If you haven’t heard about “Modern Monetary Theory,” you will. Simply put, it holds that governments don’t need to worry about budget deficits. On the contrary, they can finance anything they want to do, simply by printing money.

If you think that sounds stupid, you are right. Yet the theory is becoming popular on the American left. It has been espoused by, among others, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who explains that we can pay the $90 trillion bill for the Green New Deal by printing the money.

Of course, Modern Monetary Theory isn’t modern at all. Throughout history, governments have resorted to debasing their currency in a futile effort to create wealth–or, in any event, to pay their bills for one more day. Whether it’s ancient Rome, the Weimar Republic, Argentina or–today–Venezuela, printing money has been the last resort of the bankrupt state.

It is often said that you can’t get economists to agree on anything, but here is an exception: economists universally regard the Democrats’ panacea as a crackpot idea. The Initiative on Global Markets is a research center at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. It has a panel of expert economists to which it periodically poses questions. Today’s topic was Modern Monetary Theory, and the results were resounding. Not a single economist endorsed it:

So it’s unanimous: Modern Monetary Theory, the Democratic Party’s latest ticket to the promised land, is a fraud. And not a modern one, either.

Speaking of socialism…I heard an observation yesterday, in the context of Venezuela, that was striking and true. If I could remember who said it, I would credit him. Here it is:

You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.

Another reason why we need the Second Amendment.