Tag Archives: William K. Black

William K. Black March 13, 2019     Bloomington, MN Fourth article in the Series on MMT Honest debaters do not create strawmen arguments about opposing theories and then claim victory by attacking their own strawmen. When Krugman and a bevy of the “Very Serious People” (VSP) Krugman used to ridicule created and then attacked strawman MMT positions (e.g., using Roche’s rant), they were unintentionally revealing their knowledge that they did not believe they could dispute successfully MMT...

William K. Black March 13, 2019      Bloomington, MN Third article in a series on MMT[1] I urge readers to review Scott Fullwiler’s brief paper on the theoretical and predictive successes of MMT scholars on a topic of enormous theoretical and practical importance.  You do not need economics training to understand it.  Fullwiler reports the results of two “natural experiments.”  In this context, this means an unplanned experiment.  The twin experiments were: What would happen if orthodox...

William K. Black March 11, 2019     Bloomington, MN First Article in a Series The massive, coordinated assault on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) scholars by the most elite forces of orthodoxy represents a watershed moment in economics, but we must not lose sight that the real attack is actually on progressives, particularly the newly elected progressive members of Congress plus Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders.  Even that statement is incomplete, for it is the combination of the rise...

On The Real News Network, NEP’s Bill Black analyzes Assistant Secretary of Treasury Brad DeLong’s statement that neo-liberals should get out of the way and let the left lead since coalition with Republicans did not work. You can view here with transcript. [embedded content] [Translate]

Trump’s “middle class tax cut” is a tax hike. NEP’s Bill Black says Trump could have been a popular President, if he hadn’t lied about middle class tax cuts and building infrastructure in Bill’s latest appearance on The Real News Network. You can view with transcript here. [embedded content] [Translate]

William K. Black February 25, 2019     Ames, Iowa Donald Trump promised to deliver a middle-class tax cut of epic proportions. “The largest tax reductions are for the middle class, who have been forgotten,” Trump said in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 22, 2016. If Trump had fulfilled that campaign promise, it would have made him spectacularly popular and vastly increased his support beyond his base.  He, not the ‘Republican Party,’ controlled the House and the Senate.  Many Democrats...

By William K. Black February 18, 2019     Bloomington, MN Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) continues to advance rapidly.  We are past the first phase of reaction (first they ignore you), deeply into the second phase (then they attack you), and expanding the ranks of the third phase (then you win).  We are very early in the third phase, winning with increasing numbers of people, but still a minority view. One of the proofs of MMT’s advances is a nearly respectable treatment by the Wall Street...

Recent developments in the cryptocurrency world highlight the dangers of trading in this type of “coin.” But how important is cryptocurrency to the financial world and why should we care? NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News to discuss this. You can view with transcript here. [embedded content] [Translate]

William K. Black January 17, 2019     Bloomington, MN AOC# drives Republicans berserk.  Booing her, and only her, at the ceremony admitting the members of Congress, raging at her for dancing – yes dancing – in a college video, and attacking her for having a nickname (“Sandy”) in high school demonstrate the degree of derangement and the pathetic ammunition they have found in their failing efforts to discredit her.  MMT has become an indirect beneficiary of this derangement.  AOC# has...

By William K. Black January 14, 2019     Bloomington, MN Queen Marie-Antoinette of France was libeled by the claim that when she was told that her starving peasants could no longer find bread to eat, she responded “then let them eat cake.”  (If you want to get precise she supposedly said let them eat ‘brioche.”)  There is no evidence she said any such thing. Trump, however, really said the modern equivalent.  His remarks, despite being made in response to a question about his empathy for...