Where are the Reference Points?

[What follows is rather raw reaction and thoughts scribed in an effort to focus my own thinking. The reader may wish to read the section written March 16 (which follows the March 18 text) first.]

As I write (1:22 PM, March 18, 2020) chaos does indeed seem to be occurring. Congress just passed a $1.3T? relief package and there's panic talk on CNBC (Bill Ackerman). Of course the solution is more money from government.

Or is it?

Toward a Comprehensive MMT

The name Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) implies that we have a comprehensive theory of fiat money and monetary policy. Unfortunately, most MMT authors limit their discussions to the creation aspect of money, thereby avoiding the mundane (but more important) discussion of using money for everyday transactions. To be comprehensive, MMT needs to embrace theory describing both the creation of money and the use of money--two distinctly different monetary events.

Notating Discontinuities in Long Time Series

A Brian Romanchuk post uses math that requires a starting point in a time series. Starting something creates a discontinuity in any temporal display that might appear in a chart. I would like to suggest a better way to notate the time series used by Brian.