Comment on TASS/Tom Hickey on ‘Russia will keep low level of public debt to ensure macroeconomic stability — experts’
Tom Hickey comments “I guess they haven't yet discovered MMT.”
First, for governments, there is not much to discover with MMT. Governments do deficit-spending/money-creation since time immemorial. And the Russian government is NO exception.
Does anybody believe that Mr. Putin does not know recent history? “Adam Smith, when he wrote his Wealth of Nations, and Burke, when he produced his famous speech on economic reform, understood by ‘political economy’ a ‘branch of the science of the statesman or legislator’, a theory of practice, the science of the prudent management of the public finances. The growth of the huge debts which weighed on the great military nations would end in proving their ruin. This was especially true of England, which had become immensely in debt through the conquest of her colonial Empire.” (Halévy)
Second, does anybody believe that Mr. Putin does not know that MMT policy is NOT for the benefit of the People but for the benefit of the Oligarchy?#1 To recall, the macroeconomic Profit Law implies Public Deficit = Private Profit. Does it make sense for Mr. Putin to feed the Russian Oligarchs with newly created money?
Because we cannot read Mr. Putin's mind we really don't know.
It is different from Mr. Trump. The first thing he did after his inauguration was to surround himself with Wall Street folks. So, it is not really a surprise that Mr. Trump blew deficit-spending/money-creation up to hitherto unknown proportions.#2
After four years, it is pretty obvious that for Mr. Trump and his oligarchic backers it holds: mission accomplished.#3
No surprise then, that MMT has become so popular in the U.S. recently#4 but not so much in Russia.
Egmont Kakarot-Handtke
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Twitter Jan 23, 2021, The King of Debt
