Tag Archives: MMT

MMT is a theory of empire. This is not to say that its advocates are imperialists. Rather, they are observers who note a reality that the post-colonial thinker has long understood – imperialists can run the world on whims and fictions. The question is ultimately, what are the merits of the whims. Should the US spend a trillion dollars invading a country of herdsmen, or should it build better hospitals, airports, and highways? MMT does not take a position on this; it merely states that the...

Excellent summary of monetary operations and how they are conducted. The Bank of England has just announced it will now do exactly what I suggested above: type funds into the UK government’s account and give it a "ways and means" overdraft, just to keep the books in order. People are beginning to understand how the system works. They are beginning to understand that governments in monetary systems such as our own can never run out of their own currencies. They are beginning to get modern...

One frequently encounters variations of the phrase "unsustainable debt trajectory" (or similar) in statements by mainstream economists. The phrase is popular as it offers what appears to be a sophisticated criticism of some fiscal policy setting that is disapproved of, but without having any content that can be used to prove the speaker wrong. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) largely rejects that "debt sustainability" has theoretical validity for a floating currency sovereign. I will focus on...

I am monitoring the US Department of Labor’s weekly data releases for the unemployment insurance claimants account, that I reported in my last commentary on the US labour market – Tip of the iceberg – the US labour market catastrophe now playing out (April 6, 2020). Their latest release (April 9, 2020) – Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims – shows that in the prior week ending April 4, 2020, the initial claims rose by 6,606,000, but this was down on the increase the week before by 261,000....

My blog is on holiday today. There is a lot going on at present and I will report on analysis and upcoming events in the coming period soon. MMTed is coming together, slowly, thanks, in part, to the donations that have been coming in. We need more funds but we appreciate the support so far. Call for MMTed Support I imagine the current crisis will put a halt on people donating to causes.But we are making progress in developing the program that will become – MMTed. I ran my first...

Interview with Bill Mitchell Otago Daily Times (NZ)Much ado about nothing?Bruce Monroe

This should be fundamental in anyone's understanding of MMT. See Randy Wray, MMP BLOG #8: TAXES DRIVE MONEY. Taxes drive money. One of the most important powers claimed by sovereign government is the authority to levy and collect taxes (and other payments made to government including fees and fines). Tax obligations are levied in the national money of account—dollars in the US, Canada, and Australia, Yen in Japan, Yuan in China, and Pesos in Mexico. Further, the sovereign government also...

Using government spending power to bail out financiers and rentiers makes a travesty of MMT.... Naked CapitalismThe Use and Abuse of MMTMichael Hudson, research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, with Dirk Bezemer, Professor of Economics at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, Steve Keen, Professor and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategy, Resilience and...

We all know what the – Bandwagon effect – is. There is a lot of research literature in social psychology trying to understand why people who believe one thing one minute, suddenly ditch that belief system and appear to be proponents of a new belief system, often, in total contradiction to their previous views. The effect is related but distinct from the Groupthink phenomenon which I have written about extensively in relation to the way mainstream economics has maintained a hold on the...

By J.D. ALT The theme and illustrations of this essay are from the new book “Paying Ourselves to Save the Planet.” It might seem, as we observe the U.S. government “instantly” generating $2 trillion new dollars for direct payments and grants to people and businesses, that the coronavirus pandemic has shed a new light on the authenticity (and necessity) of modern money theory (MMT). But that light, if it is being shed at all, is illuminating instead the dramatic limitations of the...