What is Money?

I hope you and yours are out there enjoying summer. As I’ve done in recent years, I’m taking a short break from writing my weekly blog posts to enjoy some extra time with family and friends. I’ll still be hard at work otherwise, so let me know how I can help.

In the meantime, amid all the discussions lately about inflation and the value of the dollar, here are two links to articles worth reading. Both, in their own way, get to the core concepts of what money is, why it is, and how we think about it in the modern era.

What is money if we can't (or simply don't) touch it. The first article looks at the psychology of personal spending as it relates to cash versus cards, e-payments, crypto, and so forth. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-money-is-no-object-11625839202?mod=wsjhp_columnists_pos2

The second article summarizes an interview with Stephanie Kelton, an econ professor and key purveyor of Modern Monetary Theory. I did a short review of her work on the subject some months back and talked about how MMT would keep working it’s way into the national conversation about our debt and deficit. Some say the issue with MMT is that it lets the Feds perpetually overspend, but that’s an oversimplification. Check out the interview and consider doing some research on your own via the all-knowing Google. It's an important topic as we consider how to think about inflation amid massive amounts of government spending. 

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2021/06/04/stephanie-kelton-biden-has-adopted-mmt

Have questions? Ask me. I can help.