The critical—and crippling—misunderstanding about money is embodied in a narrative that is echoed daily, hourly, weekly, yearly with drumbeat regularity, in the national media and spin-chambers.
The narrative will sound very familiar—it goes like this:
The financial wealth of a nation is, at any given time, a finite resource privately and individually held by the citizens; any and all government spending must, therefore, be funded by the collection of taxes. An “out-of-control,” “big government” spends more money than the citizens are willing (or able) to pay in taxes—and this lack of “fiscal responsibility” requires the government to borrow money from the financial markets to make up the difference. This borrowing places the “out-of-control” government in direct competition for the money resources with the business-financial class of citizens. Since all citizens are ultimately dependent upon the business-financial class to create jobs and pay wages, this competition for money resources by “big government” diminishes the overall prosperity of the citizens—a diminishing that is compounded by the burden of tax payments, and further compounded by the government’s debt which represents future tax burdens.
But any economist who makes this claim, either explicit or implicit, that a nation which issues and manages a sovereign fiat currency must either borrow or collect taxes in order to have currency to spend, should have his or her diploma revoked.
And any political leader in a sovereign nation which issues and manages its own fiat currency who claims the national government doesn’t have the “money” to pay for goods or services which are, in fact, available within the national borders—and which would greatly benefit the citizens—should be tarred and feathered and drummed out of office as an ignorant charlatan.
Also, any banker or financial leader who suggests that a sovereign nation which issues and manages its own fiat currency is dependent upon the bond market to “finance” its sovereign spending should be investigated and prosecuted for the financial frauds they are more than likely in the act of perpetrating.
And any journalist who makes his or her living counseling the public about economic matters, who fails to take the time to understand and explain to his or her audience how sovereign fiat currencies actually function, should be summarily stripped of their journalistic credentials and pushed out the door of the newsroom.
In other words, sovereign spending of money happens first and taxes are collected afterwards and the reason the taxes are collected at all is not so the government can spend further, but to ensure that the citizens will continue to want to sell goods and services in exchange for the money the government issues.
Second, sovereign spending which pays the citizens to create real goods and services is not the same as “printing” money in the sense of the alarm-bell description proclaimed by the drumbeat. As long as unused labor and unused resources are actually available, issuing money to marshal that labor and those resources to achieve collective goods will not create inflation but, instead, will expand the overall economy.
Read all of it @: New Economic Perspectives