# Federal government finances

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-government-finances/720661>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 23, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-government-finances/720661 "2015-05-23T18:19:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-government-finances/720661/61 "2015-05-29T05:22:52Z")

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> [@septimus](#):
>
> **Hellestal** , I ask you to reread #35. _Don’t think about anything else **LinusK** may have posted.__ **Examine just the two sentences quoted in #35** _, and indicate whether the criticism was excessive. The only error cited here was that LinusK had misremembered the technical “held by public” quibble.
> 
> Warning: This is a test. If you give an answer I consider wrong, I’ll know how much heed to give your future opinions.

You better write me off as well septimus. Saying that open market operations reduce federal debt sounds pretty confused to me. Remember I jumped in this thread not recalling the MMT backstory. There’s a way of making the statement work, but you have to use non-standard definitions- which is ok. But if you’re going to define an ostrich as a type of common house plant, you have to make that clear up front.

Look: I don’t have a problem with skepticism about the effectiveness of monetary policy during a liquidity trap or advocacy of fiscal countercyclic policy. But you don’t need MMT to get there: textbook economics is fine. Not that I know anything about MMT. Admittedly, Mankiw provides pretty much the most skeptical presentation of counter-cyclic fiscal policy among major mainstream textbooks.

The only defense I’d give towards LinusK is that he was mangling intermediate college macroeconomics, which is forgivable. It’s not like we’re born with this knowledge. Hey, when I write about physics on this message board, I run into difficulties as well. Ditto for analytic philosophy. But I _try_ at least to take a little care in those threads, with only partial success.

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