Tag Archives: fiscal rule

Wednesday and a short blog post. I regularly work for unions as an expert analyst/witness in their struggles to achieve wage justice with employers who are intent on paying as little as possible. Often these are private employers but at the moment I am helping a union with their campaign to win a reasonable wage increase against a state government. The logic deployed by the government in relation to their fiscal affairs and their wage setting behaviour is a classic demonstration of how...

It is Wednesday and only a relatively short blog post. Yes, some more on that Fiscal Rule that seems to be causing people to lose sleep (not me). First, we had the Duck Test debate about the British Labour Party Fiscal Credibility Rule. Those promoting the Rule have been at lengths to deny its neoliberal framing, language and concepts. Not an easy task when the Rule talks about a currency-issuing government wanting to avoid “putting the rent on the credit card month after month”. Sounds...

The week before last, Thomas Fazi and I had a response to a recent British attack on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) published in The Tribune magazine (June 5, 2019) – For MMT. In effect, there were two quite separate topics that needed to be discussed: (a) the misrepresentation of MMT; and (b) the issues pertaining to British Labour Party policy proposals. The article we were responding to – Against MMT – written by a former Labour Party advisor, was not really about MMT at all, as you will...

Good one. Worth reading in full. Richard Murphy gives his summary of the state of the his argument with Jonathan Portes and Simon Wren Lewis. Tax Research UKThe political economy of Labour’s fiscal rule Richard Murphy

Is full employment sustainable? For me, this is one question posed by the row between Richard Murphy and Jonathan Portes and Simon Wren-Lewis over Labour’s proposed fiscal rule.... Disappointing for a someone that is sympathetic to Marx, as Chris Dillow identifies himself. Stumbling and MumblingObstacles to full employmentChris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Richard Murphy challenges Simon Wren-Lewis to put up or shut up. So my question is, I suppose, inevitable. What I would like Simon to do is show how he and Jonathan Portes have written, as he claims, a rule that delivers a real-world political economic solution (because that is what Labour's rule is, because it is not an academic paper) that is the same as modern monetary theory. And I want him to show this even though: i) The rule he has written works subject to financial constraints, and...

Eric Lonergan has recently written a post about the fiscal rules debate that has cropped up around the U.K. Labour Party's adoption of such a rule. As usual, his post covers a lot of territory -- if I were to attempt to cover all the points he raised when following my preferred writing style, it would be a 10 part article. Meanwhile, I am supposed to be working on finishing off my breakeven inflation book, as well as dealing with other projects. As a result, I just want to respond to a...

Finally, a useful MMT critique.Philosophy of MoneyMMT and fiscal rules (part I) – a prologueEric Lonergan

This week’s theme seems to be the about how the so-called progressive side of the economic and political debate keeps kicking ‘own goals’ (given a lot of this is happening in Britain where they play soccer) or finding creative ways to ‘face plant’ (moving to Europe where there is more snow). Over the other side of the Atlantic, as America approaches its mid-term elections, so-called progressive forces who give solace to the New Democrats, aka Neoliberal Democrats are railing against fiscal...

In this blog post, I want to clarify a few things about the rule that inform my previous assessments.... Important if you are a British voter, but also instructive concerning the MMT point of view on progressive policy. Bill Mitchell – billy blogThe British Labour Fiscal Credibility rule – some further final commentsBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia