July 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Networked people-power Sri-Lanka style
by professor rat 17 Jul '22

17 Jul '22

Fed up with seeing his community hit by power cuts, inflation, and shortages of essentials such as food, fuel, and cooking oil, Mr Karunaratne put out a call on social media. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-17/sri-lanka-protests-started-in-a-tent…

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Cryptocurrency: Insolvent Nations Mired In Debt
by grarpamp 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

https://usdebtclock.org/ The Only Real Solution Is Default http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-only-real-solution-is-defa… https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay12/EU-neocolonial5-12.html The destruction of 'phantom wealth' via default has always been the only way to clear the financial system of unpayable debt burdens and extremes of rentier / wealth dominance. The notion that the world could always borrow more money as long as interest rates were near-zero was never sustainable. It was always an unsustainable artifice that we could keep borrowing ever larger sums from the future as long as the interest payments kept dropping. The only real solution to over-indebtedness since the beginning of finance is default. There are pretty names for variations on default that sound much less gut-wrenching--debt jubilees, refinancing, etc.-- but the bottom line is the debts that can't be paid won't be paid and whomever owns the debt as an asset absorbs the loss. Every default is a debt jubilee for the borrower. Whether the default is informal or formalized in bankruptcy, the debt payments are no longer being paid to the lender / owner of the debt. Every debt jubilee is a default that forces the owner of the debt to write the value down to zero and absorb the loss. The jubilation of the owner of the debt is rather muted unless the state swoops in and passes the losses onto the taxpayers via bailouts / transferring the losses to the public's balance sheet. Every default is a refinancing--to zero. We've refinanced the debt so the borrower pays zero and the value of the loan / debt is now zero. Very few ordinary households own other people's debts as assets. It's the wealthy few who own most of the student loans, vehicle loans, mortgages, government and corporation bonds, etc. Yes, ordinary households may own other people's debts through pension plans or ownership of mutual funds, but by and large debt is a favored asset of the rentier class, i.e. the wealthiest few. We're constantly told that mass defaults would destroy the economy, but this is flim-flam: mass defaults would destroy much of the wealth of the rentier class which has been greatly enriched by the global expansion of debt, while freeing the debtors of their obligations. Recall that debt is the transfer of income from the borrower to the owner of the debt. Borrowing money is like every other form of consumption: when it's cheap and abundant, we over-indulge. The costs are only apparent after the banquet has been cleared. The illusion that the global economy could effortlessly add trillions in debt to fund living large forever was based on a brief historical anomaly of zero interest rates enabled by low inflation. There's a long lag between the vast expansion of debt / consumption and the eventual consequences on supply, demand, risk and price discovery. The lag time is up and now the consequences are finally visible: the tide of rapid growth in consumption and income required to fund ever-greater burdens of debt has ebbed, and so the global burden of debt--$300 trillion or so-- is no longer sustainable / payable. The favored solutions of the state--printing money or transferring the losses to the public--are no longer viable. Now that inflation has emerged from its slumber, printing trillions to bail out the wealthy is no longer an option. The public, so easily conned into accepting the bailout of the wealthy in 2008, has wised up and so that particular con won't work again. ("Bail out the super-wealthy now or your ATM machine will stop working!" Uh, right.) The state is the protector of the wealthy, and so defaults that actually impact the wealthy are anathema. The wealthy will demand the state absorb their losses (recall that profits are private, losses are socialized) The only equitable solution is to force the losses on those who bought the debt as a rentier income stream. I've been exploring the Core-Periphery dynamic for a decade. ( The E.U., Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model May 24, 2012). This dynamic plays out in a number of ways on a number of levels. Defaults will play out along the lines of Core-Periphery asymmetries. Some states will be able to "print their way out of default" but most will not, as unrestrained printing of money on such a vast scale would devalue the currency, triggering an even more destructive systemic default. Debt is a double-edged form of power. Being able to borrow and spend huge sums is an absolutely fabulous way to expand corruption, bribes, exploitation of the powerless, bridges to nowhere and mindless over-consumption, but the habits formed by mindless expansion of debt to fund soaring wealth inequality don't serve the indebted entities very well when default removes borrowing as a way to pay and play. Living within one's means--i.e. net income--is the only solution there has ever been to the end-game of over-indebtedness, i.e. default. Those with relatively secure, diversified net incomes (i.e. the Core) will do much better than those with unstable, limited income. The destruction of phantom wealth via default has always been the only way to clear the financial system of unpayable debt burdens and extremes of rentier / wealth dominance. Let's guess that a bare minimum of $100 trillion of the $300 trillion mountain of global debt will default far sooner than most expect. The only question is who will absorb the $100 trillion in losses. Choose wisely, as defaults of debt that are transferred to the public end up bringing down the entire system via political overthrow or currency collapse.

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[ot][spam][crazy] log: append-only random-access data
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

often i try to implement an append-only random-access data structure. it's a fun puzzle for my confused mind. i never finish it, but today i thought about it a little bit and i think over the years i might be able to put together a simplified form and maybe make it exist some day. here is where i wrote right now. i started spinning out when I renamed Simple.Write to Simple.RangedData . I was in the middle of implementing a leaf iterator, so as to make a simple way to count the number of data leaves and associate them with a depth. the approach, as written in the file, is to simply relink to leaves with excessive depth each flush, so as to maintain O(log n) random seek time. i vaguely recall that approach has a major issue, but i might be remembering wrongly, and it's still quite exciting to be able to spend some minutes trying.

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[spam][crazy][ot] log: #3 write-anywhere to an append-only-log
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

so i'm thinking the big remaining bit to make an algorithm here that i like is to implement moving parts into balanced/full trees, away from recent writes. maybe i'll just accumulate little bits around that. can use chunk structure: class Chunk: start, end, data, height, leaf_count, age def __len__( def is_leaf( def is_full( new basic concept for add() function: retain areas separate from writes, that are shrunk or grown to maximum depth using full trees only goal: write that part of an add() function

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Accused of having shown three women how to make a stink bomb.
by professor rat 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

And crimes against the soul / the worst crime I ever did was play some rock-and-roll Dr. Froines found himself drawn into the swirl of antiwar activism building up to the Democratic convention, to be held in August 1968 at Chicago’s International Amphitheater. Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, two of the protest organizers, knew Dr. Froines through his work in Connecticut with the New Haven chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, and they invited him to join their inner circle. During the convention, tens of thousands of protesters marched in the streets and hundreds were arrested during violent clashes with the Chicago Police Department. But only eight were indicted under federal charges of crossing state lines to incite a riot; they included Mr. Hayden, Mr. Davis and Dr. Froines, who was also charged with building an incendiary device, accused of having shown three women how to make a stink bomb. Several of those charged were already famous as radical activists and counterculture provocateurs. Bobby Seale had co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966; Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, co-founders of the Youth International Party, or the Yippies, were renowned for antics like dropping wads of cash onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange from the visitors gallery. . . " https://groups.io/g/marxmail/topic/ny_times_john_r_froines/92409996?p=,,,20… REPOSTS NOT ENDORSEMENTS

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US Republicans just voted to protect Nazi supporters in their military.
by professor rat 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

This means list members that support core Nazi values - such as hating Jews and loving pseudo-science while behaving like obnoxious little shits ( Hi Juan ) should maybe show a fuck of a lot more respect for our LOL GOP republican fans here ( Hi Gramps, DumbBell, etc ) Amirite? Or maybe they should just fuck off to Qanon , 8-chan or somewhere Nazi friendly. Raus.

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Makers: Russia To Turn Satellites Into Disabled Space Junk
by grarpamp 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

Russia Building Laser Weapon To 'Soft Kill' US Spy Satellites https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4416/1 Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could soon disrupt Western spy satellites flying over its territory. The Space Review published a new report indicating "strong evidence that a space surveillance complex in Russia's northern Caucasus is being outfitted with a new laser system called Kalina that will target optical systems of foreign imaging satellites flying over Russian territory." Construction of the Kalina project began in 2011. In a 2014 financial document, Kalina's stated purpose was to "create a system for the functional suppression of electro-optical systems of satellites" using high-powered laser pulses. Another document from 2017 described Kalina as a "laser system for electro-optical warfare" and said it was a special quantum-optical system" being developed by the Rosatom state corporation. Kalina can permanently blind optical sensors on satellites, and this is different than other laser weapons known as "dazzlers," which can temporarily blind optic systems). Russia's desire to target satellites via a so-called 'soft kill' approach is a much different strategy than launching an anti-satellite missile, as it recklessly did in November 2021, knocking a defunct satellite out of orbit and, in return, generating 1,500 pieces of space junk. The report said, "the project has suffered numerous delays, but recent Google Earth imagery shows that construction is now well underway." News of Russia's next-gen laser weapon comes as Space X CEO Elon Musk has said his company could launch more satellites than Western adversaries can shoot down. It seems like the Kalina project could soon challenge Musk's satellite constellation via low-cost beams of light rather than costly missiles, making it cheaper and easier for Moscow to take down more satellites.

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1776: When Freedom From The State?
by grarpamp 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence 246 years... development of its grand theory has long since ended, 250 now being on average well past due for the reaper of all states (tyrannies and tyrants indeed) to come culling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_sovereign_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_ideologies Every single failed state in history has sought peak Authoritarianism, Power, Force, Control, etc... as all are doing today... never founding seeking or allowing any Anarchism Libertarian Voluntaryism etc... this is not a coincidence among the failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_without_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_Unit… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_resistance_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin List of Indictments, the entire document, all describe the state of USA today, indeed the state of every country, and the required action... when those times inevitably next come, don't replicate the state, you'll just fail, again. Instead, try what has never been tried before. Introduction Asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained. In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."[64] Preamble Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights.[63] "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." Indictment A bill of grievances documenting the king's "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties.[63] "Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. "He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people. "He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. "He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: "For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: "For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: "For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. "He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. "He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. "He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. "In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Failed warnings Describes the colonists' attempts to inform and warn the British people of the king's injustice, and the British people's failure to act. Even so, it affirms the colonists' ties to the British as "brethren."[63] "Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity." Denunciation This section essentially finishes the case for independence. The conditions that justified revolution have been shown.[63] "We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends." Conclusion The signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions and, by necessity, the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion contains, at its core, the Lee Resolution that had been passed on July 2. "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." Signatures The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Two future presidents (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) and a father and great-grandfather of two other presidents (Benjamin Harrison V) were among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (age 26) was the youngest signer, and Benjamin Franklin (age 70) was the oldest signer. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows (from north to south):[65] New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

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“Anarcho capitalism” is not anarchism.
by professor rat 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

In fact, It is literally the opposite of anarchism. While anarchists seek to abolish all forms of domination and hierarchy, these libertarians further it while cosplaying as “rebellious anti-statists” that support private tyranny, subjugation through private ownership of resources https://anarchistnews.org/content/anarchists-review-anarchists-episode-1 Reposts etc Btw - not even Murray Rothbard really thought his garbage was anarchist ( Sear " Mises, Rothbard, Anarchy " )

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Cryptocurrency: Abject Failure of Keynsian Modern Monetary Theory MMT
by grarpamp 16 Jul '22

16 Jul '22

Modern Monetary Theory Bites The Dust https://economicprism.com/modern-monetary-theory-bites-the-dust/ http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts Fashion changes from one year to the next so fast it’s best to ignore it. Not only will you save money by not chasing the latest shiny object. You’ll also retain more of the most valuable commodity of all. Your time. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), for example, were the popular new movement just a year or two ago. Digital art, made by hipsters with names like Beeple, was going to make the world a richer, more stylish place. Now only dorks and dweebs collect NFTs…and they do so in secret. Similarly, just a couple of years ago Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) was all the rage. But that was before rampant money printing triggered an official consumer price inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), of 9.1 percent. Hindsight is always 20/20. Yet, sometimes, foresight is 20/20 too. In the case of MMT, practically everyone could see there would be hell to pay…even through broken spectacles. The future consequences were crystal clear. Printing up money and passing it out around town, thus entitling people to claims on goods and services without commensurate production, is fundamentally foolish, reckless, and outright suicidal. Only academics and central bankers were blind to the arrival of today’s inflation. If you recall, as inflation was heating up during the second part of 2021, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told everyone it was transitory. Then, as inflation continued unabated, Powell finally admitted in December 2021 that inflation was no longer transitory and that the word needed to be retired. Powell and Yellen have their finger prints all over this consumer price inflation mess. Yet they didn’t act alone. Advocates of MMT cheered on their mass money printing with righteous assurances. They said inflation wouldn’t be a problem. But now that consumer price inflation is raging at a 40 year high, where did the promoters of MMT go? Why aren’t they tackling inflation with the same enthusiasm? Tard-buckets-Opotamus Fanciful schemes offering the more abundant life always yield the unsuspecting and outright gullible to the assurances of dreamers, schemers, theorists, reformers, and scoundrels of all stripes. Promises of something for nothing are too intoxicating to pass up. For several years Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and other American socialists, served up fresh pitchers of grape Flavor-Aid laced with MMT as a solution to all the downtrodden’s problems. To join the cult all you had to do was drink from their cup. MMT, as you may have heard, offers booms without busts, and money without limits. The nuts and bolts of the theory state that a government that creates its own money, like the USA, cannot default on its dollar based debts. Therefore, the USA can print all the money it needs to amplify the economy – debts and deficits be damned. Should such overt dollar debasement lead to price inflation, MMT has just the solution. Raise taxes and issue bonds to remove the excess money from circulation. Taxes, you see, are not for funding government spending. Rather, they’re for throttling back the money supply to attain the magical balance of growth and inflation. With MMT, big government statists can hatch boondoggles first, and leave taxation for later. The whole theory, or lack thereof, is abundantly retarded. Yet in early 2020, something abundantly retarded was precisely what was needed. When quantitative tightening (QT) was abruptly terminated and reversed in September 2019, the Fed’s balance sheet was $3.7 trillion. Soon after, in the face of the fabricated coronavirus hysteria, the Fed jacked up its balance sheet by $5.2 trillion to a high of $8.9 trillion. A good part of this took place between March and June 2020. What happened next… Cult of MMT At first, the consequences were nonexistent. In February 2021, after nearly a year of monster money printing, the CPI showed an annual rate of inflation of just 1.7 percent. MMT supporters were riding high. By that point, the U.S. government, and by extension the American people, were fully committed to a program of currency debasement to finance government mandated lockdowns. Washington was also attempting to inflate away its debt burden. The authorities prefer an implicit default via inflation as opposed to missing bond payments to creditors. Intelligent minds, from John Law to Charles Ponzi to Bernie Madoff, from John Maynard Keynes to Milton Friedman to Ben S. Bernanke, from Benjamin Strong to Alan Greenspan to Jerome Powell, and everyone in between, have promised something for nothing. They’ve put their intelligent minds to the task… Countercyclical stimulus spending. Interest rate suppression. Quantitative easing. Elastic currencies. Money shuffling. Inflation targeting. Smoke and mirrors. …all so governments, and individuals, can spend well above what they can afford, and then welsh on the debt without consequences. During the rampant money printing of 2020 and 2021 Stephanie Kelton emerged as the MMT messiah. In June 2020, her book, “The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy,” was published. It quickly became a New York Times Bestseller. And it also received rave reviews from unlikely places. Upon reading the book, gangsta rap pioneer, Ice Cube, for example, tweeted on September 3, 2020, the following means of salvation: “America loves to cry broke. But in America money does grow on trees.” “America is a currency creator so there’s no reason for people to live like this. Government and the banks have made a deal to keep the people in debt. They always say if you print money it will cause inflation. They just printed 3 trillion. Little or no inflation.” Does a 9.1 percent CPI reading, with an unofficial reading of nearly 18 percent, constitute little or no inflation? Modern Monetary Theory Bites the Dust Currently, the Fed’s balance sheet is roughly $8.9 trillion. And consumer price inflation is raging at a 40 year high. What’s more, the Fed is hiking rates with the purpose of containing inflation. But the only way for the Fed to contain inflation is to trigger a massive, 1930s-style depression. Yet MMT proponents have gone silent. Why aren’t they using MMT to attack inflation? The cult of MMT, like most cults, has proven to be lacking for the general populace. Instead of bringing wealth and abundance to the American worker it has brought wealth and abundance to the elites and central planners who first receive and direct the flow of the newly minted fake money. Moreover, like most cults, when MMT’s leaders are needed most, they conveniently disappear. Is Kelton not a true believer in MMT, after all? Because if Kelton was a true believer, wouldn’t she be advocating for higher taxes right now? That’s how MMT is supposed to work, right? When inflation heats up, taxes are supposed to be raised to remove excess money from circulation? Isn’t that the MMT solution to inflation? Kelton, however, is not banging the drum for higher taxes. Perhaps, this is because higher taxes are perennially unpopular. Similarly, promoting money printing is much more hip and cool than promoting higher taxes. So what’s Kelton up to these days? Her most recent tweets include pictures of her dog with a paper towel roll in its mouth and dirty mother clucker sandwiches where a glazed donut is used for the bun. There’s also a recent tweet documenting her first time having a smoked old fashioned – which she highly recommends, sans the simple. Did MMT just bite the dust? For now, it appears to have. We suspect it will be gone until a massive depression wipes away inflation. Then it will be resurrected to great folly so the money printers can really get to work.

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