The Workbench

The National Debt Can Never Become Too Big: Hyperinflation

On flows versus stocks, government deficits versus government debt, and why "too much" federal borrowing will never lead to a hyperinflation crisis.

Oct 10 • 

Jeff Spross

September 2024

The National Debt Can Never Become Too Big: The Bond Vigilantes

A tour through the banking system, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the U.S. Federal Reserve, to explain why private investors will never stop buying…

Sep 30

Is Providing the World's Reserve Currency a Blessing or a Curse?

Why the rest of the world likes to stockpile U.S. dollars. And how lots of folks misunderstand the upsides and the downsides of this situation.

Sep 23 • 

Jeff Spross

September 2023

Biden Got One Big Thing Wrong On the Economy, and One Big Thing Right

Democrats didn’t pass the sort of policies that voters remember and respond to. But, despite inflation, they’ve managed the macroeconomy well. And…

Sep 5, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

August 2023

We Want Banks to Do Two Mutually Contradictory Things

Banks make loans. And they provide us with a money system. But those are two very different economic functions, for which voters and regulators have…

Aug 15, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

Every Technological Change Is an Opportunity for the Owners to Rob You: Hollywood Edition

Streaming and artificial intelligence were not destined to be threats to actors and writers. The problem is that Hollywood's workers don't control how…

Aug 9, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

If Trump Voters Don't Care About Their Own Material Circumstances, What Are We Even Doing Here?

An extremely common lament among progressives renders their own political stances incoherent, and leads to practical dead ends.

Aug 1, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

April 2023

The Fix for Everything-Bagel Liberalism Is Plain-Bagel Socialism

A lot of problems are best solved by dedicated policy agendas at the national level. But if you refuse to do big national policies, you'll wind up…

Apr 24, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

To Get Rid of Corruption in High Places, Get Rid of the High Places (Leftwing Style)

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' sketchy relationship with megadonor Harlan Crow reminds me of an old conservative quote, though the quote does…

Apr 17, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

March 2023

The unbearable inevitability of conflict between workers and employers

How America’s particularly exploitative and authoritarian form of capitalism encloses the powerful in the fantasy that worker-vs-employer conflict is…

Mar 13, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

February 2023

The New York Times' Transgender Controversy and the Discontents of Workplace Democracy

We Americans consider ourselves a democracy, yet our workplaces are dictatorships. And our latest round of workplace culture warring circles this…

Feb 28, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross

The Debt Ceiling: Here Be (Stupid) Dragons

A general rundown of the whole debt ceiling mess, and why it seems to make our politicians and policymakers crazy.

Feb 22, 2023 • 

Jeff Spross