Mike Norman Economics

Everything I say, they say, after I said it.

This is a very brief article where it doesn't seem like Ian Stewart has thought through MMT all that much st all as he just relies on what he has been taught about the government printed money and inflation. Ian Stewart is happy with printed money being spent on assets keeping their prices high, but not on public goods a services. And he says that MMT will crowd the private sector out, something that MMT economists are always very careful about. Now, it’s worth noting that both MMT and QE...

Like Peter May, I still think a mixed economy is best. I'm looking forward to the British Labour Party re-nationalizing the railways. There is an interesting article by Carlos Garciá Hernández here, arguing that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) renders the Marxist theory of ownership redundant (I wonder if Paul Mason has read it?): What happened when fiat money was introduced? As we have seen, the state that issues its own money is no longer dependent on any kind of restriction in spending its...

Carlos Garciá Hernández argues that socialist parties needn't own the means of production anymore as a way to increase the standard of living and well being of the general population now we have a fiat money system. MMT shows us the way. Carlos takes a look at Marx’s economic philosophy through an MMT Lens and comes up with his own unique and updated description – fiat socialism As has already been explained in the second section of this article, such direct ownership of the means of...

Oh dear, Bill Mitchell has his work cut out. He quite likes the British Labour Party, probably because it most likely the only real mainstream leftist party left in the first world, well, half of it is, anyway. It's a shame, because if we could have public services without taxing people on average incomes too much we could easily win over the floating voter and maybe even more.It should also be noted that there is nothing inherently left-wing about MMT – it supporters include members of the...

Is inflation much higher than the official figures suggest? Jesse Colombo seems to think so, who says they are closer to 10% rather than the officially stated 2%. And much of the inflation is being hidden in asset bubbles, he says, and will burst eventually.  One of the primary ways that our modern CPI formula understates inflation is through hedonic quality adjustments. In simple terms, consumer goods that experience technological improvements are considered to have fallen in...

The "modelling" here is using military science–yes, there is such a thing–to model outcomes of military contingencies.Reminiscence of the FutureOn The Virtues Of ModellingAndrei Martyanov

Some years ago, I was a panel speaker at an event in Sydney covering the topic of wage developments. I shared the podium with a young woman who was something like NSW Youth of the Year. It was at a time that employer groups were lobbying the conservative government to abandon penalty rates for workers in low-wage industries (hospitality, tourism, etc) and strip powers from trade unions. I spoke about how that agenda was designed to advance their class interests and fitted squarely with the...

Why has modern monetary theory come out of the academy? Because it helps model the current economic predicament and how to get out of it. "Anything we can actually do we can afford. Once done, it is there."John Maynard Keynes (1942) Excellent post by MMT's representative in Germany.It's a bit wonkish (graphs and variables) but it is addressed to a higher level audience than a popular venue and the math is kept simple. Probably not any more wonkish than the posts that Paul Krugman labels as...

Looks like the Treasury is using 'extraordinary measures' to keep the TGA stable as they juggle things under the Debt Ceiling...This is a good sign that these morons might actually be starting to figure it all out...What would have been a very large net disbursement from the TGA and associated price volatility inducing large increase in Reserve Assets in the banking system on Friday was offset by what appears to be Treasury not rolling over the exact amount of Intra-government Series...