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Understanding Deficit

I have zero background in Economics and The Deficit Myth was recommended to me by a banking type who swore it was easy enough for anyone to understand. That part is true - the language is simple and jargon free so the average person can follow along just fine. The problem is what they are meant to make of the statements are are made that appear to defy commonsense. For example, this one about taxes: 

The tax is there to create a demand for the government’s currency. Before anyone can pay the tax, someone has to do the work to earn the currency.

This is not different from collecting digital trinkets in the online gaming world in a sense. That "currency" can only be created by whoever developed the game, they get to control how much of it exists in the world and can create scarcity to drive up demand and desirability. Applying the same logic to taxes does not compute in my head. 

The story the author relates to fortify our understanding of the concept is an interesting one. A parent pays his kids in business cards for chores around the house and they need to have built reserves of such card each month to keep their privileges. Not connecting the card to outcomes made kids not do the chores but once it was assigned value their behavior changed. A good story but still can't understand what that has to do with taxes.

So we are all put to work by the government and to ensure our compliance taxes come due a certain day of the year. Say we wanted to opt of the system because we did not like the kinds of work we were expected to do, in theory we could resort to bartering and cryptocurrency and find ways not to owe any taxes. While I am following along the author's logic in the book, I don't understand fundamental concepts that would allow me to have an informed opinion about any of the arguments in favor of MMT.



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