this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
103 points (98.1% liked)

Canada

10680 readers
384 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer

💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales

🗣️ Politics

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
otter@lemmy.ca
mp3@lemmy.ca
otter@piefed.ca
mp3@piefed.ca
103
Mark Carney’s first budget projects $78B deficit, program and civil service cuts (www.sootoday.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Rentlar@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
79 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The theme seems to be "reduce operating spending, increase capital spending". We'll see how that will blow over with the opposition.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Krugman has come around on it over the last few years actually, through discussions with noted MMT proponents Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus. So you might want to search for more recent stuff.

In the MMT, taxes both fund services

incorrect, in MMT taxes remove money from the economy

In your CERB example, there are a lot of factors involved. One is that there really were supply chain disruptions as spending shifted from services to material goods, combined with a lot of intentional price gouging as inflation narratives took hold.

Neither these phenomena nor the disinflationary effect of taxation are immediate or direct in their effects, so I definitely feel for policymakers when crises like these hit.

But we're now very far from the original point, and you seem to be pointing to an exceptional circumstance to try to prove a generality, as well as trying to claim I'm saying things about that exceptional circumstance that haven't said.

[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Krugman has come around on it over the last few years actually, through discussions with noted MMT proponents Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus

Can you share anything to this end? I've looked and found a couple of interviews with Tankus but nothing that at a glance would seem to change Krugman's assertion that MMT is essentially Calvinball. (I'd rather not read through all their chats.)

But we’re now very far from the original point, and you seem to be pointing to an exceptional circumstance to try to prove a generality

Pal, you were the one to bring up Covid/CERB as your first defense of printing money!

It’s literally how we dealt with the first phase of the Covid pandemic. Was keeping millions of Canadians from being evicted a bad idea?

But at the end of the day, whether the program happened in a pandemic or not, the core issue remains. Governments have deficits to cover spending, e.g., on public servant salaries. According to MMT, this isn't an issue because you just print money to pay your debts and then tax money out of the system to prevent inflation. Which, groovy but that spending was there for a reason! Like, okay, keep the salaries but then what, just tax everyone else more? You've just created austerity with more steps.

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Tankus has blogged about Krugman's evolution.

And my "defense of printing money" was not a judgement about the inflationary pressure of doing so, it was a recognition that there are more things to consider - such as the risk of millions of people being evicted from their homes or going hungry.

You're still trying to put words in my mouth, and you're not engaging earnestly, so, goodbye

(edit: typo)

[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Tankus has blogged about Krugman’s evolution.

So nothing from Krugman himself? Seems reasonable...

You’re still trying to put words in my mouth,

Lol, yes by quoting you and adding the exact context.

I strongly recommend, just give a quick look at any of the dozens well rounded critiques of MMT. Some may be a little obtuse if you don't have an econ background but feel free to reach out and i'll explain as best I can!

Cheers.

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

I am pointing to Tankus' blog because he outlines the things Krugman has said.

Second: would you have not issued CERB and had millions lose housing? Or would you issue CERB and accept some inflationary pressure (keeping in mind that much of the inflation was gouging and supply chain issues)? You had made a blanket statement "issuing currency is drinking bleach" and I gave one of many possible examples for why that is a ridiculous statement.

And in terms of your arrogance around understanding what you're talking about:

"Taxes fund services" is flat out wrong from a MMT perspective, quite literally it is the most fundamentally wrong thing one could say about it as an economic framework, so I suggest you develop a better understanding of the thing you claim to understand the critiques of. Or perhaps read critiques from those who actually understand it.

Cheers