This is the second part of my response to an article posted by American political analyst Jared Berstein (January 7, 2018) – Questions for the MMTers. Part 1 considered the thorny issue of the capacity of fiscal policy to be an effective counter-stabilising force over the economic cycle, in particular to be able to prevent an economy from ‘overheating’ (whatever that is in fact). Jared Berstein prescribes some sort of Monetarist solution where all the counter-stabilising functions are...
Read More »Bill Mitchell — An MMT response to Jared Bernstein – Part 1
This will be a keeper series! There was an article posted by American political analyst Jared Berstein yesterday (January 7, 2018) – Questions for the MMTers – which I thought was a very civilised exercise in engagement from someone who is clearly representative of the more standard Democratic Party view, that the US government has to move towards balancing its fiscal position and reducing government debt in order to meet the social security challenges posed by an ageing population and...
Read More »Jared Bernstein — Questions for the MMTers
MMT (functional finance actually) challenged. Why is fiscal policy based on FF superior to monetary policy as presently conducted?Let the debate begin.On the EconomyQuestions for the MMTersJared Bernstein | Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama Administration
Read More »Brian Romanchuk — MMT Is Not Just “Theory X”
Explaining MMT.Bond EconomicsMMT Is Not Just "Theory X" Brian Romanchuk
Read More »Daniel José Camacho — The deficit doesn’t matter: thinking morally about the economy with Stephanie Kelton
Social justice folks picking on MMT. Just before Christmas, Donald Trump signed the Republican tax bill which many predict will exacerbate wealth inequality in the country. Analyses project it will add over $1 trillion dollars to the deficit.For all the talk about the national deficit and why it’s the reason our government can’t afford to improve healthcare or education, these developments reveal profound layers of hypocrisy. They show how deficit-talk has constrained political...
Read More »Sean Keith and Alexander Kolokotronis — “But How Will We Pay for It?”: Modern Monetary Theory and Democratic Socialism
An economic doctrine named Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is surging in popularity and offering answers. MMT is debunking popular narratives about the harsh necessity of austerity and belt-tightening. It is showing that money is not a finite abstraction, but a limitless public utility that can be used to meet human needs. More than this, however, MMT and its heterodox economic cousins offer a framework to build directly democratic, egalitarian political structures, and thus reimagine and...
Read More »We Pay versus You Pay
The New Regulatory Regime of Modern Fiat Money By J.D. ALT I was momentarily taken aback to read in the Washington Post that a primary reason Donald Trump was elected president of the United States was because of a little swampy area in the middle of an Iowa farmer’s cornfield. The cornfield in question belongs to an Angus beef farmer named Annette Sweeney who was both incredulous and outraged by the Obama administration’s new regulations on Clean Water. The regulations, known as WOTUS...
Read More »DownWithTyranny! — The Smartest Economist In America Explains What Deficits Really Mean
Who is the smartest economist in America? None other than — Stephanie Kelton. DownWithTyranny!The Smartest Economist In America Explains What Deficits Really Mean
Read More »Clint Ballinger — Of Bitcoins and Balance Sheets: The Real Lesson From Bitcoin
From an MMT perspective.Clint BallingerOf Bitcoins and Balance Sheets: The Real Lesson From Bitcoin
Read More »The New Poverty
By J.D. ALT We define poverty, I suppose, as that living condition which is unable to acquire enough dollars to purchase some, or most, of the basic necessities of life. It also seems to be an accepted notion that a certain amount of “poverty” is a necessary condition of our modern market economy—that a certain segment of the population will always be “unemployable” by the profit-oriented business community, either because they lack skills or because the business community simply does...
Read More »