Chico Sajovic

@ProfHall1955 The book seems so poorly conceived that it doesn’t even warrant a response.

Bad move to publish this. His Argentina example proves he doesn't understand the basics. He's gonna be absolutely slaughtered in reviews - might even do one myself.

@JoshYoung Ya never know when the American people might elect a fucking moron.

Airlines stopped hedging their oil exposure, and now Spirit is bankrupt and out of business. Persistent, irrational oil bearishness has consequences.

@cafreiman Fairness doesn’t exist. But we could choose to use the tax code to increase consumption among the lower classes at the expense of the upper middle and higher classes.

“If you’re richer, your fair share of the tax burden is greater” isn’t a compelling claim, in part because it conflates affordability with fairness.

@Handre 2% RE tax rate? LMFAO! You have no idea what you are talking about.

Your town starts with a simple 2% property tax to fund basic services. Year 3: Revenue shortfall hits. Infrastructure "desperately needs" upgrades. Property tax jumps to 3.5%. City council promises this covers everything. Year 5: School district claims crisis funding needs. Separate education tax appears; just 1.5% for the children, they say. Your total tax load now sits at 5%. Year 8: Environmental impact assessments become mandatory for all development. New environmental compliance tax of 0.8% gets tacked on. Plus a transportation improvement fee of 1.2% because the roads can't handle the delayed projects. Year 12: Housing affordability crisis emerges (funny how that works). City creates affordable housing trust fund requiring another 1% tax. Storm water management fees add 0.5%. Total burden now exceeds 8.5%. Year 15: Local businesses start fleeing to neighboring counties. Commercial tax base shrinks. Residential property owners must make up the difference. Rates jump across all categories. Your effective rate hits 11%. The city's books show every tax paying for its designated purpose. The infrastructure still crumbles. Schools still claim poverty. Housing costs skyrocketed beyond what any middle-class family can afford. You started with one modest tax for basic municipal services. A complex web of overlapping levies now funds an army of bureaucrats managing the crisis created by the previous army of bureaucrats. Each department gets its budget. Each program gets its funding. Each tax collector gets their cut. The services you actually wanted remain broken, just more expensive.

@TaviCosta Who the fuck are all these morons who stash physical cash under their bed?

Argentina is the only country where money supply is contracting at a double-digit rate. Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to expand credit with little to no monetary discipline. None of us own enough hard assets. tavicosta.substack.com/p/macro-update

@BevansAdvocate Interest payments?

I've progressively come to the view that almost nothing should be tax deductible

@GaryHalpin23 @matthewstoller Of course not. But consumer options are very high which gives me confidence that prices are fair and the regulatory environment is not too burdensome.

@matthewstoller Stop being retarded. You really think airlines are a free market?

Everyone but United and Delta is in varying degrees of trouble. JetBlue is on the verge of going under. There have been 240 airline bankruptcies since deregulation. If we want an airline system we need to regulate it.

@DrNickA This is core problem with the Democrats, Liberals and Progressives. They aren’t actually concerned for the wellbeing of the lower classes, they’re just upset about the existence of the wealthy.

Having argued with people about private schools for days now. It basically comes down to the fact that some people think it is fundamentally wrong that some people have more money, than other people.

@DrCameronMurray Exactly!!!! That’s why the interest rate should be 0%. Get the bureaucrats and fucking political influence out!

Re: Rent control Many will say “We can’t set prices in the economy by bureaucratic rule. What about the misallocation that will occur?” And then in the next breath “The best way to set the price of money (interest rate) is to have bureaucrats decide its price”

@EMaggiori_ “The rules have been imposed for a reason” what are those reasons @EMaggiori_ ? From everything I have read I don’t believe you know why the US monetary rules are the way they are.

Typical conversation with an MMTer: MMTer: The government doesn't need taxes in order to spend! Me: Uh, no. The treasury actually needs to replenish its accounts by collecting taxes or selling bonds. Otherwise it is not allowed to continue spending. The central bank doesn't guarantee it will buy any specific number of bonds, and it doesn't provide an unlimited overdraft to the treasury. Those are the rules. MMTer: But those rules are all self-imposed and could be changed!! Me: All rules are self-imposed and could be changed. We could allow local governments and NGOs to create money for example. The rules have been imposed for a reason--economists don't think politicians will use the power to create money judiciously, and there aren't major economic benefits to be gained from it. MMTer: Are you telling me you do not agree that a government deficit is a surplus of the non-government sector? Me: ...

@clintballinger Subsidized housing creates bad incentives. Reduce local zoning restrictions to increase supply.

Just build quality lower middle class and below housing. Really, it is not complicated. It is a social choice not to do so. Forget about all these “der…should we fiddle w the numbers…” Just build

@iealondon @EMaggiori_ Only reserves are money. -Cash can be exchanged for reserves -Deposits are promises to pay reserves -Treasuries are reserves to be paid in the future When the private sector pays taxes, there are less reserves.

🧾 @EMaggiori_ : "MMT was born out of an accounting mistake — they thought whenever the government collects taxes, the money disappears. They literally destroy the money." Emmanuel Maggiori exposes the error at the heart of Modern Monetary Theory. 👇

@EMaggiori_ Taxes don't fund the government in the classic accounting sense, they are a tool the government uses to redirect national output.

Today is launch day! Modern Monetary Theory #mmt is a seductive economic theory that's making the rounds around the world. It was popularized by Stephanie Kelton in her book The Deficit Myth, and it's been influencing politicians around the world. The theory was dismissed by traditional economists right away. But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to learn as much as I could before drawing conclusions. So, I approached it with an open mind and read over 3,000 pages of work by modern monetary theorists themselves and their most thoughtful critics. The conclusion: MMT is not good. But I think we all need to understand what MMT says, as it’s a deeply seductive theory with the potential to cause a mess. Get a copy of my new book now :) amazon.co.uk/dp/1394375255/

@fiat_money @EMaggiori_ Redistribute consumption.

According to a post from U.S. President Donald J. Trump, due to the European Union (EU) not complying with the stipulations of a previously agreed upon trade deal, he is imposing 25% tariffs on cars and trucks coming from the EU. Per the statement, if cars and trucks are produced in the U.S., tariffs will not be imposed.

@ronrule If you feel your employer is making too much profit, that’s a signal to start your own business. If you don’t want to, your salary is fair.

When my son got one of his first jobs with a manufacturing company, he complained how he was “doing all the work” making parts that sold for hundreds of dollars a piece while only making $20 an hour. “It’s unfair to the workers!” he said. “You sound like a liberal.” I said. He made a classic mistake I see people make over and over. They only look at the hard cost of goods and final sale price. They don’t understand anything in between. I pointed out that the company he worked for only makes an 8% profit. Their total profit on that $400 part was really only about $32. “There’s no way.” he said. “The bar stock only costs about $8.” To him, his argument was logical. Every day his hands turned $8 worth of aluminum bars into thousands of dollars of product, but he only got about $160 of that. That seemed unfair. I asked him “What about all of the other people in the company? The ones who aren’t making the parts.” He hadn’t thought about that. I explained that every hand along that product’s journey from creation to the customer is another person who has to get paid. The engineers who designed and tested it, long before you made it. The person who packed it in a box. The person who made the manuals that go with it. The person who answers the phone when a customer has a problem later. The people who order the materials and maintain the machines and sweep the floors and clean the toilets after you leave. The accountants and lawyers and insurance companies who keep the business organized, compliant, and protected if the part you made fails. All of those people are paid for from those parts you made. And all of them get their paychecks whether the parts are sold right away or not. On top of that, there’s the cost of the facility itself. The building, heating and cooling it, and every piece of equipment inside it. All of those costs are paid before the owner makes one cent. “At the end of the day, you’re actually making more money from every unit you make than he is.“ He understood it after that. Running a business is the hardest way to make money. Roughly 90% of entrepreneurs will fail. Don’t get me wrong, the reward can be great if you’re one of the 10% that makes it, but that results in a confirmation bias. You only see the winners. You never heard about the 90% that failed before they made it. You see the guy in the big office who looks like he doesn’t work as hard as you, but you never saw what it took to get there. You never saw the times he went without a paycheck so he could make payroll. You never felt the stress of being denied necessary capital, or losing an important customer, or under-bidding on a contract and losing money on every unit. You’ve never felt the repercussions of making the wrong call. If you mess up, one customer is marginally inconvenienced, and you can fix it with another $8 part. If HE messes up, you and everyone else have no job. You can be the guy on top if you’re willing to take the risks they took and do the work they did to get there. Or you can do your part and collect your paycheck while someone else worries about that stuff. And that’s OK too, because the world needs both. The beauty of capitalism is that you get to choose which one you want to be.

@mattyglesias Amazed! We survived COVID disruptions and now Trump chaos. I know think the global economy is a lot more resilient than people give it credit for.

Voters are understandably angry that Trump is taking steps to push the cost of living up rather than down, but in his defense (?) the impact of the Strait closure has genuinely been much milder than most experts thought it would.

@BankUnlimited @Nebraskangooner My man!

@Nebraskangooner Paid off 😎

When you have $80,000 in the bank and a paid-off $10,000 truck, people may assume that you're broke However, if you have $10,000 in the bank and an $80,000 financed truck, people assume that you're rich Perception isn’t always reality Which situation would you rather be in?

@FreightAlley New strategy: Destroy or destabilize economic competitors!

The longer Hormuz stays blocked, the more competitive US industrials become relative to foreign providers.

The world is incredibly complex. It feels like a fine machine where slight disruptions should cascade and multiply throughout the system. After COVID and now the blockade of the strait of Hormuz it is becoming more and more apparent that we have built a highly resilient system.