Modern Monetary Theory - MMT

What is MMT and how could it completely change your perception of life in a nation with a sovereign fiat currency?

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MMT - What is it anyway??

"I've heard it called the Magic Money Tree"
"If we just keep printing money, we'll devalue the dollar!"
"Printing money will cause inflation!"
"OhEmGee the National Debt!!"

We've all heard loads of rumors...now it's time to get the truth!

Use the arrows or swipe through the slides to learn more.

Modern Monetary Theory or MMT

MMT is just a description of how sovereign fiat, floating exchange rate currencies like the US dollar actually work. MMT helps us move past the outdated gold-standard thinking that hasn't been right for decades.

It's not something to implement someday, it is exactly how our money works TODAY!!

Sovereign currency issuers...

Many governments issue their own currency. The sovereign issuer of a nation’s currency is nothing like the users of its currency - such as households, businesses, or state and local governments.

The currency issuer is not constrained to balanced budgeting in the same way as a currency user.

Government Solvency

Sovereign governments can never run out of the currency they issue.

No matter what politicians or talking heads on TV say, when a country issues its own sovereign currency, it can never run out.

That would be like the scorekeeper in baseball running out of points! Crazy, right?

Taxes and Federal Spending

Federal taxes are not collected in order for the government to spend later. They are actually deleted out of existence!

As a matter of fact, in order for us to pay taxes in the first place, the government, the CURRENCY ISSUER, has to create (or spend into existence) the money. Then, we CURRENCY USERS have to find a way to get some money to pay our taxes.

The National Debt

It is not possible for a currency issuer to go broke.

Most governments, most of the time, will run fiscal deficits. This is not a matter of concern, and is indeed a good thing, as it means most private sectors will be able to run the financial surpluses they wish to add to their net savings.

The government’s deficit is our surplus – we should be glad all that money hasn’t been taxed out of the economy!

Where Do I Learn More?

Look through our collection of articles below to learn more! They are conveniently categorized and there are plenty of resources from MMT Beginner to Macroeconomics Expert level.

Browse our MMT focused articles and filter them using the tabs at the top to find a specific topic.

Browse our MMT focused articles and filter them using the dropdown tab at the top to find a specific topic.

Taxes Don’t Fund Federal Spending

Steven D. Grumbine February 26, 2023 Democracy Economic Justice

Our federal government doesn’t need revenue. So why the chatter about how will the government get money to fund its operations?

“Debt” Ceilings for Dummies

Greg Roest January 10, 2023 Economic Justice MMT Beginner

Beautifully simple are a sovereign nation’s sectoral balances. They readily demonstrate that the government’s negative is the public’s positive, and vice versa.

Fact-checking Biden’s Inflation Remarks

Artemis Douglas November 8, 2022 Democracy Economic Justice

On October 21st, 2022, President Biden made an address regarding his administration’s historic deficit reduction. Let’s break it down.

How Banks Create Money When They Lend

Charlie Silva September 22, 2022 Economic Justice Education

It is up to academics and informed lay-people alike to alter the understanding of banking in the public consciousness.

Sound Money

Cory Doctorow September 14, 2022 Economic Justice

The inflation hawks have a point: inflation is genuinely destabilizing. But where the inflation hawks go wrong is in blaming “money printing” for inflation.

Bad Medicine Root Cause Analysis: Abstractions Are Killing Us

Cian Walker August 9, 2022 Economic Justice MMT Intermediate

Abstractions are invented and agreed upon by us but often become runaway Frankenstein’s monsters when we forget that we made them up.

The Emperor’s New Commodities

Jonathan Kadmon July 14, 2022 Economic Justice Health and Well-being

Frauds and hucksters have always relied on false dichotomies and thought-terminating cliches to misdirect the attention of their audience from more appealing alternatives.

Fed Chairman Powell Wants Higher Unemployment to Stop Inflation

Tom Ramirez July 13, 2022 Current Events Economic Justice

Twitter Thread: Consumer Price Index is 9.1%. year over year. The Fed’s solution is to raise interest rates, killing the economy to bring down. A thread …

Why we need to debunk the 'deficit myth' - BBC REEL

Government spending is increasing at an unprecedented rate to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Many people worry this could burden future generations.

However, economist Stephanie Kelton, author of The Deficit Myth, argues that we need to rethink our attitudes towards government spending.

Could Modern Monetary Theory help us navigate our way out of this crisis – and even help build a fairer economy?