Matthew Nyberg

An interesting and worthwhile read, but I personally feel that there are some fundamental, difficult questions that go unanswered. I found the general re-imagining of the monetary economy for a fiat currency issued by the government to be interesting, but the author repeatedly referred to inflation as the primary limiter to government spending while also suggesting a host of government spending would not have any impact on the economy because the money could be created. To me, it seems that treasuries are not just another form of dollar, but a temporary alternative to increased taxation to remove mobile currency from the economy which then necessitate more spending in the future. In short, deficits without increased debt will create inflation and deficits with corresponding debt shifts inflationary pressures into the future. This book regularly ignored the long term impacts of debt spending, simply saying that the demand for US debt will never decrease, so there's no pressure to slow down. I doubt that this assumption holds through decades of current deficit spending. Fundamentally, bits and pieces are interesting, but as a whole the book only served to convince me that Modern Monetary Theory is a tool for lawmakers to use to justify spending and deficits.