Finding the Money

Can a new economic theory revolutionize our ability to tackle the climate crisis? An underdog group of economists is on a mission to instigate a paradigm shift, by flipping our understanding of the national debt — and the nature of money — upside down. With a ‘debt ceiling’ debate and threat of default taking over headlines for the past six months in the U.S., many people find themselves asking - what is the national debt anyway? And why would the issuer of the U.S. dollar ever need to borrow U.S. dollars in the first place? With the enormous challenges of climate change and humanely caring for people on the horizon, the biggest obstacle presented is usually the question: ‘But how will we pay for it?” and “Where will we find the money?” According to Stephanie Kelton, face of the new economic theory known as “Modern Monetary Theory” or MMT, those aren’t the right questions to be asking a currency-issuing nation.