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Nice try from the angle of mental models, but totally wrong about the MMT mental model. No indication that the author has read Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth, aand if he did, he missed the point — it's about availability of real resources and the rest is accounting. The accounting, or failure to understand it, can obscure where currency comes from (issuance, which he realizes), how it is produced and distributed through the central bank, and how fiscal operations including taxation and securities issuance operate. While Jonathan Bartlett does not go into it, there is a also huge amount of confusion over the monetary and fiscal aspects of government finance. Many if not most financial professionals misunderstand this. Where Bartlett is correct is in viewing the popular MMT mental
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Nice try from the angle of mental models, but totally wrong about the MMT mental model. No indication that the author has read Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth, aand if he did, he missed the point — it's about availability of real resources and the rest is accounting. The accounting, or failure to understand it, can obscure where currency comes from (issuance, which he realizes), how it is produced and distributed through the central bank, and how fiscal operations including taxation and securities issuance operate. Nice try from the angle of mental models, but totally wrong about the MMT mental model. No indication that the author has read Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth, aand if he did, he missed the point — it's about availability of real resources and the rest is accounting. The accounting, or failure to understand it, can obscure where currency comes from (issuance, which he realizes), how it is produced and distributed through the central bank, and how fiscal operations including taxation and securities issuance operate. While Jonathan Bartlett does not go into it, there is a also huge amount of confusion over the monetary and fiscal aspects of government finance. Many if not most financial professionals misunderstand this. Where Bartlett is correct is in viewing the popular MMT mental
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Mike Norman considers the following as important:
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While Jonathan Bartlett does not go into it, there is a also huge amount of confusion over the monetary and fiscal aspects of government finance. Many if not most financial professionals misunderstand this.
Where Bartlett is correct is in viewing the popular MMT mental models as somewhat simplistic for pedagogical purposes. And as he points out, even the hard sciences do this since many don't have the background to understand the sophistication of the actual models. It would be a distraction for beginning students and the general public. So the models are dumbed down.
But criticizing a dumbed down model when the professional literature clarifies it is attacking a straw man. Of course, it is fair game to criticize the dumbed-down model as a teaching tool, especially when something more suitable is available. This improves teaching.
The important matter regarding the article lies in taking the angle of mental models. Most people outside the sciences do not understand this concept, let alone how conceptual models work. This is a huge gap in critical thinking that leads to many false ideas. This is clear regarding MMT judging from much of the criticism. Most popular criticism of MMT takes a popular model of MMT to be "MMT," when the professional literature shows otherwise.
Mind Matters
Mental Models for What Government Does With Our Money | Mind Matters
Jonathan Bartlett | Senior Fellow, Walter Bradley Center For Natural & Artificial Intelligence
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/12/mental-models-for-what-government-does-with-our-money/