Today on Hive Thrive, 
It's not a controversial statement to say that when it comes to economics, every debate is on the table. Economists' opinions are like leaves on trees—except some of those trees have red leaves and very creative math. Bad analogy aside, the point stands.
The debates won't end, and probably can't end, because examples of things working—or appearing to work—can be found for almost every theory.
Key word: almost.
MMT, or Modern Monetary Theory, basically argues that a government cannot run out of money because it controls the printing press. The idea is that a government can continue spending, even while accumulating debt, because it can always create more currency.
Sounds insane, I know, but that's the theory.
Now, I'd be guilty of strawmanning the argument if I didn't acknowledge that, apparently, this approach has worked in places like Japan. At least part of the reason is that massive government spending coincided with economic growth. In other words, that spending contributed to Japan producing and exporting more to the world.
But this is where I think the parallels between MMT and how we've used the DHF begin to break down.
Governments have a way to compel people to use their currency. If you live in Japan, you use the yen. You can't simply say, "No thanks," and opt out of the monetary system altogether.
We don't have that power.
I can't walk into a store and tell them they must accept Hive as payment.
You could also argue that, regardless of how diluted a currency becomes, it still points toward real economic activity. It represents access to resources, labor, goods, and services that contribute to a country's GDP.
But is that always true for Hive?
Can it be true for Hive?
Curiously enough, we often talk about Resource Credits as our hidden ace up our sleeve. Yet we say that while also knowing they're barely valued at all. Simply put, they're too cheap right now.
Then again, increasing their cost could backfire.
A catch-22 if I've ever seen one.
It's hard to look at our current situation and not wonder whether these thoughts have crossed the minds of the people casting votes, approving proposals, and supporting ever-increasing spending. Maybe some people think I'm worrying about forces beyond our control—a market that doesn't care what we build and simply follows the invisible hand of fate.
But I can't stop thinking about it.
We effectively have economic refugees on Hive—Venezuelans, specifically—people who are trying to escape the consequences of money printing in their own country, only to arrive at a project that, in some ways, appears to be doing something remarkably similar.
Irony?
MenO
