essentially whenever the the the federal government collect collects taxes the money it can actually go to commercial banks in the case of the US they have accounts on say HSBC >> and they also have an account at the Fed >> the money can go there y >> but it doesn't disappear. No, >> but it's not counted as part of M1 for example, which is a stat statistical measure >> of the money supply >> of the money supply. But if you count M1 plus the money in that account, it doesn't change money. But they forgot the plus, right? So to them, right?

[00:23:00]>> Oh, M1 goes up when the government spends, right? So they must be creating, right?

[00:23:04]>> They made this mistake. Then they draw all of these conclusions. I think MMT is still interesting despite that because we can still use it to analyze the hypothetical world and say okay let's say the government could do that.

[00:23:16]>> Yeah. Pay is wise.

[00:23:18]>> Exactly.

[00:23:19]>> But so that's I think we still need to listen to them especially with all the QE controversy especially during co you know if the world is turning a little bit like MMT it's good to listen to them right but they made that accounting mistake. People pointed that mistake to them. and they told her, "Look, yeah, you made this mistake."

[00:23:39]They never acknowledged the mistake. So, what they did for years was publish papers to try to prove that that was still true. For example, they would say, uh, yeah, the government has an account that needs to be replenished, but that doesn't matter because of this or that.

[00:23:55]And the the arguments are completely nonsensical. I cover them in my book.

[00:23:59]>> Yeah.

[00:24:00]>> Um, but they've never managed to recover from that issue, I would say. Um, but yes, so that's why they pretend that things work in a certain way. And unfortunately, if you pick up Stephanie Kelton's book 2020, the deficit myth, she tells this story of the defense department in the US buying fighter jets. And she says the moment Congress approves any spending, the um the Fed creates new money to pay for that spending. That's how it works.

[00:24:31]She ignores that actually money is deducted from an account that the government has. The Treasury has this account and it has to have a balance that is that is sufficient to cover that spending like a household. Yeah.

[00:24:43]>> So she ignores that part.

[00:24:44]>> But despite knowing that this is a mistake, they've been she's been told that this is not the right. She still clings to this explanation. But then if you pick up that book, imagine you're at the airport, you pick up that book >> and someone tells you >> the government's literally creating money every time it spends all the time.

[00:25:00]Yeah.

[00:25:00]>> So, MMT is not just hypothetical. It is true.

[00:25:04]>> Yes.

[00:25:04]>> Right.

[00:25:05]>> It is a description of how things are.

[00:25:06]This is what, isn't it?

[00:25:07]>> You feel like you've been scammed.

[00:25:10]That's how people, and I've noticed this on on Twitter, people feel like they've been uh deceived.

[00:25:17]>> Yeah.

[00:25:18]>> Right. Uh and that's why it's not by not >> Yeah. economists.

[00:25:22]>> Yeah.

[00:25:24]>> Yeah.

[00:25:24]>> Yeah. I'd actually forgotten about that whole part of the the thing cuz I I I it's the idea that all the money that's pled in tax is literally destroyed somehow. Yeah.

[00:25:33]>> And then they just start again printing.

[00:25:35]So taxes they don't need taxes of course.

[00:25:38]>> Yeah.

[00:25:38]>> What's the argument for taxes from MMC people?

[00:25:40]>> Well, they would say that >> again >> to reduce inequality I think is one of the arguments.

[00:25:45]>> That's one of them. But yeah, so they would say taxes have three purposes >> because the government just creates money all the time. It could create money all the time. But they say they do do that. But anyway, >> um taxes are needed to drive demand for currency because who will want that money that the government prints, >> right? Uh let's say the government wants to do public works. They want to build a hospital and they offer this money that they print. Why would anybody take that money? Taxation is an obligation. you need to actually pay the government your you know for your tax obligations using that specific money that the government creates which means that people will want to get a hold of that money. People will be willing to work for the government in exchange for that money because then they need to pay taxes using that money. So taxes are not a way to fund the government. They're a way of legitimizing the currency or the national currency.

[00:26:39]>> I don't quite get that bit but never mind. Let's go on to the second one. The second one would be for income redistribution.

[00:26:45]>> Yeah.

[00:26:45]>> All right. So it's like who gets what in the economy and the third one is to deter there's four actually. The third one would be to fight inflation.

[00:26:53]>> So if inflation ever picks up, >> you need to destroy some more money.

[00:26:56]>> Exactly. You need to actually tax people so they stop spending >> because you know the speed limit of the economy like we said before is the availability of real resources. If at any point the combined spending of the government and the private sector goes up a little too high >> pushing the economy beyond the speed limit then we need to suppress some spending and that's what taxes do.

[00:27:19]>> Okay.

[00:27:20]>> Again lots of theoretical issues >> but also practical issues because of lags even political issues like Yeah. Um and the fourth role of taxes is to deter certain behaviors like smoking.

[00:27:34]>> Oh right. Yeah. But the tax one is actually quite interesting because lately some MMTiers, there's like a new generation of MMT now. Um, and some of them have been saying we shouldn't even increase taxes if inflation goes up.

[00:27:50]Why? Because inflation will encourage producers to increase their capacity.

[00:27:57]So they will accommodate infl.

[00:27:59]>> Why?

[00:28:00]>> Because well >> econom serious economists will call this money illusion, right?

[00:28:06]>> Um let's let's play along though. So we're in Argentina. You're you own a factory and now you see that there's a lot of demand for your products because the government's actually printing money. Yeah. Yeah. But you have a lot of demand for your there's a there's willingness to pay a lot for your stuff.

[00:28:22]>> Yeah.

[00:28:23]>> So you will double your capacity. You'll build another factory. Okay, >> that's what M >> possibly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:29]>> You wouldn't though because you know this is inflation. You don't have money illusion. You know that this is not because people actually want your products. It's because of inflation and you know that your cost will go up very quickly too.

[00:28:40]>> So it's kind, you know what I mean?

[00:28:41]>> Well, yeah. If it's if it's starting off with there being more demand because of the government printing on some money. So people got more money so they feel they can buy more stuff.

[00:28:53]>> But yeah, you right. You're right. the rest of the everything else is going as well.

[00:28:56]>> If that were true in Argentina, >> people would have, you know, >> if it was like legitimate rise in demand, you might think about producing more, but not in this case. Okay, got you.

[00:29:05]>> Yeah.

[00:29:05]>> Yeah. No, no business like that.

[00:29:07]>> Yeah. And a very very dangerous uh suggestion. Yeah.

[00:29:10]>> Yeah. Well, it all. It's just let inflation run its course, you know, which it usually doesn't from what we've seen, you know.

[00:29:17]>> Yeah.

[00:29:18]>> But there's not real MMT, they would say in Latin America. That's wrong. That's what they always seem to say. Yeah.

[00:29:23]>> Yeah. Um and I I guess they not really uh had a reckoning with all the inflation we actually had in 2022 23. I don't remember any of these people calling for higher taxes.

[00:29:36]>> No, destroy money then. If anything probably more MMT they were saying or more.

[00:29:40]>> Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So initially they say they said before inflation picked up >> they said inflation >> they said there was risk of deflation actually. Then obviously the co thing was a supply shock and they would say we want you know the we want to help people. This is not a good time to to be taxing people.

[00:29:59]>> Um so yeah they don't seem to be calling for they weren't calling for increases in taxes when inflation >> picked up and >> well to be fair they're not the only people who've managed to kind of ignore the entire monetary side of the the the inflation of that era as well unfortunately which means we might well go through it again. Look, we've got to stop because we're we're out of time, but it's been absolutely a pleasure to speak for you. Uh speak to you. Um the book is out Friday.

[00:30:24]>> Yes. If you can just print money, why do I pay taxes?

[00:30:26]>> That's the name of it. I strongly recommend it. I I read it a few months ago. I gave a quote for the dust jacket.

[00:30:32]It's very very good.

[00:30:34]>> Um well, as you can tell from hearing hearing him speak, it's very very clear.

[00:30:39]>> Uh fairly concise, quite amusing. Uh I think uh yeah but also you have to say you take you take the people seriously.

[00:30:47]This is not just about like that I have to say >> oh were you slightly drawn in by this yourself it's >> so I would say MMTers have been right about a few things very few things in the past um and what drew me to MMT was to okay I want to know what else they could be right about. So I did not start I literally bought their textbook. They wrote a whole textbook called macroeconomics where they analyzed lots of issues from the MMT lens >> and I read it cover to cover. Um so I wanted to understand MMT and it derailed very quickly. That's what I but I I didn't want to debunk MMT. That was not my my my goal. That's good. Good.

[00:31:25]>> Yeah.

[00:31:25]>> Excellent. Well, thanks very much for coming on the podcast.

[00:31:27]>> Good. Good luck with the book. Um thanks for tuning in folks. We'll be back next week with uh another episode of the Twilight Zone. Thank you very much.

[00:31:36]Goodbye.