Tag Archives: MMT critics

At least the author tried to understand MMT, but he didn't quite make it. In addition, the "argument" is dismissive rather than substantive. Back to the drawing board. Manila Times The Dangerous Appeal Of MMT Ben Kritz, TMT

Which brings us to the common ground that Trump shares with Ocasio-Cortez: Neither one believes in budgets. Central to the Green New Deal is a formulation known as modern monetary theory, which holds that the spending power of a sovereign government is limited only by its productive resources. Trump's fiscal insanity - massive spending along with pleas for lower interest rates - is modern monetary theory in all but name, and his trillion-dollar deficits are inspirational for the authors of...

Physician Ted Noel first admits that AOC went though rigorous math training to obtain her undergrad degree in International Relations and Economics, and then accuses her of making trivial math mistakes.  He then shoots from the hip himself, cooking up an off the cuff model of why AOC is clearly wrong.  Dr. Nolan  thinks he can just extemporize a response off the top of his head based on his undergrad math degree as part of his pre-med training when we are talking about launching another...

This morning I responded to leading Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) proponent Stephanie Kelton's Huffington Post op-ed, "How We Can Pay for a Green New Deal," with a tweet observing that "MMT often boils down to nothing more than an especially naïve sort of Keynesianism: assume an unlimited excess supply of every resource save money balances, and, voila! monetary expansion can costlessly finance all the projects we like!" My comparison of basic MMT arguments with plain-vanilla Keynesianism is...

It seems now very opportune that I recently posted three times on my blog my views on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), an increasingly attractive theory for the left to justify government spending to meet the ‘needs of the many’. For just this week, left Democrats in the US Congress, led by the rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a member of Democratic Socialists of America, launched what they call the Green New Deal (GND), an alternative programme for a future US government to adopt...

I think that you don’t have to be an economist or have done a PhD involving econometrics (economic statistics) to see that the claim “doubling the monetary supply decreases the dollar’s exchange rate by 50%” does not hold at all. While monetary supply goes up almost all of the time, the exchange rate swung back and forth. There does not seem to be any causal relationship at all. This is not a surprise: almost all scholars of economics point out that the trade-weighted exchange rate is...

Essentially, Ocasio-Cortez is continuing to argue for Modern Monetary Theory — something she said "absolutely" needs to be "a larger part of our conversation" in a recent Business Insider interview. The theory says that because governments can literally print money, "they can spend as much as they like," Politico explains. "Inflation is the only obstacle" that should stop the presses, The Week details here. In short, it's a big, untested idea for a big, untested plan. Read more two...

Here he goes again. "Zimbabwe."Tim Worstall knows better. MMT's bottom line is availability of real resources to meet effective demand. Zimbabwe's problem is exceeding its real resource constraint fiscally. The predicable result based on MMT analysis is inflation.  This is trivial. Either Tim Worstall is ignorant of MMT, or he is being disingenuous. Continental TelegraphZimbabwe’s Third Time Lucky – The Return Of The Zim$ Tim Worstall

Fair and balanced. Stephanie Kelton speaks for the MMT view. The other side is presented, too, but I would say that the debate goes to left in this article. For Politico, overall positive, and that says something of itself. MMT is getting harder to dismiss offhandedly.PoliticoOcasio-Cortez boosts progressive theory that deficits aren't so scary Victoria Guida

After two long and possibly turgid posts analysing Modern Monetary Theory, in this third post, I’m going to look at the practicalities – in other words, what are the policy proposals that MMTers put forward for the government to do in order to get more jobs at better wages and without provoking inflation? Michael Roberts does a decent job of stating the MMT position with quotes from MMT economists. He concludes: In this way, MMT acts as a backstop to capitalism – the state is the employer...