Deconstructing The Green New Deal

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https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/14/what-would-it-cost-america-to-go-solar/
Interesting calculations.

When you’re talking about this many trillions, you’re talking serious money! Figure at least $50 trillion for the whole deal. Another consideration is the longevity of the equipment. Solar panels begin to degrade after 20 years or so. Inverters, required to convert direct current coming from solar panels into alternating current, rarely last 20 years. Batteries as well have useful lives that rarely exceed 20 years. If America “goes solar,” Americans need to understand that the entire infrastructure would need to be replaced every 20 years. Not only is this spectacularly expensive, but it brings up the question of recycling and reuse, which are additional questions that solar proponents haven’t fully answered. A solar array large enough to produce nearly 10,000 gigawatts in full sun would occupy about 50,000 square miles. Imagine tearing out that much hardware every two decades. Reprocessing every 20 years a quantity of batteries capable of storing nearly 40,000 gigawatt-hours constitutes an equally unimaginable challenge. To the extent the United States does not go 100 percent solar, wind is an option. But the costs, infrastructure challenges, space requirements, and reprocessing demands associated with wind power are even more daunting than they are with solar. Americans, for all their wealth, would have an extremely difficult time moving to a wind and solar economy. For people living in colder climates, even in developed nations, it would be an even more daunting task. For people living in still developing nations, it is an unthinkable, cruel option. The path forward for renewable energy is for utilities to purchase power, from all operators, that is guaranteed 24 hours-a-day, 365 days a year. This is the easiest way to create a level competitive environment. Purveyors of solar power would have to factor into their bids the cost to store energy, or acquire energy from other sources, and their prices would have to include those additional costs. It is extremely misleading to suggest that the lifetime “levelized cost” is only based on how much the solar farm costs. Add the overnight storage costs. Take into account costs to maintain constant deliveries despite interseasonal variations. Account for that. And then compete.
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I found your post a really interesting and useful contribution to the conversation toward further thinking through the GND in depth. What actually would be required for a transition to renewables like solar and wind, and what would be required to maintain the system on an on-going basis? I also liked the general idea that utilities might level the playing field by requiring any method be able to deliver guaranteed, 24/7/365 electricity so their cost includes leveling the natural variations in their sources, or held to some variation of that adapted to actual regional or national energy daily and seasonal demand cycles.
My first reaction to some of the calcs was - What!? 50,000 sq miles is way more solar panel area than is needed to generate that amount of electricity. I published a news item on a website I manage focused on climate that described the opening of the largest solar panel facility in the world, at 648 Megawatts, coming online in 2017, the Kamuthi facility in Tamil Nadu, India. In 2017, India cancelled plans for 14 GW of coal plants based on solar facilties being much less costly to build and to operate.
https://350marin.org/india-cancels-plans-14-gigawatts-coal-power-stations/

(also see the vid below). If a 50,000 sq mile solar array were built in one place as a square, (which it wouldn’t be) it would be about 225 miles on a side. So, it would take about 4 hours driving at freeway speeds to just travel along one side of the array! Thinking I could prove that’s more area than needed, I took the 648 MW Indian facility covering 10 sq km (3.9 sq mi) and projected it out. The result was 60,000 sq miles! From the visuals, that’s likely more than 50K sq mile because the India plant is not as densely compacted as it could be.
So, based on real world, current technology, it seems the figure given that 50,000 sq mi area is needed to generate 10,000 gigawatts at peak output is a valid estimate. Now, on price, at least according to the cost given for the India facility of 648MW for $679 million (and built in just 8 months), it seems that ‘at least $50 trillion’ might be an over-estimate by a factor of 5. At roughly $1 billion/gigawatt, 10,000 GW = $10 trillion total. Maybe the $679 million costs for the India facility doesn’t include all real costs, but, in any case, we don’t know the reason for the discrepancy with the article’s figure. Then, there’s the 10,000 GW figure itself. I think that comes from an estimate I’ve seen that the US uses 10,000 GW hours/day. If so, that would mean that, since there are 24 hours in a day, the max load at any particular time would be far below the 10,000 GW figure, though a buffer would still need to be maintained. If we’re trying to transition more energy use to ‘clean’ electricity as time goes on, that would raise the GW demand on a realtime basis, while powerful conservation measures or integration with other technologies like wind, nuclear, etc could move the solar peak demand way below 10,000GW with conservation and other sources. These calcs don’t address the variation/storage concerns that you, me & everyone else has about solar and wind. Overall, in my opinion, thinking about best options to undertake with limited time and finite resources at a larger level is an equation with a lot of variables to work with and consider – conservation, localization of power sources to become more resilient to large grid disruptions, multiple simultaneous power sources from wood & bio-fuels, solar, wind to nuclear. We’ve got problems that won’t go away. All the ways forward are hard. From my point of view, actually, a lot is possible, but it’s all difficult. The more we’re able to talk and think openly and bring intelligence to real world calculations, including resource limitations on inputs for various projects, cost of delivery and so on, the better for making decisions that develop sensible doable plans. Every single plan will have aspects to criticize and risks of failure. The question will always be, what’s the best alternative proposal or mix of proposals and what are the calcs that support that? To me, it’s pretty clear that, how ever we are able to adapt, and to whatever degree, it’s going to be a mix of different approaches with a focus on regionalization/localization that provides the most resilience and fits the uncertainties involved. I don’t think we're ever going to see a solar array 225 miles on a side. ;-)
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I liked the fact that the article also talked about potential costs related to replacing solar arrays over time. Because I’ve been more focused on the need to shift ASAP away from fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions, I’ve paid more attention to what’s involved in doing that quickly in the next couple of decades to avoid potentially catastrophic ecological and social climate disruption. Still, inspite of the fact that replacement/maintenance costs are real, as with all infrastructure, the article’s notion that we’d need to tear out 50,000 sq miles of panels every 20 years is an obvious, gigantic exaggeration.
Right now, the US is limping along on aging, inadequately maintained or replaced infrastructure, much of which is decades beyond its intended lifespan. That’s already been noted on this site (eg, the Oroville dam, etc). Also, the difficulty with our aging infrastructure (which one estimate says would take $4 trillion to replace) brings up the side point that any funds to replace current infrastructure should be put into new infrastructure designed to adapt to the coming lower energy, non-fossil fuel driven world, NOT an in-place rebuild of existing bridges and freeways.
Back to panels - Though the nominal lifespan of solar panels is 20-25 years (under their warranty), the reality is that the degradation of panel performance is mild on an annual basis, and seems to be straight line, from what I see. As noted in the link below The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) performed a meta-analysis of studies that examined the long term degradation rates of various PV panels. According to their review, the poorest panel output UV degradation in extreme desert climates may be around 1% per year - eg, they’d still have 75% production capacity after 25 years and maybe 40-50% after half a century. Panels made after the year 2000 even have much lower degradation rates than that, though, and in moderate climates like the US, are now estimated by NREL to have degradation rates as low as 0.2%/year. That means they could retain 96% of their production capacity after 20 years, and 90% after a half century! Either way, the balance lost to aging solar infrastructure would need to be made up by new conservation by users or new solar or other energy production, but wouldn’t require ripping out 50,000 sq mi every couple of decades.
https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/…

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Our retirement home is 98% complete and it has a 10.65 kW solar array on the roof. The company that installed it (ReVision Energy) sized it that way after calculating it will provide all of our annual electricity needs leaving us with just a maintenance electric bill for infrastructure. We move in May 15 and I’ll be curious to see how close to that estimate we get. And I certainly expect the system to outlive me and carry some residual value when my heirs go to sell it. While we knock around the macro calculations and plans, I’m moving forward with my micro applications of which solar PV is just one part.

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We just downsized. We had solar at our old place long enough to break even (11years). Now someone else will enjoy the benefits well into the future.
We just signed a solar deal on our new place that, at about our current bill rate, will be completely paid off in 5 years and our electricity will be free at least to the warranty life of 25 years. Plus they’re throwing in a new service panel.
I even got a veteran’s break on the price.
I told the guy if this is some kind of scam I’ll come looking for him. I don’t think he was intimidated. He’s 32, I’m 72.

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Cool! 10kw on the roof, Tom - that packs a punch. We just sold our house with 5kw on top last Sept., in part because, since I do sustainable investment work, it looked like that big stock Bull was about to finally turn into BS, roll over and die into a Bear, and if so, would likely turn housing prices flat to down strongly for a year or five. We put it on the market on Sept 20, same day as what turned out to be the recent S&P top. We had sold our last house before in 2006, just as housing peaked, and then rented for 5 years until 2011, when we got a deal on a fixer upper back in the hills. Unlike my wife, I have no pension except social security, so, our big gains from fixing & selling the two houses are my retirement savings, some of which will buy our next place.
I guess it depends on your location (latitude, sunrise,sunset, sun angle, transient shading, etc) how many kw you need, but where we were, our 5kw of roof panels covered 100% of our electrical needs for the year, at least when just two of us were there. When we rented an attached in-law that used an electric stove and some electric heat, our bills would go a little over and get paid out of the rent. Against recommendations of 2 or 3 solar contractors bidding who said it wasn’t worth the extra $2-3K, I put in battery backup just to become familiar with the technology and be able to work at home & on the internet when the power went out, as it did 2 - 3 times a year back in the hills. It’d stay out for a few hours or up to a day or so. The emergency backup worked great, and would take over so seamlessly sometimes, we’d be watching TV or something and not notice that the entire neighborhood had gone dark until an hour or so after it happened, when we looked out a window or went to another part of the house.
After we sold the place, there was a storm & we saw a former neighbor post that the entire Madrone Canyon we’d lived in had gone out. Just for fun, we drove up at night to see how our back-up system was doing for the new owners. For about 1.5 miles from the entrance to the canyon all the way up, the neighborhoods were pitch black. No street lights, no electric lights in any houses lining the main road. The whole drive, we only saw 2 - 3 candles or lanterns through windows. When we got to our place near the end of the road on the hillside, it was blazing with light, the only place out of hundreds we’d passed that had electricity. I got a kick out of that - satisfaction in my part designing & building the system with the electrician, even though we didn’t own the place anymore.
Now, we’re renting a condo temporarily, but it looks like we might join a multi-generational co-housing ‘intentional community’ that’s buying a few acres north of here. We’re still checking it out. Everyone will have their own, complete 2 – 4 bedroom townhome or flat they’ll own outright, plus the group will own a 3700 sq ft common house with big kitchen, dining room, multipurpose & guest rooms, sauna, etc and thousands of square feet of common garden. If you want to just do your own thing, that’s fine. But if you want to eat dinner with others a one or more times a week in the common house, you just sign up, then most times just show up and eat, & occasionally come early to help do prep.
One of the things that’s attracted me to check out the project is that I talked to the head of the ‘sustainability committee’, and they’re planning on generating enough electricity with solar to power the entire community, and to have battery back up for the entire community grid as well. The group is buying the land and running construction as an LLC, then converting to a condo legal structure once the place is built. They’re also planning to have the community build and own a few single bedroom units on the property the group would then rent to generate some income to cover HOA fees rather than owners having to pay anything on-going.
I have a few concerns related to location being not far enough out of Dodge when things blow, but my wife has a few more years of work and long commutes before she retires, and is more a city person generally, so this is a compromise that keeps us together. Also, I built an aquaponics greenhouse at our last place. The fact the community told me they may have access to a large adjacent plot of land owned by the local school for additional food growing they said could support my idea of doing expanded aquaponics operation is a big draw, too. The food project would be an ‘educational project’ in coordination with the nearby elementary school, part of their learning experience, with food output generated for our group and the school community.
We haven’t made a final decision, but most importantly, the people we’ve met seem on the beam and fun. It looks like this model could be a good way to mix community with the freedom to be independent as well. I’ve always had some attraction to more communiy oriented, or multi-generation living approaches compared to a strict, more isolated ‘nuclear-family’ focus - even though, as we all know, other people are often a huge pain :wink: Here’s a link to the group’s website that shows some of their plans:
https://www.marincoho.com/

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Too bad they didnt plan less units and more outdoors, even at a higher cost. Very small amount of garden beds per unit.
Their web site says nothng about solar, but even if only the common house had battery backup, that would be an important backup for everyone. A place to go with lights and community and one fridege where the most essentials could be piled in.
My biggest worry about this group would be the lack of shared politics. WHile it may not be so, my experience in this area of California would have me cautious about this group, I would worry about the community demanding in deeds, although not in words, a conformity of thought on the world and politics I would aorry about it being non-diverse on thoughts of how the world realy is and the reality of the 3 E’s, let alone if you voted different, this is a co-housing in Novato, after all, and look at the list of who have already signed up, quite an echo chamber

On the other hand, if your wife needs to wirk around there, it is an affordable place

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mtnhouspermi, you have some reactions similar to mine. I’ve been looking at co-housing or shared land condo arrangements on and off for a few years, and also would have prefered that the units be a bit sparser with more green space and common gardening area. There are some long time co-housing set ups in Davis California that are sparser, and in some cases have commonly owned separate groves of fruit and nuts trees they maintain and harvest, as I recall. Here’s one of the oldest, though I don’t see groves in theirs:
http://www.muircommons.org/
My concern about the limited planned common gardening space (3000-4000 sq ft) is made less pressing by the fact, as I mentioned, that there’s a large adjoining plot of open land that it seems likely we could use for gardens and aquaponics. We’ll find out more how certain that looks in the coming days.
Since the battery back-up plans aren’t locked in yet, I would push for more battery back-up capability rather than less, to cover at least scaled down use of all individual house needs in addition to the common house. Also, my understanding from my own projects is that, once you set up a structure that’s designed to accommodate off-grid type inverters and batteries, you can scale up inverter/battery capacity relatively easily after the fact as long as you’re attaching the back up system to a central grid box that feeds the entire the community.
So far, I’m less worried about the politics of the people involved, or their desire to push people around with social pressure - though as you suggest, people in groups can always press for discomfort, conformity, drama if they work on it. The people we’ve talked to so far seem pretty much on the same page overall, and importantly, are laid back. A couple are ex-military, including one of the founders, who lived in co-housing while stationed in Virginia, a few are engineers, business or academic types. Yeah, given the Bay Area locale, they probably tend more ‘liberal’ than the midwest. I talk to people in person and on-line, though, who are across the political spectrum, and am friends with some on pretty different pages politically, at least on some topics. I’m a person who respects individual freedom, don’t try to tell other people how to live much and don’t like people to tell me what to do either if I’m not causing anyone else a genuine problem. If I gather some kind of pressure for ‘group think’ might evolve, I won’t join.

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Take a more non-liberal position than you realy are when talking to people in this group to see how open they are. I get that YOU are open to various positions, it is just that my experience from when I lived in that part of CA, and the part of CA I am in now, is that THEY may not be. It is bad enough not being able to say anything in the local coffee shop here, but that is not part of my “home” as you would expect your common areas in a co-housing to be. Show up for your interview there in a MAGA hat, even though you dont normally wear one just to sind out how tolerant they are…

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repeat

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it’d be kind of a dramatic statement given I’ve seen pretty much nobody wearing one around here that I can remember, just as I’m sure there were big swathes of the country where Hillary gear & yardsigns weren’t seen much before the election. I’m not a fan of either of those two corrupt characters.
mntnhousepermi, as you say, you’d want places like the co-housing common areas to feel like home, where you can be yourself.
For that, you kind of need to feel compatible with the people who live there, whatever that means to you or to me. So far, my wife and I feel compatible with these folks. Though we haven’t talked politics with them much, we’re usually pretty good judges of character.
I’ve been dealing with John the most, the ex-military guy who’s one of the two project leaders, and we really like him alot. He’s got a bright-eyed, direct look, a good sense of humor, and seems very straightforward about the risks and potential difficulties as well as the positive aspects of the project. There’s no interview process - I’ve already hung out and had meals with most of the group - talked in person and in online Zoom meetings. So, it’s a little late to be faking opinions to test reactions, and not likely the best ‘getting to know you’ strategy in this situation… though I am chuckling a little bit imagining what would happen if I suddenly showed up in one of those potlucks or online Zoom meeting rectangles with a MAGA hat on. It would be a WTF moment…

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For Sure. But it shouldnt. That is the point. If one where to put one on as a reminder to the rest of the world of tolerance, just as we used to put on a rainbow pin, just as some women will put on a headscarf for the day.
If people dont see this as the same, then they are not tolerant, no matter how they say they ae

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based on your description of not feeling like you can speak your mind at the local coffee shop. If you want to wear one because you feel it conveys a message of tolerance that no one can deny, you should absolutely do that & feel good about it, not try to convince me or anyone else to do it. I do agree with your wish for a spirit of more political tolerance, just feel there are much better ways to get there.
For me, when I talk to new people and find they like Trump or Hillary, folks I don’t support, I’m a lot more interested in trying to stay connected to them as people and actually talking about the differences in how we see things than I am wanting to test them by wearing icons. IMO, talking is better than ‘testing’ or wearing symbols, and I have close friends who support Trump or supported Hillary that I have (usually) friendly conversations with in which we challenge each other’s thinking. More in-depth communication is a lot better than symbols when it comes to tolerance for me.
Also, I don’t quite see MAGA hats as showing solidarity with ‘oppressed people’ in the same light as rainbow pins (in support of gays, I guess?), or headscarfs (in support of muslim women’s rights?). In fact, MAGA is just a huge con by a very corrupt businessman, as far as I’m concerned, though many of the MAGA issues Trump appeals to to generate power for himself are quite real. MAGA supporters elected a corrupt President and are a big force in the country. They may be a minority in this particular place and therefore deserve tolerance and a hearing, as you suggest - and you wouldn’t believe how much time I talk about corrupt liberal elites to my liberal friends. More and more have moved toward the same page I’m on - I’ve seen them change as the situation becomes more obvious. But it’s also blazingly clear to me that the policies Trump supports ramp intolerance toward both the other groups you used as examples. The world is a complicated place. We agree that tolerance is good - just have different ways to get there.

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Quote:
But it's also blazingly clear to me that the policies Trump supports ramp intolerance toward both the other groups you used as examples.
It would be hard to ignore the irony of wearing a MAGA hat as a sign/plea/gesture of tolerance.
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Doug wrote:
Quote:
But it's also blazingly clear to me that the policies Trump supports ramp intolerance toward both the other groups you used as examples.
It would be hard to ignore the irony of wearing a MAGA hat as a sign/plea/gesture of tolerance.

We can see right here that you guys are already stereotyping.

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https://wirepoints.org/like-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal-youll-love-what-illinois-wants-to-do/

It’s now moving through the Illinois General Assembly with very broad sponsorship and exceptionally well-organized support. It’s a 365-page monstrosity of bureaucratic overreach, unhinged social engineering, climate extremism and shameless disregard for cost. It’s called the Clean Energy Jobs Act. It would put specificity and the force of law behind the core concepts of the Green New Deal spearheaded by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez... The bill calls for 40 million solar panels and 2,500 wind turbines alongside $20 billion in new infrastructure over the next decade. One million gas and diesel vehicles would come off Illinois roads... The Illinois bill is loaded with social justice goals. There are tedious requirements for a Clean Jobs Workforce Hubs Program; “environmental justice communities”; job creation for ex-offenders and former foster children; “energy empowerment zones”; workforce and training including soft skills and math to ensure communities of color, returning citizens, foster care communities and others understand clean energy opportunities; stipends for jobs and apprenticeships, including funding for transportation and child care; access to low-cost capital for disadvantaged clean energy businesses and contractors; and much, much more. What’s most annoying is sheer indifference to cost, which is probably immeasurable anyway given the bill’s vast complexity. Don’t expect to find an estimate anywhere. National critics of the Green New Deal immediately asked about cost, but in Illinois, it just doesn’t matter. Broke Illinois would somehow have to pay a proportionate share of the multi-trillion-dollar cost estimates for the Green New Deal. Supporters of the Illinois bill typically duck the question of cost by jumping to claims of new job creation in renewables. But their job claims invariably are one sided, ignoring lost jobs in the carbon-based industries they would destroy. And the jobs primarily are in the initial installation, which is to say they are temporary. They cite Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act to prove success in job creation. It became law in 2017, imposing less grand targets for renewable energy. It authorized $750 million for job training in that industry. “Now we have a report to prove” how many jobs were created by that earlier law, says Ann Williams (D-Chicago), the new bill’s leading sponsor in the Illinois House. But that’s just 1,500 jobs, she says. That’s success? Watch the whole interview with her to get a sense of the mentality behind this bill. I reached out to Williams for comment but got no response. Supporters like Williams also claim that renewables are simply cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. What? If the goal were truly to allow the cheapest alternatives to prevail, massive intervention in the marketplace obviously wouldn’t be needed...
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My first post on PP. I’ve stopped by this site occasionally to read the articles and finally have decided to post. I would ecourage you all to read the 30 years of MMT before discussing the prescriptive side of it. There is the descriptive side which describes the monetary and fiscal operations of the US. Most economists that have actually read the descriptive side agree that it is accurate, including economists like Steve Keen, Michael Hudson, Bill Black, Bill Mitchell, L. Randall Wray, even Austrian economist Robert Murphy, and many more. What is being debated and mostly trashed in the media currently is the prescriptive side, in particular, using a job guarantee by way of fiscal policy.
The descriptive side of MMT is invaluable if you want to have a firm understanding of sovereign fiat floating exchange rate currency, and how that differs from operations of sound money. Many of the arguments used today when debating the mechanics and effects of monetary and fiscal policy as well as currency and international trade are mechanics that are hold overs from the gold standard and don’t apply to modern fiat mechanics and effects.
AOC has connected with MMT economists, in particular Stephanie Kelton, and is using some of the talking points of MMT to tug at the political spectrum. Whether the GND is affordable or not is not really the question. How the government uses monetary and fiscal policy to address our national goals is. After 40 years of monetarism, having the FED be the main tool to “steer” the economy, it is very valid to question whether this is really an effective policy tool, or can there be other effective tools on the fiscal side, or a mix of both.
Injecting reserves into the banking system has created all kinds of market dislocations and bubbles about which commenters here complain. One could argue that the monetary side of policy is just as corrupt as any possible fiscal policy outcome. Regardless, the fact that AOC has brought the idea of fiscal operations back as a viable policy that needs to be debated is not a bad thing. If all we see is a nail, our only solution is a hammer.
Before condemning MMT based on hearsay and what the mainstream media is writing about it, go read it for yourself. I agree the prescriptive side may or may not be a good idea, but we have historical evidence from the last New Deal that the government can spend on real productive assets and create meaningful jobs. Whether there is the political will to do so is another matter. Anyway, there are many books and scholarly works available. A good starter book is L. Randall Wrays “Modern Money Theory: A Primer”, the newly issued textbook is also very well written. An interesting debate to watch in regard to MMT is one between Mosler (MMT) and Murphy (Austrian). Murphy basically agrees with the mechanics of MMT, the descriptive side, but doesn’t like fiat currency in general so prefers to throw the entire system into question. Fair enough, but again he doesn’t negate MMT.

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Thanks for your post – I’ve been reading a fair amount about MMT, trying to keep an open mind, and too have noted the multitude ideological knee-jerk critiques. While I still lean away from it, I am only a dilettante when it comes to economics, so I'm firmly in "what do I know" territory. It recently occurred to me that what keeps me leaning away from it is the definition of money that makes the most sense to me - one that Chris mentions on occasion, which to me sounds like a definition of money that is more based on biophysical economics (money as a claim on future wealth which requires energy as a component of wealth-generating productivity https://www.financialsense.com/contributors/george-mobus/biophysical-economics-energy-standard-money), while MMT uses the standard money definition as a store of value. In this sense, MMT would not work simply because it ignores the relationship between energy and money. Even if my leaning away from MMT is right, if given a dichotomous choice between actively practicing MMT to generate funds to support climate change energy and infrastructure transition work and BAU, I'd probably support MMT, because horrifically bad endings are certain outcomes of the latter, while I'd guess merely probable outcomes of the former. Also, I can’t get past the criticism (hat tip again to Chris) of MMT about the need to create and direct funds with wisdom and restraint. I can’t imagine a political system or ruling elite wise enough to accomplish this. MMT could just as well be used to continue to bloat the parasitic military industrial complex instead of beneficial social/environmental uses.
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I will agree that it is definitely more efficient for the government to simply print money, vs having to tax, then borrow, then not-pay-back while paying interest. Looking at MMT-the-mechanism, it seems perfectly fine.
It is when you then hand that efficient tool to human beings that problems will predicably occur.
This is one of those Fat Tony vs Dr. John sort of cases that Taleb talked about in Fooled by Randomness. Fat Tony would lick his lips at the prospect of an efficient funding source with only a voluntary check on his ability to spend (“inflation”), while Dr. John would talk at length at how spending would be bounded by inflation, and of course the good and wise people in control would never let that happen - and “the people” would discipline them if they tried.
So clearly I’m all for Fat Tony here. Our government - our population - is full to the brim with Fat Tonys. Dr. John lives in an artificial world of his own creation.
Do we imagine the government’s inflation measure will be honest? If that’s the only check on spending, then it is guaranteed that it will not be honest, because that’s just how people work. People in power do not like checks on their ability to “get things done” (i.e. give out goodies to their favored group - c.f. Rules for Rulers). Over time, they will always act to subvert such limitations “for all the right reasons” (i.e. remaining in power).
So the measure of inflation would slowly become even more fraudulent than it is now, and there would be no formal check on spending, and so the outcome would be really predictable. At least to Fat Tony, it would be predictable. Dr. John would focus on mechanisms and academic discussions and he would dismiss the human element because that’s just what he tends to do.
Basically, we’d end up like Argentina, because that’s where our collection of Fat Tonys would take us.
The “friction” in the system (money in limited supply - having to be actually taken away from someone, which understandably annoys them) is the real check on the government’s ability to spend. Annoyed people provide feedback to the government. “Stop taxing me.” It is a very immediate pain.
Inflation, on the other hand, is far more subtle. People notice taxes immediately. Inflation is dimly perceived, until it gets really awful, as it did in the 70s. Things have to get way out of control before popular feedback on inflation occurs, especially if favored groups are getting goodies in the meantime. And even when inflation gets out of control, the political class are still required to give out goodies to their favorite groups, or they end up out of power. That’s because being out of power is the worst possible outcome. For them, of course.
So the human-politicians involved would always push things towards maximizing inflation. And they would also increasingly work to corrupt any inflation measures. And “the people” who got goodies from these politicians would keep them in power right up until the moment that things blew up spectacularly. And maybe even beyond. “Sure there is 10%/year government-measured inflation (really 20%), but I get free school, medical care, and I get my UBI. And we’re fighting climate change! That’s just the price we have to pay to save the world…”
GND is really a masterpiece. Its a massive giveaway (c.f. Rules for Rulers), with a green cover to “save the world.” You have to keep giving me my free stuff so we can save the world. Masterful.
How does Maduro stay in power with all that hyperinflation? He makes sure that the Army continues to get goodies - whatever scraps are left from a ruined economy goes straight to the Army. And so they keep him in power. Its straight out of Rules for Rulers.
I mean, does anybody doubt this outcome? It happens all the time in the third world. All the time. We have so many examples.

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Old Paradigm
From 1850 till Today
Work: It is everything that some person does to make money, no matter if it favors or harms the society or nature.
New Paradigm
2017 (it must be)
Work: Social Contribution: It is everything that a person does to make money, favoring the society and nature.
https://mutualwelfare.org/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-new-society/