Doctorow is really a sci-fi author but he got a name as a futurologist around the time of the dot-com bubble. This time, his comments on AI look more directly like prediction. See https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur It’s not so much about what AI can or can’t do, nor how it works. Doctorow writes about the business model by which AI is being pitched to financiers and investors. His point is that this model won’t, and can’t, work as claimed.

This is a great clarifying piece from the thought leaders of MMT responding to their critics. They make the point to differentiate between a generalized description of money mechanics vs. specific implementation like the U.S. model. As has pointed out in the past, they clearly understand how the U.S. system clearly works under today’s self selected fiscal and legal constraints, such as the TGA must be funded prior to spending, no Treasury overdraft at the Fed, and the Fed cannot buy bonds directly from the Treasury. Supporters of MMT often conflate the need for the Fed/CB to create new Reserves by spending or lending, with the Treasury creating new reserves by Gov spending, but which the authors do not. Anything here anybody would like to point out or discuss? Anything anybody would like to add?

There are a few people I greatly respect for their wisdom in economics and the monetary system who are fans of MMT, and they have tried to explain to me what MMT is and how it works. The major MMT premise from what I can gather is something like this: "The Government issues money to spend first, and receives tax revenue and bond sales revenue later, so tax and bond sales revenue do not fund government spending and deficits don’t matter because the Gov can always issue new money to pay off the bonds." MMT as a whole can be summarized from what I have read primarily by some version of the 11 arguments below: 1. Gov tax receipts and bond sales revenue do not fund Gov spending. 2. The Gov issues new money to pay Gov bills. 3. The Fed issues new money for the Gov to spend by crediting the account of the Gov at the Fed. 4. The Bank of England issues new money for the Gov to spend by crediting the reserve accounts of the banks of Gov payees, paying Gov bills on the Government’s behalf. 5. Gov deficit spending causes negative Gov equity and positive public equity by the Gov printing more money to cover deficit spending. 6. The Gov sells bonds to reduce the supply of reserves and influence interest rates. 7. The Gov cannot go bankrupt and Gov deficits and debt aren’t a problem because the Gov can always print more money to pay off Gov debt. 8. What matters when the Gov runs a deficit is whether there is excess capacity in the real economy to put the money to use, and we should increase Gov deficit spending until inflation starts, which only happens when there is not any more capacity absorb new money, so new money at that point just starts to increase prices. 9. Interest rates should be 2% (or lower) to maximize output in the real economy, and deliver economic opportunity to the most amount of people, ideally everyone. 10. Gov deficits should not be feared and should be run to achieve full employment, otherwise we are wasting the opportunity to deliver full production, and build the largest economic pie for the everyone to share.

Prof. Steve Keen just dropped a massive new video breaking down why we are entering a classic late cycle debt crisis. 📉 Mainstream economists are still ignoring the private debt bomb, but Steve is calling it out! 🔥 Watch him explain how private debt destroys the money supply and why tools like Ravel© are essential to see the real picture. 🧠💡 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jos7QsdOtjc&views

Hey Steve just uploaded a new video. Check it out here;