** MMT is the new supply-side economics
Forty years ago, some economists started from an uncontroversial (but important) result: a lower tax rate raises the tax base, so revenues won't fall as much. But then they ran with it, predicting tax rate cuts could raise revenues.

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Inflation Is Coming!

Some say: Inflation didn’t rise after 2008-2015 Fed QE, so it won’t rise this time. Here are the problems with that argument.

1) From 2008-2015 regulators hammered the banks, so while the Fed’s balance sheet expanded, M2 did not accelerate.

2) In 2020, we used the banks to push out money, the opposite of the first round of QE. PPP loans were financed through banks and unemployment checks were direct-deposited.
3) The M2 measure of money is up more than 25% in the past 12 months.

4) That alone, 25%+ M2 growth, is enough, but we are compounding the problems.
5) Regulating fossil fuel production drives energy prices up.
6) Ag, industrial & transportation are energy intensive, and many claim they are bad for the environment. Result: higher prices.

7) Federal government borrowing and deficit spending encourages more Fed money printing, and artificially lifts demand.
8) Higher tax rates, rising minimum wage, and big government crowd out the private sector; reducing supply.
9) Demand up; Supply down! Inflation is coming.

1/ In @RayDalio's perspective, we are at the very late stages of the long term debt cycle. These long term debt cycles typically take 50-75 years to play out. This cycle began in 1945 when World War II ended and we began the US dollar-dominated world order.

2/ In the words of @RayDalio, "Right now, the world’s major central banks have the least fuel in their tanks since the late 1930s so are now in the later stages of the long-term debt cycle. Because they come along about once in a lifetime most people aren’t aware of them."

3/ Central banks have spent the last decade in a race to see who could devalue their currency the fastest. Near 0% interest rates have meant increased printing of the dollar, euro, and yen. Central banks no longer have the ability to tighten credit so they print money.

4/ Being towards the later stages of the long-term debt cycle there is a global sovereign debt bubble similar to what we saw in the 20's & 30's. In 2019, global debt-to-gdp hit 322% with total debt reaching a new all-time high of $253 Trillion.

5/ The wealth gap has also expanded to levels last seen in the 30's. Historically, inequality and large wealth gaps have eventually led to dire consequences. Periods of conflict and social unrest often marked by taxes, revolutions, or wars.

1/16

It is a little frustrating to see the response many analysts had to the GDP growth data Chinese released today. These numbers aren’t especially good, and they certainly shouldn’t have been surprising. Back in April and May, when most

2/16

were projecting negative or barely positive GDP growth for China in 2020 (the OECD, for example, expected China’s GDP to contract by 3.7%), I insisted that GDP growth for 2020 would be positive, and probably between 2% and 3%.

Today, it was reported as 2.3%. How did...

3/16

I know? Because I knew that while most of the healthy sources of Chinese growth would contract (except for exports, which would expand given Beijing’s intense supply-side response to the impact of Covid-19), Beijing was going to respond to a significant...

4/16

worsening of the healthy parts of its economy by unleashing enough of the unhealthy, non-productive growth it has long tried to constrain – basically real estate and infrastructure investment – in order to achieve as much economic activity as it...

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needed for domestic political ends.

And that’s exactly what happened. While GDP grew by 6.5% in the fourth quarter, even with substantial tailwinds its retail sales measure – a proxy for consumption – was only up 4.6%, and it was down 3.9% overall in 2020.

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon RELATIVE to real economic activity. This last part is key.

Also, measuring “the money supply” is a tricky thing, because it lives and breathes with the economy.