3 Comments

I don't know if apprenticeship is the solution to problems in skill training and education as much as less formalism is the answer. For instance, it may be a blessing that only $200 million goes to apprenticeship education. As soon as you start laying down endless regulations on top of what is an often informal, freewheeling type of education, you start losing out on what makes it special.

Expand full comment

Setting aside the MMT concept, the main discussion I saw was about funding significant infrastructure spending with long-term bonds of 30+ years at the low interest rates over the past decade. These are productive assets where you pull the investment forward and can fund it over the long-term at low interest rates instead of rolling over the debt into higher rates (like now).

I try to match the duration of my debt to the longevity of the spending. Clothes, dinners out, vacations etc. need to match with current available income. Some spending can be smoothed over 2-3 months with credit cards. Houses can be funded over multi-decade periods because that investment is effectively replacing rent. I don't think of a house as an investment because it is like a horse in that it eats (repairs, etc.). I expect the house to maintain value with inflation over multi-decades, but I don't expect anything more than that so don't over-spend on the house (in retirement house will be 20% of our total assets). Other things like cars can be managed with 3-5 year debt.

Government needs to think in a similar way. Long-term debt (20-100 year) to cover long-term investments in infrastructure etc. would be smart. Annual spending on military, social programs etc. should be funded out of annual tax revenues with some smoothing over business cycles per Keynes. So that type of debt should be short-term with the goal of paying it off totally and not rolling it over over time frames of 1 to 7 years.

Expand full comment