4.5 stars rounded up because I do lean left and absolutely support her final conclusions. I agree with all of them but I think it detracted from the very objective first 3/4 of the book. I am as liberal as they come but I was a bit put off by the last 25% where the arguments took a fairly leftward bent.

Should I do an about face after being convinced by a single source? Certainly not but Kelton is convincing and I will look for more. How does the US Federal Government raise the money it spends to run its programs, conduct its wars and pay out unemployment benefits It taxes and borrows. My brain hit a wall and I have slowly been trying to piece it back together based on this new information. Kelton walks through 5 myths associated with national defecits, all of which I pretty much believed and were a core part of how I viewed monetary policy. I will need to read this again (or 10 times) to fully understand what she is getting at but the tldr summary is that deficits are not bad, inflation is, as long as you (Sovereign country) control your own money. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.I loved this book! I didn't understand it but I loved how Kelton presented information completely foreign to my brain. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society.

Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, that deficits crowd-out private investment and undermine long-term growth, that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis.MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory - the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades - delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society.

The deficit myth goodreads