Yesterday, I posted about geoengineering the oceans as a promising form of carbon capture. But why do we need carbon capture at all? Can’t we just conserve our way out of global warming?No.Here are a couple of reasons why the *only* way to avert climate disaster is to start removing carbon from the atmosphere:1. The half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is ca. 120 years. What that means is that if all sources of CO2—man-made, forest fires, vulcanism,...

I believe I have seen one boy walk out of a Frys with something in his arms. He did not pass through the cashier line but waited for the gates to open to the store and walked through the opposite way. Did the need whatever he had? I don’t know. The only thing this false narrative does is change the priorities from working on real issues to false issues. The author is correct. Stores should have more staff on hand to help customers, stock...

Angry Bear (I) found this in my in box this Friday morning. Not much of a scoop now as the world knows about the issue. Let’s talk about why this tech outage occurred. There does not appear to be a backup for failure of systems when one of significance fails. This baffles me as we always had a backup system in the past even if it was a manual lookup and a paper transaction. It appears we are too dependent on one layer of information and have...

I was challenged by a person in the comments section to engage with the work of the Marxist Radhika Desai.So, after looking over a list of Radhika Desai’s articles and books, I found this chapter which partly deals with Marx’s Labour Theory of Value (LTV):Desai, Radhika. 2016. “The Value of History and the History of Value,” in T. Subasat (ed.), The Great Financial Meltdown: Systemic, Conjunctural or Policy Created?. Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., Northampton, MA. 136–158. Marx’s Labour...

The Austrian economist Per Bylund has recently written this challenge to advocates of MMT/Neochartalism:Bylund, Per. 2023. “Is it Money because it is redeemed in Tax Payments?: A Response to Kelton and Wray,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 25.4: 147–165. Bylund rejects the view that fiat money only has value and is used as a general medium of exchange because governments demand it as the legal means of payment for state taxes, and demands that advocates of Modern Monetary Theory...

Att bli gammal — några visdomsord Hjälp mig att inte repetera ändlösa detaljer, ge mig vingar som för mig till saken! Försegla mina läppar angående mina krämpor och besvär. De tilltar och det känns alltmer frestande att älta bekymren. Jag vågar inte be om ett förbättrat minne men jag ber om växande ödmjukhet och mindre tvärsäkerhet när mitt minne inte stämmer med andras. Lär mig den strålande läxan att jag tar fel ibland. Låt mig få bli någorlunda...

Lesson: don’t fade the producers!

Download PDF's of slide sets from the presentations at the recent UK MMT conference.The Gower Initiative for Modern Money StudiesUK MMT Conference 2024 – SlidesSee alsoThe National (Scotland)Scotland needs its own currency ASAP after indy, say top economistsScotonomics

We live in a mixed community. I think we are the oldest couple in the area. We did not want to go to an older adult-type of setting. This community is bad enough with its HOA. On one side we have a young couple with a baby. They come to our house with their baby to enjoy dinner. Relaxing in our family room allows the baby to move around and her coming to me to sit in my lap . . . “up, up in her limited English.” So up she comes to my lap. She...

It's true that MMTers rarely discuss how the private banking system creates money. But it's easy to show both credit and fiat money creation in Ravel