Thornton Parker
      In the first part of this series, we explained why MMT should be seen as a political problem rather than just an educational one.  In this concluding part, we will discuss where MMT promotion is most likely to fail or have good chances of success.  First, consider some poor prospects.   
      All readers of NEP know how Social Security works and it seems like a natural for MMT.  But is it?  Wall Street sees the program as a leak from what should be their profitable money flow.  For years, the former investment banker and secretary of commerce under Ronald Reagan, Pete Peterson, kept forecasting its failure.  George W. Bush tried to fix the leak by privatizing it.  Arguing the virtues of MMT for Social Security is a sure way to stir up Wall Street bees that are

Thornton Parker
      In the first part of this series, we explained why MMT should be seen as a political problem rather than just an educational one.  In this concluding part, we will discuss where MMT promotion is most likely to fail or have good chances of success.  First, consider some poor prospects.   
      All readers of NEP know how Social Security works and it seems like a natural for MMT.  But is it?  Wall Street sees the program as a leak from what should be their profitable money flow.  For years, the former investment banker and secretary of commerce under Ronald Reagan, Pete Peterson, kept forecasting its failure.  George W. Bush tried to fix the leak by privatizing it.  Arguing the virtues of MMT for Social Security is a sure way to stir up Wall Street bees that are

Thornton Parker
      In the first part of this series, we explained why MMT should be seen as a political problem rather than just an educational one.  In this concluding part, we will discuss where MMT promotion is most likely to fail or have good chances of success.  First, consider some poor prospects.   
      All readers of NEP know how Social Security works and it seems like a natural for MMT.  But is it?  Wall Street sees the program as a leak from what should be their profitable money flow.  For years, the former investment banker and secretary of commerce under Ronald Reagan, Pete Peterson, kept forecasting its failure.  George W. Bush tried to fix the leak by privatizing it.  Arguing the virtues of MMT for Social Security is a sure way to stir up Wall Street bees that are

By Thornton Parker
       The way a problem is seen can determine how or even if it gets solved.  When the French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, was picked to build the Panama Canal, he saw it as another excavation problem as his Suez Canal had been.  But Egypt was flat and Panama had a mountain. 
When the United States took over the job, John Stevens, who was put in charge, saw it as a railroad problem.  The biggest task was to move ninety-six million cubic yards of rock and earth, as fast as the fifteen giant steam shovels cut them out of the mountain, from the Pacific side of Panama to the Atlantic side for building a dam and raising a lake that would be part of the canal.  

The MMT Problem
Developers and promoters of MMT have seen their task as a teaching problem; explaining

By Thornton Parker
       The way a problem is seen can determine how or even if it gets solved.  When the French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, was picked to build the Panama Canal, he saw it as another excavation problem as his Suez Canal had been.  But Egypt was flat and Panama had a mountain. 
When the United States took over the job, John Stevens, who was put in charge, saw it as a railroad problem.  The biggest task was to move ninety-six million cubic yards of rock and earth, as fast as the fifteen giant steam shovels cut them out of the mountain, from the Pacific side of Panama to the Atlantic side for building a dam and raising a lake that would be part of the canal.  

The MMT Problem
Developers and promoters of MMT have seen their task as a teaching problem; explaining

By Thornton Parker
       The way a problem is seen can determine how or even if it gets solved.  When the French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, was picked to build the Panama Canal, he saw it as another excavation problem as his Suez Canal had been.  But Egypt was flat and Panama had a mountain. 
When the United States took over the job, John Stevens, who was put in charge, saw it as a railroad problem.  The biggest task was to move ninety-six million cubic yards of rock and earth, as fast as the fifteen giant steam shovels cut them out of the mountain, from the Pacific side of Panama to the Atlantic side for building a dam and raising a lake that would be part of the canal.  

The MMT Problem
Developers and promoters of MMT have seen their task as a teaching problem; explaining how

By Thornton Parker
  The way a problem is seen may determine how or even if it gets solved.  Global warming (GW) and climate change (CC) are going to scramble many ideas about how developed economies work.  At root, GW and CC must be seen as money problems, and modern money (MM) is the key to solving them.   
     Energy companies spend money to find, extract, and market fossil fuels.  Other companies use money to create products and services that consume fossil fuel energy.  Money enables every step from ground to atmosphere and is the common ingredient of all aspects of the global warming problem.    

      Climate change results from global warming, and it too must be seen as a money problem.  Large regions of the country (and the world) face losses from rising sea levels, record

By Thornton Parker
  The way a problem is seen may determine how or even if it gets solved.  Global warming (GW) and climate change (CC) are going to scramble many ideas about how developed economies work.  At root, GW and CC must be seen as money problems, and modern money (MM) is the key to solving them.   
     Energy companies spend money to find, extract, and market fossil fuels.  Other companies use money to create products and services that consume fossil fuel energy.  Money enables every step from ground to atmosphere and is the common ingredient of all aspects of the global warming problem.    

      Climate change results from global warming, and it too must be seen as a money problem.  Large regions of the country (and the world) face losses from rising sea levels, record

By Thornton Parker
  The way a problem is seen may determine how or even if it gets solved.  Global warming (GW) and climate change (CC) are going to scramble many ideas about how developed economies work.  At root, GW and CC must be seen as money problems, and modern money (MM) is the key to solving them.   
     Energy companies spend money to find, extract, and market fossil fuels.  Other companies use money to create products and services that consume fossil fuel energy.  Money enables every step from ground to atmosphere and is the common ingredient of all aspects of the global warming problem.    

      Climate change results from global warming, and it too must be seen as a money problem.  Large regions of the country (and the world) face losses from rising sea levels, record

White-collar crime prosecutions are at a 33-year low. Corporate leaders can cause environmental disasters, economic crashes, and the deaths of thousands and still walk free. But there’s a way out. NEP’s Bill Black talks with The Real News Network about this. You can view with a transcript here.
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So says NEP’s former federal investigator Bill Black, who defines with fine detail what will likely be emerging from the impeachment hearings in this appearance on The Real News Network. You can view with transcript here.
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L. Randall Wray will be providing testimony for Congress on November 20 at 10 am. The topic is the government debt and deficits. His full statement will be available at 10:30AM at the Levy Institute. His goal is to explain a) why we needn’t fear sovereign government deficits and debt; b) why in some important sense, deficits and rising debt are “normal”; c) the deficit is in any case largely outside the control of Congress; d) deficits and rising debt ratios will not lead to government insolvency or bankruptcy; e) all government payments can be made on time, unless f) Congress forces a default (due to the debt ceiling it imposes). The statement will provide a lot of new data related to these topics.
The link to the webcast

Regulatory agencies taking on Savings & Loan fraud may not be everyone’s idea of a swashbuckling tale, but for the nerdy types at Macro N Cheese it’s pure gold. NEP’s Bill Black appears on their latest podcast. You can listen here.

While there are real reasons to be concerned about Google’s immense power, this investigation is quite politically motivated, NEP’s Bill Black on The Real News Network. You can view here with a transcript.
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While a new poll shows most US citizens believe the political and economic system is rigged against them, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren also echo this sentiment. Some conservatives are now pushing back. But what says the evidence? NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and analyzes the situation. You can view here with a transcript.
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Trump accuses China of currency manipulation because their currency devalued in the wake of his tariffs. However, as NEP’s Bill Black explains, this accusation has no basis in fact. Instead, Trump’s trade war only increases the likelihood of a recession. You can view here with transcript.
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Segregation and housing discrimination are affecting Black homeownership today as much as in the days before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What happened and how can this be reversed? NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and discusses this. You can view here with transcript.
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NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and discusses Feacebook’s new proposed crypto-currency, called “Libra.” Facebook could use this technology to standardize identity and create a world of ultimate surveillance, and then profit from it. You can view here with a transcript.
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NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and analyzes the new study, “The Plunder of Black Wealth in Chicago,” opening the way for a fruitful conversation about reparations and our future. You can view here with a transcript.
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Trump opposes the merger of these two arms manufacturers, which would create the world’s largest such corporation, but why? NEP’s Bill Black appears on the Real News Network and gives us the interesting answer as well as explores why these mergers are dangerous and on the rise. You can view here with a transcript.
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L. Randall Wray
How to Pay for the Green New DealWORKING PAPER NO. 931 | May 2019
This paper follows the methodology developed by J. M. Keynes in his How to Pay for the War pamphlet to estimate the “costs” of the Green New Deal (GND) in terms of resource requirements. Instead of simply adding up estimates of the government spending that would be required, we assess resource availability that can be devoted to implementing GND projects. This includes mobilizing unutilized and underutilized resources, as well as shifting resources from current destructive and inefficient uses to GND projects. We argue that financial affordability cannot be an issue for the sovereign US government. Rather, the problem will be inflation if sufficient resources cannot be diverted to the GND. And if

MMT for People in a Hurry
By J.D. ALT
POST #3  (Post #1, Post #2)
OPERATION #2—The federal government buys something big for the collective good.
NOTE: A much appreciated comment at Naked Capitalism re: Post#1 suggested that the term “Combustion Chamber” was misleading since the “fuel” (money) put into the chamber is not burned as in a motorcycle engine but is redistributed to other accounts. I was planning to point this out further into the narrative but the comment showed that would be too late. So, beginning now, I’ve changed the name “Combustion Chamber” to “Production/Consumption (P/C) Chamber,” of which we have two: a Public P/C Chamber and a Private P/C Chamber.
OPERATION #1 looked at a transaction in private commerce—an exchange of money occurring in the Private P/C Chamber

NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and explains how the administration’s stance on Trump’’ taxes is illegal and what the possible consequences could be—or should be. You can view with transcript here.
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NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and describes how OSHA’s few underfunded inspectors can’t do their jobs, and prosecutors don’t prosecute businesses for non-compliance. You can view here with a transcript.
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Crossposted from Phil Pilkington’s Blog – Fixing the Economists.
Readers are probably aware that there is quite a lot of discussion of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the potential for fiscal experimentation batting around at the moment. Others have weighed in on this already, and I have little to add.
It is striking, however, that most of the push-back — where there is push-back — is not focused on trying to discredit the idea that we should engage in fiscal experimentation. Indeed, the notion that we should engage in fiscal experimentation seems to be, if not mainstream, at the very least part of the discussion.
Yet, vulgar strawman-style arguments against MMT aside, no one seriously disputes the fact that if too much fiscal expansion is undertaken the economy will eventually hit a

NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and demolishes the notion that we can’t prosecute banksters with the laws we now have in place. You can view here with transcript.[embedded content]

NEP’s BIll Black appears on The Real News Network and examines the historical context of Warren’s bills for easier prosecution of banks and corporate leaders. You can view with transcript here.[embedded content]

NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network and examines the corrupt corporate worlds of Germany and the U.S. and how Trump ignores corporate malfeasance. You can view with a transcript here.[embedded content]

NEP’s Bill Black appears on acTVism from Munich (in English) to define and talk about the role of a financial regulator. The discussion then turns to financial crisis – S&L debacle as well as the 2008 crash.[embedded content]

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Sackler and PurduePharma profited from “suffering and death,” NYC AG Letitia James says. NEP’s Bill Black discusses the case on The Real News Network. You can view with a transcript here.
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