Introduction
I talk about my Journey into MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) in this page on my website which is sort my MMT notes page as I write my understanding (or ignorance) of it for all to see. As I have begun my journey into understanding MMT I have come to really appreciate the way that Stephanie Kelton explains things. Her videos and methods of explaining things have been critical to my expanding understanding of federal fiscal policy.
This book, The Deficit Myth, is her first real foray into explaining MMT to the masses in book form. The moment I heard about this book and it became available to preorder I did so through my Kindle account. Once it was finally released (June 2020) I did not have time to read it, unfortunately, but I could hear its despairing cry as its knowledge languished there unread in my Amazon Kindle account until… my birthday week vacation happened. For my birthdays (November) I usually take a whole week of vacation and I usually spend this time to read and write. I spent the first 2 days of my birthday vacation week this week devouring this 283 page book and I took a few notes as I went to update my MMT page.
My Thoughts
I am not going to explain what MMT is in this post. If you want to learn more then you should check out my MMT page for notes and resources to power your learning process. There is a A LOT there, so be prepared to learn and think about national scale economics. I list some amazing resources there too to attempt to ease you into it.
Here is a chapter list for the book in case you wanna know:
- Don’t Think of a Household.Â
- Think of Inflation.Â
- The National Debt (That Isn’t)
- Their Red Ink Is Our Black Ink
- “Winning” at Trade
- Â You’re Entitled!
- Building an Economy for the People
The book follows Stephanie’s easy to follow conversational style which I have come to appreciate a lot in my journey into MMT. It works well. She gives some great examples much of which you will see in her many videos and other writings, but there is a lot more expansion on areas that I have not heard her talk as much about before such as Social Security and Medicaid.
Although I really, really would have preferred to see visuals for much of this book. For those who are new to MMT you will find that it is a dense conceptual topic and visuals are a powerful way to help people understand. I think because of this missing pieces that the book will not have as broad on an appeal or effect as it could have had. She does such a great job with visuals in her presentations and videos which were important for my understanding, so I found this lack disappointing.
So, with that being said, this book should not be the starting point for most people. On my MMT page there are links to an amazing and short pictured filled book on MMT and well as videos and other articles to get you started, then once you have the basics down then come back for this book for a more in depth read.
