throwaway34903

The parent comment isn't saying MMT is true or false. They are just saying MMT is a theory of how the economy operates (descriptive). _If_ you take it as true then here are things you can do (prescriptive).

It's sort of like saying something like the water-sky color theory is descriptive not prescriptive. The theory is that the sky is blue because water is blue and light reflects that color back into the sky. There is no behavioral prescription just a description of how one influences the other. If you want to change the color of the sky change the color of the oceans. That part would be prescriptive. This says nothing of whether the theory is well-founded or how many scientist agree with it.

Parent is saying MMT simply lays out a theory of how a (our) economy currently operates, not whether it's good or bad. People who adhere to the theory would then derive their policy prescriptions based on it being true and (crucially) their desired economic/political/social outcomes.

By zero screen time do you just mean no phones / tablets / interactive screen use? Or are you including TV / movies etc.

If it's the latter I think you might be over attributing your child's behavioral development to the lack of screen time that it actually is. I have a 3 year old daughter who is much more social and chatty, has a great attention span and self-play / imagination etc. than many of her peers who have zero screen time.

I wouldn't say we give her a lot of screen time, maybe a 2-3 hrs a week (mostly over the weekend) + sickness + the occasional family movie night (Frozen, Moana etc.). But it's enough where she has certain segments of Ms. Rachel episodes memorized.

Anecdotally, the parents who enforce the no screen time rules seem to be the ones who over-parent their kids and have kids who cling to their legs at the park for the first half hour, melt down without snacks, etc.

Also the screen time carries over into other hands free, fun activities like listening to the songs on the speaker and acting out what she had watched or dancing especially during those hectic weeknights when she wants to interact with us but we need to cook dinner and can't sit down to play toys with her.

It feels like children's development is more highly correlated with parents' involvement than with screen time per se. Obviously, a large amount of screen time would cause a lack of involvement, but zero screen time seems more like an act of virtue than one for effect.

Sure in the spirit it's an unrealized gain but wouldn't the tax man consider it a realized $500K capital gain? seemingly this is would be the more appropriate way of categorizing it?

All value is derived from labor... all (sensible) economists agree on this

The labor theory of value is one of multiple theories of values [1]. And it is still widely debated.

Marx would say that the amount of value is the amount of effort that goes into the commodity, something we now know not to be true.

Marx would say the _exchange_ value of a commodity is proportional to the amount of _socially necessary labor time_ required to produce it. Again, something that debatable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics)#Theories [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theor...

For what it's worth Pettis thinks tariffs would be beneficial for the American economy: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-tariffs-can...