I only watched up to the point where he claims that the Australian government is a "currency issuer", at which point I had to stop.
The Australian government is not a currency issuer. When the Australian government spends money, it has to raise that money through taxes, borrowing or asset sales. It can't just "print" money and spend it.
When the Australian government spends money (welfare payments, salaries, etc etc) where do you know where the money comes from, literally?
The Commonwealth Treasury has a bank account with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). The rules around accounts with the RBA are very clear and very strict - in no circumstances can an account holder have a negative balance. (When I worked on exchange settlement in the early 1980's, accidentally overdrawing the bank's RBA clearing account would trigger a call from the Governor to the CEO.) This rule applies to the Australia Treasury as well. The Australian government can't spend money that it doesn't have in its RBA account. Strategically, Treasury raises taxes, borrows and/or sells assets. Those funds are paid into its RBA account. They are often lent our short term through the RBA and tactically called back to fund payments as they fall due.
So the MMT assumption that governments like the Australian or US have unlimited funding through "money printing" is nonsense.
In Australia, physical currency is "issued" by the RBA. The RBA can "issue" currency physical notes and specie (coins). It only does this at the request of Australian based commercial banks. Those banks pay for the physical notes and specie with transfers from the RBA clearing accounts, so these transactions have zero impact on monetary supply. Conversely, commercial banks can surrender old, damaged or surplus notes and specie to the RBA and receive credits to their clearing account balances.
The net proceeds earned by the RBA for the sale of notes and specie appears as a liability item (like a deposit) on the balance sheet of the RBA (about $75.6 billion). This money is not transferred to the Treasury and can not be used by the Government as a budget resource.
Also, the RBA could purchase bonds from the market paying for them with transfers to commercial bank clearing account. Normally the RBA would soak up the surplus liquidity using repo or the sale of short bonds or Treasury notes (which has the effect of funding the purchases). However, the RBA has the option not to soak up the surplus liquidity. This means that the proceeds from the bond purchase sits uninvested in the clearing accounts of the commercial banks. The RBA now holds this money as a deposit, and the bond purchases are paid for effectively using that money. Some people refer to this a Quantitative Easing (QE). The last time the RBA did this was for a few weeks in late 1983...
The important thing to understand is that when the RBA raises money, through the sale of physical currency or accumulation of balances in bank clearing accounts, this money does not belong to the Federal Treasury. This money can't be used for government spending.
Personally I am in favour of expanded government spending in Australia, particularly at times such as this when the economy is weaker. But "money printing" is not a way it can be funded. If money printing is a core tenant of MMT, then MMT is a load of bunk.
All the best.
Afterthought: I apologise to the gold forum. This post has nothing to do with the price of gold. But maybe that is an important point to make.
