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In this vein, I think it would be a very different world if the lines in the budget were listed as percentages, and then the overall total was determined based on a factor of tax revenue. So a simplified version would look like:
War: 25%
Social Security: 25%
Bureaucracy: 25%
Debt: 25%
Total budget: 1.25x tax revenue for 2023.
And then the actual amount of money would get calculated based on these figures. Right now the numbers are so disconnected from anything the average person can comprehend.
Edit: I don't really mean for the average person to see percentages. Of course one could calculate percentages after the fact.
I mean for the politicians to only see a percentage on each line item. I mean for politicians to argue that X program should get .01% of the budget, while that program only receives .005%. Percentages are a way of declaring priorities. And you can't exceed 100%.
And then, after the percentages are selected, the total budget compared to the tax revenue for the previous year is argued about and chosen.
Apparently it's not just for the average person.
To be fair, it's easy to mock people who ought to know what they're talking about but the US funding market is legitimately impossible to describe.
The lady in that video got on my nerve. She managed to compress so many bad economic ideas and implications into such a short few sentences.
I also had to double check the date on that video. Is someone seriously asking after the last few years why we don't just print more money? Have they been to a restaurant or bought anything recently? We did the experiment during covid of just 'printing more money' and then we had record setting inflation.
There is also the rather basic idea that if you expect to be paid back in X currency in the future then you have a vested interest in that currency maintaining its value. Its a way of signalling commitment to the future value of the currency. Its like a CEO offering to only be paid in stock options that don't vest for a few years. It would signal they are confident in the future success of the company.
The great thing about printing money here in America is that we are the USA USA USA baby! Everyone takes our dollar, they take it for oil, for oranges, for tungsten, for cars, for iphones. We print it up out of thin air and they give us real goods for it every day.
The higher the trade deficit the more they are getting ripped off by exchanging real goods for dollars. Even with all the printing we are still experiencing a strong dollar and less inflation compared to other countries that don't have the backing of the US economy and 11 carrier strike groups.
Look at any currency vs the US dollar over the last 4 years. The dollar is as strong as it has ever been. MMT is a brilliant scheme for extracting real material and goods from the rest of the world in exchange for protection and promises. It is crazy that we get away with it! USA USA USA!
This might run out, with devastating effect, some day.
If people lose confidence in the US dollar, suddenly they'll try to get rid of it, leading to an increase in domestic supply and dramatic inflation, and foreign goods in general will be much more expensive.
It might, when someone else has 11 carrier strike groups. It won't be in our lifetimes.
But how much does that actually matter to the value of the dollar?
My guess would be that the general value prospect to people and countries abroad of holding dollars are that:
But if 1 fails (due to, say, running out of people willing to finance US debt, meaning that we need to start printing money to fund things or pay back debtors), then some will drop the US dollar for other currencies. This will drive down the cost of the dollar, that is, cause inflation, which will lead to more of the same.
I don't expect 3 and 4 to go anywhere, but I think 1 and 2 could change, in a way that would meaningfully affect demand for dollars, and hurt US prosperity.
That said, that's mostly just from me thinking things through myself, not something better vetted, so is there some reason that I'm wrong, or something I'm missing?
Anything could happen, but it hasn't. People have been predicting the demise of the dollar for 60 years, from weird baskets of BRIC currency to crypto, to gold. It only gets stronger! It is interesting that people are always calling for the fall of the mighty USD and yet when I travel these days I can only buy more and more with the same amount of cash! Call me when that changes.
I don't expect the demise of the dollar before the US comes close to defaulting on its debt, which is still a ways away. But the deficit's steadily been growing relative to GDP. (And even then, I don't expect a total collapse.)
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