It is Wednesday and so a less intensive blog post. Note how I no longer claim it will be shorter. The less intensive claim refers to how much research I have to put in to write the post. Apart from some beautiful music, the topic for today is yesterday’s RBA decision to cut interest rates to record low levels. The decision won’t save the economy from recession and highlights the sort of desperation that central bankers now face as governments shunt the responsibility of counterstabilisation...
Read More »Bill Mitchell – Why the financial markets are seeking an MMT understanding – Part 2
There was an article in the Project Syndicate (July 1, 2019) – Does Japan Vindicate Modern Monetary Theory? – written by a Yale economics professor and advisor to Shinzo Abe, that reveals the extent to which the mainstream is becoming paranoid and is failing to understand what MMT is about. I won’t deal with it in detail because it is not my brief today. But it aims to disabuse readers of the notion that “Japan … [is] … proof that the approach works.”The approach he refers to is MMT....
Read More »Bill Mitchell — Why the financial markets are seeking an MMT understanding – Part 1
One of the shifts I have observed in the last year or so in the way that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is being discussed in the public domain and the type of speaking invitations I am receiving is a growing interest from large financial market entities, who have not bought into the visceral, knee-jerk attacks from the populist academic type economists (Krugman, Summers, Rogoff, and all the rest that have jumped on their bandwagon). I spoke at a few workshops some years ago where economists...
Read More »Opportunity cost, MMT and public spending — John Quiggin
John Quiggin looks at at student debt cancellation in terms of opportunity cost and MMT.Crooked TimberOpportunity cost, MMT and public spendingJohn Quiggin | Professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland, and a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government
Read More »Reposting a prior comment
Here’s a comment I wrote and posted several years ago. I’d like to add that I also see the Transition Job policy, along with a 0 rate policy, as what I call the ‘base case for analysis’ of a state currency: “With ‘state currency’There necessarily is,Always has been,Always will be,A buffer stock policy.Call that the MMT insight if you wish. So it comes down to ‘pick one’-1. Gold2. Foreign Exchange3. Unemployment4. Employed/JG/ELR5. WheatWhatever!I pick employed/JG/ELRAs it...
Read More »Will Modern Monetary Theory Go Mainstream? — Eric Winograd
Progress. The author admits that MMT makes sense economically and financially. However, Eric Winograd hopes it won't go mainstream based on expanding the size and role of government. So now it is ideology rather than theory or empirics.equities.comWill Modern Monetary Theory Go Mainstream? Eric Winograd
Read More »Medicare-for-all has a modeling problem Jeff Spross
Stephanie Kelton interviewed. Modeling this is a huge undertaking. The WeekMedicare-for-all has a modeling problem Jeff Spross
Read More »Bill Mitchell — The European Union once again reveals why it should be dissolved
While the Europhile progressives are publishing papers and holding talkfests to discuss their latest EU reform proposals, the on-going reality of the European Union continues to reveal itself – the pretense that there is a rule of law operating – as laid out in the Treaties and the idea that all are equal under that law. When I was researching my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale – and over the long period I have studied the concept of European...
Read More »The 1 question journalists should stop asking 2020 Democrats — Jeff Spros
MMT.The WEEKThe 1 question journalists should stop asking 2020 Democrats Jeff Spross
Read More »Bill Mitchell — An economist trying to stay relevant long after he lost it
This is my Wednesday blog post where I write less or perhaps research the blog post less – both of which save me time to do other things. Today a few snippets. One snippet looks at an article in Marketwatch – What Modern Monetary Theory gets ‘plain wrong,’ according to former IMF chief economist (June 11, 2019). This article should put to rest any claims that the mainstream New Keynesian macroeconomic consensus understands Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) or that MMT is somehow explainable...
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