12. This is an excerpt from my latest MMT101 post,

MMT Tools for Sceptics: How to Convince Your Friend You’re Not A Conspiracy Theorist tinyurl.com/yjdx6buy

11. But, by this time, your friend (who now has some mild cognitive dissonance) has regained their composure and is still thinking that you are wrong - because they know for sure that it is tax revenues that pay for government spending.

10. That constraint is that if the things the government wants to buy are scarce - if (along with those in the private sector) they continue to try to buy those things - they will push up prices. The constraint is the possibility of inflation.

9. but a government that issues its own currency is obviously in a different situation. You can’t run out of something that you create yourself.

As long as there are things to buy in the government’s currency they can buy them, theough not without constraint.

8. Well, you say, it is because politicians mistakenly think that the government operates just like a household. Households do indeed have to ensure that they earn or acquire the money they need to spend - or they could end up bankrupt -

7. they are a bit destabilised: but they still don’t know whether to believe you or not.

So, they ask, ‘why is the government saying there is a black hole in the finances, when you are telling me that they issue the UK pound and can never run out?’

6. and they will feel they’ve got a handle on that).

Lets keep going, politicians and local TV newsreaders may be unaware of this simple truth, but right now you have planted some seeds of doubt in your friend’s mind. There’s a slightly quizzical look on their face -

5. What does retirement means? Well that means the have the power to take some of that currency back out of the economy (i.e.retire it) via taxation (at that point their ears will prick up because they know that it is taxes that fund government -

4. “Issuance and retirement: the exclusive authority to control legal tender issuance and retirement.” Wikipedia

Issuance, is self-explanatory, governments that have currency sovereignty like the UK, US, Canada, China and so on have the power to issue their own currency.

3. “The concept encompasses not simply the technical ability to issue currency, but the broader capacity to manage macroeconomic conditions through monetary instruments.” Wikipedia

Scroll down the page a little bit and point out the following,

Pull out your phone and type the following phrase into Wikipedia’s search form, “Monetary Sovereignty”. Read out the first paragraph that contains the phrase

4. interested in economics for a few minutes each year when the government releases their latest policy goals (i.e. their, ‘kill the economy with austerity’ idiocy).

Read on: tinyurl.com/yjdx6buy

3. university departments for three decades constructing their latest ‘Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVAR)’ models - they are too far gone: they can’t be converted.

No, these are for the person you meet in a cafe, at a bar, and most importantly, your friend who becomes

2. world’s financial ills.

With any luck it will stop them from thinking that you are part of some strange cult - one that they feel they have a duty to save you from.

These ‘tools’ are not designed to convince orthodox economists who have been beavering away in their

Thanks for your generosity Darren. :-) It's easy for us all to feel competitive rather than have an impulse to support each other. You are a good example of how we should operate as part of a community.

Thanks for your generosity Darren. :-) It's easy for us all to feel competitive rather than have an impulse to support each other. You are a good example of how we should operate as part of a community.

# 5/5 📞
Thank you, Jim, for building the foundation. If you want to move past the media myths, you need the right educational engine. Read the full post, connect with Jim, and get the course link here:
buff.ly/deGatcB

# 4/5 🎓
Jim's MMT 101 Udemy course is the single best, comprehensive entry point for anyone serious about the topic. It systematically covers Money, Banks, Taxes, and Deficits—the toolkit you need to understand my critiques.