Quote of the day—John Yarmuth

We are not broke as a nation. We are not bankrupt. We can’t go bankrupt. We absolutely cannot go bankrupt because we have the power to create as much money as we need to spend to serve the American people.

John Yarmuth
Chairman of the Budget Committee
U.S. Representative (D-KY)
September 9, 2021
Democrat Budget Committee Chairman: ‘We Have Power to Create as Much $$ as We Need to Spend’
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This claim will not age well.

If this were true then why not create enough money for every person in the U.S. to have an “universal basic income” of $100K per year? Everyone, if they wanted, could just retire in comfort and live happily ever after. And why stop there? Why not create and distribute enough money for everyone on the planet to comfortably retire?

One has to conclude he is one or more of the following:

  • Incredibly Insane.
  • Incredibly stupid.
  • Incredibly evil.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

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24 thoughts on “Quote of the day—John Yarmuth

  1. If that is true… why do we need taxes?

    Why not say “You keep all your money, we’ll just print what the gov’t needs”?

    • The primary purpose of taxation is to dissuade productivity, and to frustrate and demoralize those would otherwise be productive.

      So stop being confused and start realizing that, a) those in power do in fact know what they are doing, and b) it’s working pretty well.

  2. “…one or more of the following…”

    Without a doubt.

    Its really frightening that someone at the highest levels of the (not our) government can be this stupid or blatantly deceitful.

    Jeff B.

  3. This is the so-called “modern monetary theory”, a fairy tale invented, I think, in France (which would make sense). It is the natural end point of the creation of fiat money.
    The first French republic, the Confederacy, Weimar Germany, and Zimbabwe have all proven beyond a possible doubt that this notion is utter garbage, false before, false now, and false forever. But that won’t stop dishonest academics and dishonest politicians from attempting to perpetrate it again.

  4. Money has to have several basic properties (this is Econ 101).

    It has to be fungible, divisible, store value, and somewhat scarce Not too scarce, because anyone should be able to get their hands on some without Herculean efforts, but scarce enough that it represents something meaningful.

    A lot of the properties of money are currently under assault in one way or another. The current system isn’t a good store of value, but all of the proposed replacements so far are worse for one reason or another.

    • Yes, that’s the definition of “real money”, as Ludwig von Mises spells it out in much more detail.
      It is also a definition that was abolished in the USA in 1913, and in the rest of the world either in the decades before or soon after.
      Fiat money is not a store of objective value at all; it’s a religious token that has value only insofar as there are believers who think it does.

  5. He’s right. Government can’t go bankrupt because it can just repudiate the debt. As if it never happened. Governments steal from whomever they want.
    As all above have commented. Governments just print themselves into oblivion. It can be managed in an enclosed system. It becomes un-manageable in international markets.
    America has been the worlds reserve currency since the end of WWII. So we have exported our inflation across the whole world. Inflation is a tax. That only benefits the inflator. Russia and China are tried of paying it.
    When we lose that status. Katie bar the door. Were trapped in our death spin. And reinflation is very painful.
    Mr. Yarmuth is just a useful idiot.
    And all the above on Joe’s list.

    • Repudiating debt takes many forms, most notable inflating one’s way out of the debt. In 1934 the Government did not want to wait that long, so it simply outlawed “Gold Clauses” in contracts, which is a violation of the clause prohibiting the interference with contracts.
      Of course now, with 150 years and more of interference with contracts, that clause makes as much sense to people as the Third Amendment, but it’s there.

      Yarmuth should be paid in Monopoly money. Or perhaps the play money you used to be able to buy in the toy rack at the grocery store. He’d realize the error of his ways.

  6. As long as the U.S. has the power to maintain the God Almighty US $ as the world’s main ‘reserve currency’, the goobermint has the ability to kick this can down the road for awhile longer. How much longer, I haven’t a clue.

    If that ever changes – and it appears China, Russia and who knows who else, are hard at work on it – our economic situation will quickly go downhill on a rocket powered sled. What happens then is anybody’s guess, but I think it will make all previous economic calamities pale in comparison.

  7. “One has to conclude he is one or more of the following:

    Incredibly Insane.
    Incredibly stupid.
    Incredibly evil.”

    I’ll take “All of the Above” for $3.5 trillion (this month…), Alex.

    That one person believes this is not a crisis; that nearly everyone in Washington believes it is a crisis.

    There’s a inflection point coming, in a great many things, not just money.

  8. The proponents of MMT are detached from reality. Even Stalin would have agreed – he at least knew that everyone had to work.

  9. I just created some money to pay my mortgage and truck payment. I hope the banks accept it!

    • Well, it’s not like the inflation ever hits anyone’s paycheck, so why not?

      Turn about is fair play.

      They play their little games, we can play ours.

      • Well, sort of. The trouble is that the people who perpetrate these theories are paid from our taxes, and their paychecks are not at risk. They just force us to pay more of our money so their pay checks remain the same or grow in buying power.
        Meanwhile, it’s the people in the real world who get screwed.

  10. “One has to conclude he is one or more of the following:
    Incredibly Insane.
    Incredibly stupid.
    Incredibly evil”

    You forgot “deceived”. Some would say that “stupid” would qualify under “deceived” (assuming, wrongly, that one must be mentally deficient to be deceived), but I am here to tell you that the most intelligent among us are quite readily deceiveable. In fact they can be among those who ask, “What is truth, anyway?” and that makes them especially vulnerable.

    Who knows what dwells in the minds of individual men? This is why, ultimately, men cannot judge men, although in some cases the process of discovery may yield the answer to the question of just how deliberate the criminal behavior and resulting mass destruction has been.

    I believe one thing is certain; he is either deceived or is in on the deception. Those are your two options, once you distil it all down. Years ago, Rush Limbaugh spoke of all leftists being either “the perpetrators or the duped”, for surely it’s one or the other.

    But it goes a bit farther when we’re looking for the “ultimate” answer– In Biblical terms, even those human beings who are “fully in the know”, those deliberate, willing, even eager worshipers and dedicated servants of satan and his fallen legions, might be considered as being themselves deceived. Angels, it is written, are just a little higher than man, and Lucifer was the greatest among angels. That would make him a master deceiver, and indeed the greatest ever, capable of such excellent and thorough evil as to be beyond the imaginations of mere men, and then to be called “good” and even “holy” in the process. And that’s what we’re seeing in the world today, and it’s ramping up, toward a conclusion.

  11. “…On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
    (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
    Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

    In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
    By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
    But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

    Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
    And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
    That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

    As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
    There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
    That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
    And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

    And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
    When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
    As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
    The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
    — Rudyard Kipling

  12. Lyle left out an important bit of Kipling:

    “When the Cambrian measures were forming, they promised perpetual peace,
    They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
    But when we disarmed they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe.
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: Stick to the Devil You Know.”

    This from a man who believed that a man cannot have too many books, too much red wine or too much ammunition.

    We are headed for a great reset. But, I don’t think it’s the one Bill Gates envisioned……..

  13. A LOT of these morons truly believe that we can ‘spend our way out of debt’ and that the US can never go bankrupt. These are the same types of morons who
    swear there are 57 different genders and who also firmly believe that the vaccination THEY recieved can’t work unless EVERYONE ELSE gets jabbed also….it’s the same notion as saying “my suncreen won’t protect me from sunburn unless YOU slather it all over YOUR body”. In other words they are IDIOTS….and what’s truly scary is they are allowed to breed, to drive and to vote.

    • ” In other words they are IDIOTS….and what’s truly scary is they are allowed to breed, to drive and to vote.”

      This situation is directly attributable to our government schools. They are designed to NOT teach kids how to think. Kids graduate from the various levels, and we believe they have learned many things, but in reality, they have learned NOTHING! About the most you can expect is that they know how to use a computer.

  14. If this is true, then why is the US in debt? Why not just print off the money and pay it off?

    One wonders…

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