David Bholat recently wrote “How to Modernise Central Bank Balance Sheets: No Notes.” It is partly in response to this article. The idea is that banknotes (“dollar bills”/”pound notes” etc. issued by the government should not be classified as a liability, rather as some form of capital or possibly taken off the balance sheet. I have run into variants of this idea in the past (the stronger version being that all forms of the monetary base are not liabilities), and the root idea is that...

Scott Bessent is aware of MMT but he has a faulty understanding of what MMT says, Kelton argues. On the positive side, he is not clueless, like most others. For example, he gets that high rates are may be stimulative and low rates contractive, based on policy outcomes of the Bank of Japan.The LensWhat Trump's Pick for Treasury Secretary Gets Right (and Wrong) about MMTStephanie Kelton | Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, formerly Democrats' chief economist on...

Be careful what you preach for it just might happen. 

[unable to retrieve full-text content] – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month’s data begins with the ISM manufacturing index, and with a one month delay, construction spending. Because manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, and was in deep contraction both in 2015-16 and again in 2022 without any recession occurring, I now use an economically weighted three […] The post ISM manufacturing remains weak, while construction spending continues...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum has a systematic take-down of the anti-vaxxer propaganda on COVID19: • The reason the CDC initially recommended against wearing masks was because they thought you could just avoid people who were sick, so it was best to reserve limited supplies for doctors, who couldn’t avoid sick people. When researchers discovered […] The post Fisking the anti-vaxxers appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]I have been working through the VA over the last six months due to having issues with my blood. Several time the platelets dropped as low as 1000 for days at a time. The solution is what medication will work. Steroids, IVIGs do not work. It is not till I get to cancer drug Rituxan, […] The post The Contracting Gold Mine That Hurts Veterans appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]As taken from Grist . . . The producer of Netflix’s “Buy Now!” says companies should be accountable for the trash they generate. Flora Bagenal, is a Producer / Director and Executive Producer based in Oxford, England. She produced Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy, which has just dropped on Netflix. Who’s responsible for waste? A […] The post Christmas, A Time for Consumption and Waste appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The following to just part of a longer report by the Physicians for a National Health Program on Medicare Advantage healthcare programs offered by commercial entities. It lays the foundation as to why Medicare Advantage is more expensive than Traditional Medicare. I will do doing the other parts to this report over the next few […] The post Medicare Advantage Overcharging appeared first on Angry Bear.

There are encouraging signs that Canada’s economy and labour market are improving after a period of stagnation brought about by the Bank of Canada’s aggressive interest rate hikes in 2022 and 2023. Newly released data for the third quarter of 2024 (July-September) shows the economy has continued to grow, albeit slowly. Consumer spending was the brightest light in the third quarter data: growing at an annualized rate of 3.5% (in real, inflation-adjusted terms), and constituting the...

The Brazilian real depreciated last week (full meltdown might be a bit of a hyperbole), and in many quarters there has been a suggestion that it is now undervalued, and that would somehow be connected to the dangers associated with the fiscal position, and the willingness of the Lula government to push the spending cuts, and the tax changes, with cuts for those at the bottom of the income distribution and hikes at the other end (more on the fiscal story in a bit).The obvious reason for this...