Is There Such a Thing as "Free"?

When it comes to the money printer, it's not interest rates we should worry about. It's something much, much bigger.

Dear Fellow Traveler:

You know that feeling when someone offers you something “free” and your brain immediately thinks, “What’s the catch?”

Well, your brain’s right.

There’s always a catch.

Kind of like when a friend offered a “slightly used” Peloton bike that turned out to be a medieval torture device with pedals.

Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT as the cool economists call it, is STILL having a moment.

It makes an enticing claim: if a country issues its own currency, like the U.S. does with the dollar, it can never go broke.

The government doesn’t need to tax or borrow first, they claim.

It can “print” the money, like a college kid with a fake ID who just walked into an open bar with a $20 bill and dreams.

One of MMT’s leading voices, Stephanie Kelton, says plainly: “We can afford it.”

And in a narrow, mechanical sense, she’s right.

A country that controls its currency can always meet obligations denominated in that currency. Kelton, a former Bernie Sanders advisor and chief economist f…