I READ IT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO
I Read It So You Don’t Have To: ‘The Deficit Myth’
We’ve been thinking about the government’s finances all wrong
I Read It So You Don’t Have To is a series that gives you the TL;DR on a business book you want to read — but don’t have time to.
What did I read?
The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy by Stephanie Kelton
So who’s this Stephanie Kelton?
Stephanie Kelton is a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University. She is a former chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (Democratic Staff), and is a leading expert on Modern monetary theory (MMT), a macroeconomic framework about federal government spending.
Give me the 30-second sell.
There’s a longstanding myth that’s holding back the U.S. economy, keeping millions unemployed, and paralyzing us in the face of once-in-a-generation challenges. Yet this myth is considered dogma by most economists and policy wonks, as well as practically every politician in Congress, on both the left and the right.