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jameslevy | 2 years ago

What about the MMT concept of just taxing the rich and "burning" their funds as a targeted method of reducing the money supply?

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roenxi|2 years ago

In practice the government will mis-interpret any theory and attempt to build a financial perpetual motion machine that revolves around printing money. Then everyone will feel very poor while being told they are rich.

Fairly similar to how at present they have done exactly the same thing and generally try to call it Keynesianism from what I can tell. They skipped the parts of Keynesianism that would involve spending less which I suspect is a contributor to the progression of 2000-2007-2023 where every 10 years the crisis gets bigger.

The situation is not that complex. We need people to, by and large, create at least as much value as they consume. There are enormous efforts to find an alternative to that basic balance by creating lots of money and they by and large aren't actually working.

Also the rich don't consume that much stuff in absolute terms, so taking stuff away from them can't help other people to an great extent. The taxing has to be on the middle class who do most of the consuming. There are no alternatives. Can't tax the poor because they have no money, and ironically can't tax "the rich" because although they nominally have money they don't own that much real stuff as a group.

trashtester|2 years ago

That actually sounds closer to Austrian concepts of inflation than MMT. Reducing the money supply in itself doesn't affect consumer prices, if it only affects money that was not in circulation anyway.

In order to use taxes to counter inflation (when it is defined as increas in consumer prices), you need to tax those who would otherwise spend most of the money. The most efficient way is to tax the upper middle class.

brvsft|2 years ago

I save most of my money, but supposedly I was going to spend it anyway so actually it should be taxed? Infuriating take.

Edit: Forgot to mention the obvious, if this is how you feel, why isn't a higher sales tax on certain items ideal? People scoff at sales tax proposals because they'd target the poor, but sales taxes could be implemented progressively too. Tax new cars, smartphones, etc. More expensive items get a higher tax, reducing the impact on poorer people.