Podcasts about modern money network

For the rest of the conversation, please join us on Patreon at - https://www.patreon.com/posts/nathan-tankus-122595422 CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou talks about the JFK Files, USAID, Donald Trump and endless war. But first Nathan Tankus breaks down what the hell Elon Musk is doing. John Kiriakou is the only person to go to jail over the CIA torture program, which he blew the whistle on. He is a former CIA analyst and case officer, a PEN USA Award Winner and best-selling author. He's the host of Political Misfits and writes at http://johnkiriakou.substack.com In addition to being the Publisher of Notes on the Crises, Nathan Tankus is the Research Director of the Modern Money Network. He has written for the Financial Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, The Guardian, The Appeal, The American Prospect and JSTOR Daily. His work has also been extensively covered in The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Nation, Marketwatch, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Vox, The Hill and The New Republic among other outlets. He was also the subject of a major profile in Bloomberg Businessweek, which has made him a sought after speaker and expert on the technical details of monetary policy, central banking and economic policy more broadly. Nathan is currently working on a book, under contract with Viking Press of Penguin. It is in the process of being rethought as a result of the "Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025." ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Get your Katie Halper Show Merch here! https://katiehalper.myspreadshop.com/all Follow Katie on Twitter: https://x.com/kthalps Follow Katie on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kthalps/ #news #politics #youtube

“...the question of how to pay for it is a very complicated question but has much less to do with money than it does to do with social structure and industrial structure. And the quicker we can get away from centering the taxpayer as the goose that holds the golden egg money and more towards the questions of labor and industrial structure that are really going to affect how we provide healthcare, I think we're going to be in a better place.” — Rohan GreyIn 2022, Real Progressives helped our coalition partners, March for Medicare for All, organize a three-day educational summit on the healthcare crisis in the US. This week's episode is from the panel we put together on paying for national improved Medicare for All, featuring Geoff Ginter, Yeva Nersisyan, and Rohan Grey.The panelists discuss:The meaning of currency user vs currency creatorThe money story and order of operationsFinancial restraints vs resource constraintsThe importance of deficit spendingPrivate vs public investment and inflationary constraintsPotential impact of policies on the economyThe truth about the so-called national debtSpecific to Medicare for All, they address the problem of transitioning workers out of administrative jobs in the insurance industry. They explain why Medicare for All is likely to be deflationary rather than inflationary. And they look to history to suggest ways of attracting healthcare workers to underserved locations.Geoffrey Ginter is a New Jersey based certified medical assistant, activist, and MMT evangelist. Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College.Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. MintTheCoin.org@rohangrey on Twitter

Money on the Left is proud to present recovered and remastered audio from our interview with Raúl Carrillo, published previously solely as a written transcript. The recording also includes a new  audio introduction in which Billy Saas reflects on the significance of our dialog with Carrillo for contemporary politics.  In our discussion, we explore the promise of the public money framework for advancing antiracist, anti-imperialist, and democratic politics across the world. We discuss how the public money or MMT perspective shapes his work as an attorney fighting against predatory finance and for an international, rights-based approach to full employment. A significant portion of the conversation is also devoted to Raúl's ongoing critique of the “taxpayer money” trope in U.S. political culture. In both his recent article for the UCLA Criminal Law Review and a 2017 piece (coauthored with Jesse Myerson) for Splinter, Raúl persuasively shows that the myth of “taxpayer money” is not only incorrect in operational terms, but also a significant threat to marginalized communities and a major rhetorical obstacle for progressive politics. Raúl Carrillo is an attorney, chair of the board of the Modern Money Network, Research Fellow with the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and member of the advisory board at Our Money. You can read his article for the UCLA Criminal Law Review here: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rp8g89c. See his article on “The Dangerous Myth of Taxpayer Money” here: https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902. Theme music by Hillbilly Motobike.Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

RP Book Club spent four weeks on The Case for a Job Guarantee, by Pavlina R. Tcherneva. Each week featured a different guest expert who led the discussion and answered questions. Listeners to this podcast will recognize their names, including Pavlina herself, Fadhel Kaboub, Ben Wilson, and Rohan Grey. We were also honored to have Bill Black and June Carbone join in.For this episode, Macro N Cheese is releasing the audio recording of all four sessions. Since it is unusually long, the time codes for each segment are included below.[00:03:09 - 01:55:41] Session OneGuest: Fadhel KaboubIntroductionChapter 1, “A Public Option for Good Jobs”Chapter 2, “A Steep Price for a Broken Status Quo”[01:55:41 - 03:17:41] Session TwoGuest: Pavlina TchernevaChapter 3, “The Job Guarantee, a New Social Contract and Macroeconomic Model”Chapter 4, “But How Will You Pay for It?”[03:18:44 - 04:41:57] Session ThreeGuest: Ben WilsonChapter 5, “What, Where, and How: Jobs, Design, and Implementation”[04:41:57 - 06:29:43] Session FourGuest: Rohan GreyChapter 6, “The Job Guarantee, the Green New Deal, and Beyond”Use this link to order a copy of The Case for a Job Guarantee, by Pavlina R. TchernevaDr. Fadhel Kaboub is Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development of the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC). He is an Associate Professor of Economics (on leave) at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.@FadhelKaboub on TwitterPavlina R. Tcherneva is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College, the Director of OSUN's Economic Democracy Initiative, and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute, NY.  She specializes in modern money and public policy. Find her work at pavlina-tcherneva.net@ptcherneva on TwitterBenjamin C. Wilson is an Associate Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at Cortland and a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.@autogestion77 on TwitterRohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. MintTheCoin.org@rohangrey on Twitter

Nathan Tankus is a popular writer for a newsletter titled, *Notes on the Crises* and is the research director of the Modern Money Network. Nathan is also a returning guest to Macro Musings, and he rejoins the podcast to talk about modern monetary theory and the debt ceiling. Specifically, David and Nathan discuss the future of MMT, the case for minting the trillion dollar coin, the prospects of issuing Federal Reserve securities, the history of the Fed's operating procedures, and a lot more.   Transcript for this week's episode   Nathan's Twitter: @NathanTankus Nathan's Substack, Notes on the Crises Nathan's Modern Money Network profile   David Beckworth's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth Follow us on Twitter: @Macro_Musings   Join the Macro Musings mailing list! Check out our new Macro Musings merch!   Related Links:   *The New Monetary Policy: Reimagining Demand Management and Price Stability in the 21st Century* by Nathan Tankus   *Federal Reserve Issued Securities: Not Such A Crazy Idea After All* by Nathan Tankus   *The Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy Operating Procedures Have Come Full Circle: What Does That Mean for the Post-SVB FOMC Meeting?* by Nathan Tankus   *An MMT Response on What Causes Inflation* by Nathan Tankus, Rohan Grey, and Scott Fulwiler   *Issues Raised by the Credit Crunch and Global Recession* by Janet Yellen

This week, we're joined by writer and Modern Money Network research director Nathan Tankus (@NathanTankus) to discuss the recent events with Silicon Valley Bank. Is the US Government going to insure all deposits? Have we nationalized a bank, but only in service of its creditors? Is this a re-run of 2008, but dumber? We discuss all this, and more, in the following episode. Check out Nathan's site ‘Notes on the Crises' here: https://www.crisesnotes.com If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes, early releases of free episodes, and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo's upcoming live shows here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows and check out a recording of Milo's special PINDOS available on YouTube here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRI7uwTPJtg Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

Steve always says the beauty of MMT is “it takes the most convoluted spaghetti diagram and turns it into a straight line.” When it comes to banking, the financial industry, financial technology, and privacy, has the MMT community developed that straight line yet? Today's guest, Raúl Carrillo, thinks we can get there:“I don't think we quite have, but I think the straight line flows right through everything else we've done. Just as we don't want banks to be heavily involved in the public provisioning process... We have to pay just as much attention to Silicon Valley, and then start thinking about what it looks like to actually build a democratic public money system that operates on MMT principles.”It's been two years since we've had Raúl on the podcast, but the conversation is continuous, and it includes our episodes with Rohan Grey and Brett Scott.Steve and Raúl discuss Raúl's recently published white paper, "Seeing Through Money: Democracy, Data Governance, and the Digital Dollar." It is essentially an intervention in the discussion about the future of money. It includes analysis of the way government agencies use financial technology today and how it is linked to a broader public money story and an MMT story. Currently, banks are intermediaries between the public and the state. In other words, banks are part of the plumbing. But what's to stop the government from using financial technology for the public purpose and cutting the middlemen?Today, however, it's more than just the banks.“The inclusion of new technological partners in the plumbing changes many, many things. If a Silicon Valley firm – whether it's a big stablecoin firm like Circle or PayPal – gets a master account at the Fed, we're living in a different terrain for MMT analysis ... I think it's just very important that we keep an eye on Silicon Valley in this sense and take the time for self-assessment when we talk about what kind of public money systems we're building.”The conversation goes into privacy issues where, again, the lines are blurred between the private sector and the government. Or maybe “blurred” is the wrong word. Their lines of communication are not necessarily visible to the public. What has been blurred is, in some cases, the distinction between left and right.Some take-aways from the episode. Financial surveillance can have extreme consequences. Think of a state with draconian anti-abortion laws. If the government can't get a hold of your medical records, they can simply track your payments. After the Dobbs ruling, some suggested using cryptocurrency to pay for abortion, but guess what? It turns out blockchain is not private in the way most people think it is. That's another take-away from the episode.Whatever the idealized intentions of the early developers of digital currency (remember how it would address the racial wealth gap?) it has mutated into a world of grifters and fraud. As Raúl says, “It's not a cool party anymore, if it ever was. When you've got the cops and the bankers there, it's time to leave.”Raúl Carrillo is the Deputy Director of the LPE Project (Law and Political Economy) and an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School. He is on the board of Modern Money Network and the chair of Public Money Action.@RaulACarrillo on Twitter

When you realize the national debt is little more than a bunch of interest-bearing savings accounts, you will have effectively neutered the politicians and pundits who wield it like a weapon to keep the people in line and tame the working class. Every year in the US, the debt ceiling alarm is rung right on schedule. Just like Halloween.Interest-bearing Treasury bills are not available to most of us. (Do you have an account with the Federal Reserve? No? Exactly.) Rohan Grey is back to explain how these things work for the select elite. Not only do the rest of us handle money differently—we think about it differently. The words we use have different meanings.“The average person might think money is the opposite of debt. Well, that's not how the financiers think. That's not how the bankers think. That's not how the hedge fund managers think. For them, cash is debt. Debt is cash. It just depends on what they're talking about.”We're supposed to believe the US is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Every time a Treasury bill comes due, we should hold our collective breath and pray the government has the funds to pay down another installment of the “debt.” Rohan takes us through the day-to-day buying and selling of Treasurys. The financiers, bankers, and hedge fund managers aren't worried. At least not about US insolvency. We can exhale.Steve and Rohan talk about the trillion-dollar platinum coin and the law that makes it a ridiculously simple solution. If only the ruling elite didn't have a different agenda.The Macro N Cheese official Rohan Grey cultural references spotter flagged The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a Beatles song (Taxman, of course), Better Call Saul, Seinfeld, and Kaleidoscope, Natasha Lyonne's new Netflix series. Chuck E. Cheese and McDonald's pop up as well.Chuck E. Cheese and McDonald's show up as well.Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. MintTheCoin.org@rohangrey on Twitter

Rohan Grey always uses cool cultural references. Six minutes into the episode he brings up Tintin. Later we hear about Wile E. Coyote, Star Trek, Teletubbies and Wagnerian opera.The Tintin tale concerns a treasure hunt that required Tintin to find three maps; only when they were overlaid could he see the location of the treasure. Rohan Grey relates this to the critical juncture of law, political economy, and technology. He reviews the relationship of all three throughout the history of money.Rohan and Steve also revisit the (relatively short) history of the MMT community – what they got right as well as missed opportunities. Brett Scott was at the first MMT conference talking about privacy and the war on cash. These issues are more vital today than they were then, yet have never become part of the MMT canon, which tends to stick to the original hits, like the Rolling Stones still performing “Satisfaction” half a century later.“If crypto, quote/unquote, wins the public consciousness, I think that's a net loss for a lot of things MMT cares about. I'm anti crypto in that sense – as in capital C, crypto. What it stands for as a historical phenomenon right now is the empowerment of a group of people, the dominant strain of which is pro capitalist, pro massive wealth inequality, pro grift and fraud, pro right wing libertarian monetary theories, pro contempt of collective governance.”Rohan and Steve discuss how to organize around what is useful from the crypto space without defending it. The distrust of government is healthy – many are illegitimate and corrupt – but Rohan asks why the same critique isn't applied to property rights. How can it be acceptable for Ted Turner to be a billionaire owning half of Montana? Why does the state become illegitimate only when it wants to tax him? Rohan suggests leaning into pockets of relevance. There's value to be gained by understanding the opposition.Rohan asks our listeners to support #MintTheCoin and to check out the Freedom Box Foundation as well as the work being done with Creative Commons and copyleft.Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. MintTheCoin.org@rohangrey on Twitter

Town Square with Ernie Manouse airs at 3 p.m. CT. Tune in on 88.7FM, listen online or subscribe to the podcast. Join the discussion at 888-486-9677, questions@townsquaretalk.org or @townsquaretalk. Last week the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the second time in a row, trying to help curb inflation. These concerns have us making changes in what we buy and watching our bank accounts more closely. But what has lead to these dire economic times? And with all the solutions being explored, what really can be done to right the nation's financial issues. Also, how can children escape poverty as they become adults? One large new study give clues about how lower-income children can rise up the economic ladder.  Locally, the good news is that having recovered from pandemic job loss, reports show that Houston's economic growth is strong. In this episode, economic experts discuss the state of the economy and the impact it will have on your bottom line.  Guests: Matthew Jackson Professor of Economics from Stanford University and the Santa Fe Institute Dietrich von Biedenfeld Assistant Professor and Department Chair in the College of Business at the University of Houston Downtown Dr. John Diamond, Ph.D. Director, Center for Public Finance at the Baker Institute Adjunct Professor of Economics at Rice University Mike Norman President, Modern Money Network (MMT) Economics Town Square with Ernie Manouse is a gathering space for the community to come together and discuss the day's most important and pressing issues. We also offer a free podcast here, on iTunes, and other apps.

Patricia and Christian talk to economist and author Dr Phil Armstrong about his recent paper, which is a response to a Marxist critique of Modern Monetary Theory with reference to the Eurozone and Greece.   Please help sustain this podcast! Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast     For an intro to MMT: Listen to our first three episodes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417   All our episodes in chronological order: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643   All our episodes with Phil Armstrong: https://www.patreon.com/posts/42072846   Stay current with Phil via Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilArmstrong58   “A modern monetary theory advocate's response to ‘modern monetary theory on money, sovereignty, and policy: A marxist critique with reference to the Eurozone and Greece' by Costas Lapavitsas and Nicolás Aguila (2020)” by Phil Armstrong: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2329194X.2022.2051720   “Time For Informed Change. Post Covid-19 Economics” by Phil Armstrong & Nick Potts: https://gimms.org.uk/2020/08/13/time-for-informed-change-post-covid-19-economics/   Register for events at the Modern Money Network's 4th Annual MMT Conference: https://events.modernmoney.network/category/7/   For more on the MMT Summer School in Poznań, Poland: https://fundacjalipinskiego.pl/wydarzenia/mmt-summer-school-2022/   Episode 72 - Steven Hail: The External Sector: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43043601   Sign up for alerts from The Gower Initiative For Modern Money Studies about their forthcoming MMT book: https://gimms.org.uk/   Episode 55 - Dirk Ehnts: A Way Forward For The Eurozone: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38252014    The Mosler Plan for Greece: http://moslereconomics.com/2011/06/29/the-mosler-plan-for-greece/     More on monetary operations: Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318   Episode 13 - Steven Hail: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Banking, But Were Afraid To Ask: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887   Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683 “An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer – 2nd edition” by Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye & Neil Wilson: https://gimms.org.uk/2021/02/21/an-accounting-model-of-the-uk-exchequer/ Our episodes about “An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer”: Part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46352183 Part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46865929    More on inflation: Episode 65 - Phil Armstrong: Understanding Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678 Episode 104 - John T Harvey: Inflation, Stagflation & Healing The Nation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835 Episode 123 - Warren Mosler: Understanding The Price Level And Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379 Episode 128 - L. Randall Wray & Yeva Nersisyan: What's Causing Accelerating Inflation? Pandemic Or Policy Response?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558   A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757   We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos   Transcript for opening monologue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/66829263   Show notes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/66829431

Patricia and Christian talk to economist and President of the Global Institute For Sustainable Prosperity Professor Fadhel Kaboub about how global food and energy systems have been fostered to benefit the global north at the expense of the global south, and how understanding modern money is vital to untangling the mess.   Please help sustain this podcast! Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast     For an intro to MMT: Listen to our first three episodes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417   All our episodes in chronological order: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643   All our episodes with Fadhel Kaboub: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43484621   Stay current with Fadhel via Twitter: https://twitter.com/FadhelKaboub   Episode 12 - Fadhel Kaboub: Monetary Sovereignty, Colonialism and Independence: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790149   Bill Mitchell - “Zimbabwe for hyperventilators 101”: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3773     Register for events at the Modern Money Network's 4th Annual MMT Conference (held online over the next six weekends in April and May): https://events.modernmoney.network/category/7/     More on monetary operations: Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318   Episode 13 - Steven Hail: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Banking, But Were Afraid To Ask: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887   Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683     More on inflation: Episode 65 - Phil Armstrong: Understanding Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678 Episode 104 - John T Harvey: Inflation, Stagflation & Healing The Nation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835 Episode 123 - Warren Mosler: Understanding The Price Level And Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379 Episode 128 - L. Randall Wray & Yeva Nersisyan: What's Causing Accelerating Inflation? Pandemic Or Policy Response?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558   A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757 Details for the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College 2022 Summer Seminar: https://www.levyinstitute.org/news/summer-seminar-2022   We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos   Transcript for opening monologue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65378023   Show notes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-131-free-65377999

“In one sense, it's a state initiative, but in the other sense it's actually preserving rights of individuals against the state.”Rohan Grey is back with us for the seventh time. In this episode, he talks to Steve about the ECASH Act, which he helped craft as a step toward creating public digital dollars with the privacy and anonymity of physical cash. To explain the features this future currency requires, and the problems to be solved, Rohan takes us on a tour of the history of money, early record-keeping devices for the tax collector, and the development of banking. Tally sticks, which were broken in half (to be matched later) were primitive encryption keys. Further noteworthy events include the invention of the telegraph in the mid-1800s, the codebreaking and Navajo language speakers during World War II, and the cyberpunks of the 1980s. Rohan is an evocative storyteller, piquing our imagination with vivid references. By the end of the episode, he has mentioned five movies, plus Scrooge McDuck, Seinfeld, Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn. Oh, and Emma Goldman. Steve and Rohan sort through objections to the privacy we should demand of public digital currency. Arguments come from right, left, and libertarian factions, each believing their bogeymen will be free to do nefarious things under cover of anonymity. They put their faith in private entities. Digital public money would address the needs of populations who cannot or will not use banks. It can be accessed without an internet connection, and it is easy to see the benefits assured privacy provides to political dissidents, sex workers... and everyone else living under the gaze of surveillance capitalism. We have learned about the war on cash from our friend Bret Scott. It is time to fight back. Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. @rohangrey on Twitter

Patricia and Christian talk to scholar, researcher, CUNY lecturer and executive director of Public Money Action, Andrés Bernal about his most recent paper “Inflationary Pressures in the Time of Covid-19: MMT as a Theory of Inflation”.   Please help sustain this podcast! Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast   For an intro to MMT: Listen to our first three episodes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417   All our episodes in chronological order: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643     Register for events at the Modern Money Network's 4th Annual Conference (to be held online over the next four weekends in April): https://events.modernmoney.network/category/7/   Patricia and Christian will be on this panel “MMT Content Production and Publication”: https://events.modernmoney.network/event/12/   “Inflationary Pressures in the Time of Covid-19: MMT as a Theory of Inflation” by Andrés Bernal: http://www.global-isp.org/wp-content/uploads/WP-132.pdf   Stay current with Andrés via Twitter: https://twitter.com/andresintheory   Stay current with the Money On The Left collective: https://twitter.com/moneyontheleft   The Debt Collective: https://twitter.com/StrikeDebt   Interview with Braxton Brewington of The Debt Collective on student loan cancellation: https://fair.org/home/braxton-brewington-on-student-loan-debt-andy-marra-on-trans-youth-rights/     Warren Mosler / Robert Murphy debate: https://youtu.be/cUTLCDBONok   An overview of chartalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism     For more on banking operations:   Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318   Episode 13 - Steven Hail: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Banking, But Were Afraid To Ask: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887   Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683   Our Job Guarantee episodes: Episode 4 - Fadhel Kaboub: What is the Job Guarantee?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742701   Episode 47 - Pavlina Tcherneva: Building Resilience - The Case For A Job Guarantee: https://www.patreon.com/posts/36034543     More on inflation: Episode 65 - Phil Armstrong: Understanding Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678 Episode 104 - John T Harvey: Inflation, Stagflation & Healing The Nation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835 Episode 123 - Warren Mosler: Understanding The Price Level And Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379 Episode 128 - L. Randall Wray & Yeva Nersisyan: What's Causing Accelerating Inflation? Pandemic Or Policy Response?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558 A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757 More on the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College 2022 Summer Seminar: https://www.levyinstitute.org/news/summer-seminar-2022   We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos   Transcript for opening monologue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64711994   Show notes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64711495

In the fifth episode of our in-depth MMT series, Pete and Sparky speak to autodidact macroeconomics guru, Nathan Tankus (@NathanTankus), research director of the Modern Money Network and editor of the beloved Substack newsletter Notes on the Crises. This episode was originally published on December 2, 2020 on the Current Affairs podcast feed, and is being republished now as the Rabbithole podcast picks up the question of "is MMT real?" Please excuse any outdated references, and stay tuned as we continue our investigations down the rabbithole. This episode was edited by Dan Thorn (@danieljtvthorn) of Pink Noise Studios in Somerville, MA, and it features theme music by Danny Bradley. If you liked the podcast, please consider supporting our investigations on our Patreon. Find Pete on Twitter at @PeteDDavis and Sparky at @sparkyabraham

On this episode, Pete and Sparky have a discussion with Maxximilian Seijo (@MaxSeijo), co-host of the Money of the Left and Superstructure podcasts, and board member of the Modern Money Network. Maxximilian had some issues with how the previous episodes were presented, so in the spirit of the project, we had them on to explain their perspective. Pete and Sparky are joined on this episode by freelance writer Aisling McCrea. This episode was originally published on December 2, 2020 on the Current Affairs podcast feed, and is being republished now as the Rabbithole podcast picks up the question of "is MMT real?" Please excuse any outdated references, and stay tuned as we continue our investigations down the rabbithole. This episode was edited by Dan Thorn (@danieljtvthorn) of Pink Noise Studios in Somerville, MA, and it features theme music by Danny Bradley. If you liked the podcast, please consider supporting our investigations on our Patreon. Find Pete on Twitter at @PeteDDavis and Sparky at @sparkyabraham

Rohan Grey (@RohanGrey), president of the Modern Money Network and assistant professor at Willamette University College of Law, takes the boys into the nitty-gritty of falsifiable MMT propositions—who believes what, whether it's true, why it matters, and whether we should create a trillion-dollar coin. At the end, he offers his opinion on where exactly the boys are going wrong. This episode was originally published on March 30, 2021 on the Current Affairs podcast feed, and is being republished now as the Rabbithole podcast picks up the question of "is MMT real?" Please excuse any outdated references, and stay tuned as we continue our investigations down the rabbithole. "Modern Money & Public Purpose"Randy Wray's MMT Primer series This episode was edited by Dan Thorn (@danieljtvthorn) of Pink Noise Studios in Somerville, MA, and it features theme music by Danny Bradley. If you liked the podcast, please consider supporting our investigations on our Patreon. Find Pete on Twitter at @PeteDDavis and Sparky at @sparkyabraham 

We're less than two weeks away from hitting the debt ceiling, an unnecessary risk especially during a historically precarious time. But here we are. Writing in a Washington Post Op-Ed, Zachary D. Carter (who was on this show just last week), said of this situation, "There is no economic rationale for this threat, and its consummation promises no political advantage to anyone. It is a preposterous, silly and breathtakingly dangerous situation." So he proposed meeting it with an equally "preposterous, silly and perfectly painless legal trick: minting a single platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion or more." Actually, the idea foe minting a platinum coin has been floating around for a few years now. Today's guest, Rohan Grey, actually wrote the "Automatic BOOST to Communities Act" with Congressman Rashida Tlaib's office. The bill was introduced last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic had just taken hold and forced a nationwide shutdown. Tlaib's bill proposed sending every person residing in the US a debit card loaded with $2000, and refilling then with $1000 each month until we were clear from the pandemic. It would be funded directly from the Treasury, using its legal authority to create money via coin seigniorage, by minting two Trillion-dollar platinum coins. The main logic behind this idea is that no government debt issued to pay for the program-- it's paid for by the platinum coins. Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor at Willamette Law, and is president of The Modern Money Network (https://modernmoneynetwork.org), and a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory. He was referred to me by Stephanie Kelton, a regular guest on this program. Of course, there's other news to get to, and an update on why I was out yesterday-- more reasons we need to fix our fucked up health insurance extortion system.

The Money on the Left Editorial Collective presents a classic episode from our archives along with a previously unavailable transcript & graphic art. In this episode, we're joined by Rohan Grey (@rohangrey), President of the Modern Money Network, Director of the National Jobs for All Coalition, Research Fellow at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and JSD student at Cornell Law school.Our conversation is dedicated to Rohan's current work on the political, economic, and cultural implications of money's digital future.Rohan's report on digital fiat money: “The Case for Digital Legal Tender: The Macroeconomic Policy Implications of Digital Fiat Currency.”Theme music by Hillbilly Motobike.Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureLink to our GoFundMe: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/money-on-the-left-superstructure 

Lawyer and Modern Money Network President Rohan Grey answers questions posed by readers of Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth at a book club event hosted by Ramona Massachi of Real Progressives.   Please help sustain this podcast! Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast   Support Real Progressives: https://www.patreon.com/realprogressives   For an intro to MMT: Listen to our first three episodes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417   All our episodes in chronological order: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643   All our episodes with Rohan Grey: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43558419   Our episode 48 with Rohan on the #MintTheCoin initiative: https://www.patreon.com/posts/36292974   Our episode 90, with Stephanie Kelton: https://www.patreon.com/posts/48165836   Our Unpacking The Deficit Myth Series: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47191289     Our episodes explaining government bond issuance: Part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/29621245 Part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/29829500   Rohan Grey’s website: https://rohangrey.net/   Administering Money: Coinage, Debt Crises, And The Future Of Fiscal Policy by Rohan Grey: https://rohangrey.net/files/coinage.pdf   Monetary Resilience by Rohan Grey: https://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/lawreview/vol41/iss3/4/   The Modern Money Network: https://www.modernmoneynetwork.org/   Listen to Macro N Cheese podcast: https://realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/#fwdmspPlayer0?catid=0&trackid=0   Most MMT resources can be found at We Can Have Nice Things: https://wecanhavenicethings.com/   A list of upcoming MMT events and courses: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47531455   A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757   Transcript for opening monologue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50680005   We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos   Show notes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50672786

A conversation about public money, its connections to racial justice and how we can organize to demand it serves our interests. ———————————————— Money impacts everything. We live and feel the reality of money and for many of us, money problems are the source of great physical and emotional strain. This webinar focuses on a crucial aspect of the money we've got to work with: Public finance––the role of government(s) in the economy. Specifically, we look at public money, what it is and more importantly, why we deserve to have it. We consider public money as part of racial justice work in regards to the federal government's real fiscal capacity unmatched by its terrible response to the COVID-19 pandemic, budgets as political and moral documents, divest-invest campaigns calling to #DefundThePolice and #DefundICE, and police brutality bonds. We also look at social justice organizing involving public money demands. #PublicMoneyRacialJustice ———————————————— Participants: Raúl Carrillo is the Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project and an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School. Prior to joining the LPE Project, Raúl practiced law for five years, focusing on consumer finance and financial technology. He is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Modern Money Network, an Executive Committee member of the National Jobs For All Network, and an Advisory Council member of Our Money. Rev. Delman Coates is the Senior Pastor of Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Maryland and founder of Our Money Campaign, an economic justice campaign that seeks to solve some of our nation's greatest social and economic challenges. He also founded the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality to address the social and spiritual challenges of the African American faith community. He is a board member of the Parents Television Council and the National Action Network and also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Morehouse College Board of Preachers, and the NAACP. Alyx Goodwin is a senior organizer at Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), organizing with BYP100 Chicago, and a co-founder and writer with LEFT OUT Magazine. Her writing and activism are centered around the momentum and challenges of building Black power and self-determination. Her work at ACRE currently focuses on the relationships between the finance industry, policing, and tech, and how these things exacerbate oppressions. Tamara K. Nopper is a sociologist, writer, editor, and data artist. A Fellow at Data for Progress and an Affiliate of The Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies, she recently researched and wrote several data stories for Colin Kaepernick's Abolition for the People series and is the editor of We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, a book of Mariame Kaba's writing and interviews, which will be published by Haymarket Books in February 2021. Shawn Sebastian is the Senior Strategist for Rural People and Planet First Campaigns at People's Action. In 2019 Shawn served as the Iowa Organizing Director of the Working Families Party and Movement Politics Organizer for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund. Shawn was the director of the Fed Up Campaign at the Center for Popular Democracy, organizing working class people of color to demand full employment monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/b73IIo76K8Q Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Economists Nathan Tankus and Marshall Steinbaum join us to discuss the biggest red herring argument leveraged against the single payer movement: how are you going to pay for it? We discuss what this question distracts from, how the answer is actually quite simple, and the number of ways a single payer system would have profound macroeconomic benefits. Nathan Tankus is Research Director at the Modern Money Network and the author of the publication Notes on the Crises. Marshall Steinbaum is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and Senior Fellow at the Jain Family Institute. This interview is part of Medicare for All Week 2021, our second annual limited series on building the movement for health justice. Every day from February 8-13 we'll be airing a new interview on single payer and the need for a national health system in America. To support Death Panel and make series like Medicare for All Week possible, become a patron at patreon.com/deathpanelpod Episode Transcript: bit.ly/M4AWeek-NathanMarshall-Transcript [PDF] www.deathpanel.net/m4aw206-nathan-tankus-marshall-steinbaum [html]

Welcome to episode 64 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with third-year MMT activist Hannah Judson. Hannah was introduced to MMT at a local community college in 2017. Her professor was BJ Unti who introduced both mainstream and MMT concepts and let the class decide for themselves which theory was more convincing. She later discovered that Unti was a student of Stephanie Kelton. Hannah received a decidedly non-MMT undergraduate degree in business from DuPaul University in Chicago. In September 2019, she impulsively flew out to Long Island, New York in order to attend the MMT conference at Stonybrook University. Despite knowing no one, she ended up being selected as a last-minute replacement to moderate a conference panel. She and her husband now share an apartment with MMTer Nathan Tankus in Queens, New York, and she has just begun an MMT-informed sociology PhD program at Stonybrook. Her hope is to further expand the interdisciplinary reach of the MMT project, which currently centers around law. Her primary interest, however, is the racial-wealth divide in the United States, and more broadly, stratification and inequality. (Stratification being the decisions and actions that cause and result in inquality.) Hannah describes how she got here from there, through a Zoom wedding in her home state of Washington, Zoom church in Chicago, and 11,000 miles of driving from Washington to New York to Washington to New York… in order to attend a Zoom PhD. In part two we drastically switch subjects to mental illness and anxiety, and how they are seen through and informed by MMT. Hannah and I both endured traumatic experiences in our childhoods which will remain with us for the rest of our lives. She discusses how she came to terms with this, how she manages it today, and how her Christianity influences her anxieties as well as her politics. I end by sharing my own story, which I will say more about in the introduction to part two. Now, onto my conversation with Hannah Judson. Postscript: TikTok During this conversation, Hannah told me "I'm too young to be a millennial and too old to download TikTok." Then only a few weeks later, she started an (excellent) TikTok channel for The Modern Money Network. I, um, "researched" it and subsequently became addicted to TikTok for music and singing. I now have my own channel dedicated to singing (and a little guitar). (The songs are also shared on Facebook and Twitter.) I'm a classically trained singer. The last music I did was to be in an a cappella group for five years, up until I discovered Bernie Sanders in August of 2015. Resources Website: Why Blue Lives Matter Episode 21 of Activist #MMT with Ryan Mathis: There is nothing "natural" about society’s laws Gilda's Club Chicago (Zoom church) #LearnMMT For an overview of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with many reliable sources to learn more, here is a good place to start: My large set of resources is a gateway to every known academic paper written by those who have developed MMT over the past quarter century, and is framed around my layperson takes. It is essentially a long-form FAQ, addressing many basic concepts and criticisms, and more. On Facebook, the pinned post on Modern Monetary for Real Progressives contains a wealth of information. Please become a monthly patron of Activist #MMT We shouldn't have to beg, but we do have to beg. So it's not *that* we beg, but *who* we beg. I am choosing to beg you, my listeners, to financially support this show. For even a dollar a month, you'll get exclusive patron-only content and updates, highlighted by around four-days access to every episode, before they're released to the public. However, you'll also get super-early access to several episodes, weeks, and sometimes even months in advance. To be clear, however, all episodes of Activist #MMT are free, for all, forever. Patrons only get the opportunity to hear them before the public. Take a listen. If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a monthly patron of Activist #MMT. You can start here: https://www.patreon.com/activistmmt. ✌️, ❤️, and #MMT

Today I talk with third-year MMT activist Hannah Judson. Hannah was introduced to MMT at a local community college in 2017. Her professor was BJ Unti who introduced both mainstream and MMT concepts and let the class decide for themselves which theory was more convincing. She later discovered that Unti was a student of Stephanie Kelton. Hannah received a decidedly non-MMT undergraduate degree in business from DuPaul University in Chicago. In September 2019, she impulsively flew out to Long Island, New York in order to attend the MMT conference at Stonybrook University. Despite knowing no one, she ended up being selected as a last-minute replacement to moderate a conference panel. She and her husband now share an apartment with MMTer Nathan Tankus in Queens, New York, and she has just begun an MMT-informed sociology PhD program at Stonybrook. Her hope is to further expand the interdisciplinary reach of the MMT project, which currently centers around law. Her primary interest, however, is the racial-wealth divide in the United States, and more broadly, stratification and inequality. (Stratification being the decisions and actions that cause and result in inquality.) Hannah describes how she got here from there, through a Zoom wedding in her home state of Washington, Zoom church in Chicago, and 11,000 miles of driving from Washington to New York to Washington to New York… in order to attend a Zoom PhD. In part two we drastically switch subjects to mental illness and anxiety, and how they are seen through and informed by MMT. Hannah and I both endured traumatic experiences in our childhoods which will remain with us for the rest of our lives. She discusses how she came to terms with this, how she manages it today, and how her Christianity influences her anxieties as well as her politics. I end by sharing my own story, which I will say more about in the introduction to part two. Now, onto my conversation with Hannah Judson. Postscript: TikTok During this conversation, Hannah told me "I'm too young to be a millennial and too old to download TikTok." Then only a few weeks later, she started an (excellent) for The Modern Money Network. I, um, "researched" it and subsequently became addicted to TikTok for music and singing. I now have dedicated to singing (and a little guitar). (The songs are also shared on and .) I'm a classically trained singer. The last music I did was to be in an a cappella group for five years, up until I discovered Bernie Sanders in August of 2015. Resources Website: Episode of Activist #MMT with Ryan Mathis: There is nothing "natural" about society’s laws (Zoom church) #LearnMMT For an overview of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with many reliable sources to learn more, here is a good place to start: is a gateway to every known academic paper written by those who have developed MMT over the past quarter century, and is framed around my layperson takes. It is essentially a long-form FAQ, addressing many basic concepts and criticisms, and more. On Facebook, the on Modern Monetary for Real Progressives contains a wealth of information. Please become a monthly patron of Activist #MMT We shouldn't have to beg, but we do have to beg. So it's not *that* we beg, but *who* we beg. I am choosing to beg you, my listeners, to financially support this show. For even a dollar a month, you'll get exclusive patron-only content and updates, highlighted by around four-days access to every episode, before they're released to the public. However, you'll also get super-early access to several episodes, weeks, and sometimes even months in advance. To be clear, however, all episodes of Activist #MMT are free, for all, forever. Patrons only get the opportunity to hear them before the public. Take a listen. If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a monthly patron of Activist #MMT. You can start here: https://www.patreon.com/activistmmt. ✌️, ❤️, and #MMT

Rohan Grey, president of Modern Money Network & doctoral fellow at Cornell Law, joins Santiago Velez, co-founder and R&D division lead for Block Digital, to discuss the controversial STABLE Act, the history of private and public monies, and the future of stable coins. Grey gives a detailed history lesson on money and its relationship to government. They talk through the key tenets of the STABLE Act and its implications for the crypto space over all and stable coins more specifically. Grey explains the differences between Central Bank Digital Currencies and E-Money and touches on the importance of privacy for financial transactions. Key Learnings: The government and public monies are strongly connected, and Grey believes that there are major systemic risks presented by assets aiming to disrupt the government's oversight of the issuance of its money with history providing strong evidence of these risks. For those investing in the crypto space, the passing of the STABLE Act may negatively impact certain types of stable coin projects as some may fall under the umbrella of this bill. Higher regulatory burdens may force some crypto projects to shutdown while those who are capable of meeting the higher bar may flourish with regulatory backing. Recorded on December 14, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Tyler Goodspeed, the acting chairman and Vice Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, joined ahead of jobs day to react to the new consumer data. Arpit Gupta, assistant professor of finance at the New York University Stern School of Business, came on to talk about his new data showing how the pandemic is exasperated existing economic inequality in New York City and making economic mobility even more difficult. Then a What'd You Miss debate tackling one of the biggest cliches of 2020: there is no connection between the stock market and the economy. Nathan Tankus, research director of the Modern Money Network and publisher of the newsletter "Notes on the Crises" joined to put the adage to the test and explain why he thinks there is less disconnect than people think. Then Bloomberg Opinion columnist Nir Kaissar came on to offer the other side of the debate and explain why the idea is a cliche for a good reason.

Transcript: https://mronline.org/2020/09/02/resisting-predatory-finance-with-raul-carrillo/Raúl Carrillo, organizer for economic justice and scholar of law, race, and money, joins Money on the Left to explore the promise of the public money framework for advancing antiracist, anti-imperialist, and democratic politics across the world. We discuss how the public money or MMT perspective shapes his work as an attorney fighting against predatory finance and for an international, rights-based approach to full employment. A significant portion of the conversation is devoted also to Raúl’s ongoing critique of the “taxpayer money” trope in U.S. political culture. In both his recent article for the UCLA Criminal Law Review and a 2017 piece (coauthored with Jesse Meyerson) for Splinter, Raúl persuasively shows that the myth of “taxpayer money” is not only incorrect in operational terms. It is also a significant threat to marginalized communities and a major rhetorical obstacle for progressive politics. Raúl Carrillo is an attorney, chair of the board of the Modern Money Network, Research Fellow with the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and member of the advisory board at Our Money. You can read his article for the UCLA Criminal Law Review here: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rp8g89c. Read his article on “The Dangerous Myth of Taxpayer Money” here: https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902. Transcript by Rich Farrell; Graphics by Meghan Saas; Production by Alex Williams; theme music by Hillbilly Motobike.

A discussion of racial taxation and private digital currency may seem like two disparate subjects. Raúl Carrillo’s genius is his ability to explain these things in such a way that their intrinsic connections are unmistakable. Just as there is racialized taxation, we also have racialized surveillance, and private digital currency is definitely in the surveillance business. Previous episodes have spoken of the effects of racial taxation, creating a disparity in public schools due to the inequities in local property tax funding schemes that pay for education. The same kind of taxpayer pressures that have defunded the schools have combined with the starving of federal support for the states, making it hard for local governments to provision themselves. States and municipalities resort to collecting fines and fees through petty crime designation, using the courts and incarceration as a funding source. The burden falls heavily on poor and oppressed minorities. These problems come from neoliberalism’s core embrace of austerity. Mass unemployment results in near-mass incarceration. A theme running through Raúl’s scholarship and our collective activism is that if something is a right, or is integral to due process and constitutional safeguards, then it should be funded by the federal government. Otherwise, what does it mean to have fundamental rights in this country? The government is willing to spend unquantifiable sums defending the rights of property while insisting it’s too expensive to provide jobs, healthcare, and housing. When the government doesn’t meet the people’s needs, it creates a vacuum that forces them into debt, turning to the predatory lenders who have built an industry on the backs of the needy. And now Wall Street is increasingly serving fewer kinds of investors. When Wall Street decides it’s no longer profitable to prey on the poor, Silicon Valley is offering an alternative that is predatory in its own way. Raúl recently produced a Black Paper on Libra, Facebook’s foray into the digital currency market. Most cryptocurrency doesn’t have retail value, so much of the activity is through speculation. Libra is an attempt to create a stabilized private money, which introduces a new set of dangers. Steve and Raúl devote a good portion of the interview looking at the different levels of threats that are posed by turning over the reins of currency creation to tech corporations. Libra is connected to Facebook and Uber, but Google and Amazon can’t be far behind with their own projects. Silicon Valley is now in the debt game. With public money, we can still demand some degree of protection for our privacy rights. Facebook’s entire business model is based on surveillance; it knows what you’ve bought, where you’ve been, what you like, and who you hang out with. Police have been using Facebook’s facial recognition to identify Black Lives Matter protesters. It’s hard to imagine enforcing legal protections when Facebook has been breaking promises to (defanged) regulators for years. For the US, public-private partnerships have crowded out government spending on social needs. For us MMTers, using the public purse for the public purpose is of seminal importance. A private currency, spying on us all, cannot be tolerated. We need to multi-task - wed the anti-racist, decarceration, and abolitionist fights with a vision of public money spent in a way that allows people to flourish. Raúl Carrillo is the Board Chair of the Modern Money Network and a Research Scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He sits on the boards of the National Jobs for all Network and the Our Money campaign. @RaulACarrillo on Twitter Reflections: Challenging Monetary Sanctions in the Era of Racial Taxation https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rp8g89c Banking on Surveillance: The Libra Black Paper: https://ourfinancialsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Libra-Black-Paper-FINAL-2.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1qqjecm45wHuNUljezfm19qCLg034VqgL2rQAwjqsr__B_Zfulzt0OKLs

It's time to end the poison pill political conversations on "how are you going to pay for that?" by recasting our shared understanding of how the American Economy actually works. Dr. Cindy Banyai (D) candidate for Florida Congressional District 19, discusses how we can improve the quality of life for everyday Americans through a better understanding of Modern Monetary Theory with Dr. Scott Ferguson. Dr. Ferguson is an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida and Director of the Humanities Division of the Modern Money Network.

Hosts Will Beaman and Maxximilian Seijo briefly address responses to “The Bellows (Part 1)”, before articulating a positive vision of a Left political praxis informed by the political economy framework of the late heterodox economist Frederic Lee and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Following a discussion of Lee’s “heterodox social surplus” approach and how it relates to discourses in critical theory, Will and Maxx connect their framework to the recent “Uni” proposal from the Modern Money Network for unions and community organizers to demand direct credit creation by universities to fully provision themselves as critical public infrastructure.

In March, Rohan Grey was the guest speaker on a Real Progressives National Outreach Call. He talked about his forthcoming book, Digitizing the Dollar: The Battle for the Soul of Public Money in the Age of Cryptocurrency. The title says it all.  In the midst of the pandemic, people are living with unprecedented financial insecurity. There’s no real sense of when they’ll be able to return to work or whether there will be jobs awaiting them. Rohan had been working with Representative Rashida Tlaib on her emergency assistance act, which is designed to provide relief funds of $2,000 a month to every man, woman, and child in the US. He explained the thinking that went into drawing up the bill, which is far more generous than any other coronavirus stimulus bill to this day.  Of special interest to proponents of MMT is the fact that the Treasury would finance the program through minting trillion-dollar coins. Rohan told us how this provides a legal workaround to arguments about the debt-ceiling.  The distribution method is also of interest to MMT-ers and it leads to the central topic of the presentation: digital currency. A debit card would be issued to everyone, sent by mail or available for pickup at numerous distribution centers. The debit cards themselves are to be privacy-protected. That issue - privacy - must be at the heart of any plans for cryptocurrency. The goal in designing the bill was that it be as simple, universal, and accessible as possible, but there’s nothing simple about the reasoning and planning that went into it. Rohan walks us through the process, showing the logic behind each choice.   Fans of this podcast are familiar with Rohan Grey’s ability to explain complicated issues in a clear and fascinating way, making connections between ideas and facts, contemporary and historical. He refers to ancient Mesopotamian temples and Seinfeld plots to make a point. He is the ideal teacher to guide us through the maze of technical and moral issues we confront when dealing with digital currency.   When asked about the phrase from the title of his book - the battle for the soul of public money - Rohan says that this is the soul of the human race. It’s the soul of democracy. We put our hopes and dreams, our personalities, and our experiences into our computers every time we use Google or Facebook. More to the point here, every time we use Venmo or Paypal. The net that holds those souls either respects our freedom and privacy or it doesn't. It’s either a tool of emancipation that connects us as equals or it’s a tool of control and subjugation. Do we entrust it to private corporations? In the battle for the soul of public money, “it's hard enough to learn about money -- and about law. Now we're adding technology. Those three worlds are converging at a rapid pace. The fight we’re facing is for a just money system, and when we get that money, it isn't a snitch, isn't a traitor.”   In discovering why we need to struggle for the soul of public money, this episode takes us straight to the heart of the matter.    Rohan Grey is the founder and president of the Modern Money Network, a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and a J.S.D. candidate at Cornell Law School, where his research focuses on the law of money in the internet society.   https://modernmoneynetwork.org/ @rohangrey on Twitter

MMT seems like a natural fit for Marxists so why has there been some resistance to it? MMT explains the monetary system. Period. If we build a post-capitalist society we’ll need to understand how currency works. If we want to discuss getting rid of money altogether, we’ll still need to understand it. In this episode, Steve called upon Nathan Tankus to break it down and explain the objections to MMT among some on the left, particularly Marxists. Along the way, he tries to dispel some of the fears and objections. Marx devoted himself to studying and developing a theory of capitalism. He left a huge body of work and, occasionally, some parts of it contradict other parts. There’s a strand of Marxist tradition that influenced Post-Keynesians, Chartalists, and MMTers, so it’s hard to make the case of incompatibility. A criticism of MMT from the left is that it is only relevant to a monetary sovereign nation, especially one, like the US, that doesn’t hold foreign-denominated debt. MMT is explicit about the perils of holding debt in a foreign currency, whether in the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, or the Eurozone. In fact, Stephanie Kelton made an early call on the unsustainability of the Euro. (For an in-depth discussion of the economic problems of the post-colonial world, listen to our episode “The Spectrum of Monetary Sovereignty in developing Nations with Ndongo Samba Sylla and Fadhel Kaboub.”) Steve brings up the specter of capital flight, which Nathan describes as a non-Marxist issue that Marxists argue about. Marx demanded clarity; to understand an issue, one must look at what is really going on. In the case of capital flight, Nathan asks what kind of capital they’re worried about. Is it commodity capital? Variable capital? Constant capital? We must understand which processes and mechanisms apply. What are the underlying biophysical relationships, ownership relations, and payment systems? By tracing various hypothetical cases of capital flight, Nathan demystifies this often exaggerated problem. It’s practically canon among leftists that we prioritize raising taxes on the rich. Our listeners know that MMTers are sometimes criticized for decoupling “taxing the rich” from our demand for social programs. Nathan and Steve discuss the irony in the fact that raising the marginal tax rates on billionaires may decrease their household wealth, but it does nothing to change the fundamentals -- the ownership and control of the means of production. Universal healthcare will immediately save lives. A Green New Deal will immediately save the planet, thus saving lives. Free college education will improve lives, as will student debt forgiveness. A federal job guarantee will transform the social fabric, benefiting communities, families, and individual lives. What do we gain from increasing taxes on the 1%? It’s not a Marxist proposition: he never suggested that taxes would alleviate exploitation. Nathan makes the point that tying these vital programs to the collection of taxes implies that capitalists fund the government with their tax dollars and it limits us to what we can squeeze out of them. This interview is packed with important ideas and facts. They consider the irrational fear of robots replacing human labor. They look at some of the endless possibilities opened up by a job guarantee, including as a way to finance workers’ coops, creating laboratories for other means of organizing labor. Nathan explains the bathtub analogy for understanding stocks and flows. And there’s much, much more. Nathan Tankus is the Research Director of the Modern Money Network and Research Scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He has written for the Financial Times, Business Insider, Naked Capitalism, The Appeal and JSTOR Daily, and currently has a blog, Notes on the Crises, at NathanTankus.substack.com

Nathan Tankus is the director of research at the Modern Money Network, and a research fellow at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. Nathan is also the author of a number of articles on the Fed's recent activity at his Substack page titled “Notes on the Crises.” Nathan joins Macro Musings to talk about the post-Keynesian view of money, central bank independence, and the consolidated view of public finance, as well as evaluate the policy responses by the Fed and Congress to COVID-19.   Transcript for the episode can be found here: https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/tags/macro-musings   Nathan’s Twitter: @NathanTankus Nathan’s Substack page: https://nathantankus.substack.com/   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Nathan: https://youtu.be/VPl0LYgttYI   *Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies: A Collection of Statements Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies by Government Officials, Bankers, Economists, and Others (specifically a comment made by Albert G. Hart) by the Joint Committee on the Economic Report https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/historical/congressional/1949jec_mcfpstate.pdf#page=332   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

we're back with part two of our chat with research director of the Modern Money Network, NATHAN TANKUS! we do a deep dive on MMT, the history of money, why US government debt is just another form of money and nothing to be afraid of, and how colonialism is more responsible for hyperinflation than monetary policy... and all general rudeness to economic status quo you've come to expect from the fellas. subscribe to his writing here!

The fate of the economy remains extremely unclear. However there is little doubt that the Fed has taken dramatic steps to arrest the crisis. Not only has Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve dusted off old tools that were designed during the last crisis, it’s engaged in unconventional actions, such as lending directly to municipal authorities, as well as becoming a player in the market for private sector corporate debt. Amid this crisis, Nathan Tankus, a researcher at the Modern Money Network, has emerged as one of the foremost experts on what the Fed has done, and what it’s capable of doing, through his widely read newsletter. He joined us on this episode to explain and contextualize the historic nature of the Fed’s actions so far.

Commerce and payments are increasingly digital. This shift from physical to electronic is one that governments and businesses are eager to accelerate for a host of reasons. But what gets lost when we no longer have access to physical cash? On this episode, we speak with Rohan Grey, President of The Modern Money Network and the research director of the Digital Fiat Currency Institute about how governments can introduce digital currencies that enable electronic commerce, while preserving the privacy protections of physical cash.

Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus join Money on the Left to discuss the flurry of debate about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) arising out of the Coronavirus crisis. We focus, in particular, on the Modern Money Network’s multi-pronged efforts to illuminate and remedy the resulting economic devastation. At the center of our conversation is Rohan’s contribution to Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s “Automatic BOOST Act.” Known by the popular hashtag #MintTheCoin, Tlaib’s proposal calls on the U.S. Treasury to mint two trillion dollar platinum coins in order to deliver direly-need cash assistance via preloaded public debit cards for all—no exceptions. In response to dismissive critiques of the proposal as a gratuitous “gimmick,” we affirm #MintTheCoin’s political significance as a gimmick—whether as a critical parody of sound finance trickery or as a meaningful pedagogical ritual that makes public money creation visible. Along the way, we delve into Nathan’s now widely-hailed Substack newsletter: “Notes on the Crises: The Pandemic-Induced Depression from a Monetary Political Economy Perspective.” We reflect upon the inadequacy of Congressional action, paradigm-smashing moves by the Federal Reserve, and MMT’s strategic importance for the future of leftist struggle, both in the near- and long-term.For more information about Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s “Automatic BOOST Act” and #MintTheCoin, see here, here, and here. Sign up for Nathan’s Substack here.

Welcome to episode 22 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk again with PhD political scientist, author, and MMT-er Joe Firestone (Twitter/@joefirestonephd). Joe and I first talk about our personal experiences during these first weeks under the new normal of the coronavirus quarantine. We then move onto a discussion of the origin, history, and basics mechanics of #MintTheCoin, concluding with Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib's coronavirus relief bill, The Automatic BOOST to Communities Act, written in consultation with Modern Money Network founder Rohan Grey (Twitter/@rohangrey). The bill is funded by two platinum coins worth one trillion dollars each. We then end with a hearty dual rant about the profound unfairness of the 2020 Democratic primary, highlighted by the Democratic Party and its frontrunner Joe Biden encouraging millions to vote in person, in the middle of a now-raging global pandemic. One of these states, Florida, on the very same day its primary was held, announced that all its schools would be canceled for a month, and perhaps for the rest of the school year. On the same day. The state of Wisconsin held its own in-person primary the day before this episode was released, despite the CDC now classifying the state's community transmission of coronavirus as "widespread." As of last week, this decision resulted in the resignation of poll workers across the state, funneling more voters into even fewer polling sites, sharing even fewer door handles, pens, and voting touchscreens. Resources The original livestream from which this audio comes. Deconstructed podcast with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Setphanie Kelton. Episode 20 of Activist #MMT: Ep 20 [Non-MMT]: Talking coronavirus with a 30-year practicing physician The Twitter account I set up to document questionable occurrences throughout the Democratic primary almost exclusively to the deficit of Bernie Sanders: PBernardSanders. Homer Simpson and the chili festival Website by a 17-year-old to track the spread of the coronavirus pandemic: nCoV2019.live Random thoughts and lessons learned (in both parts) Joe says the number of "suicides of despair," because they are not being provided for (despite our government easily being able to do so), could easily exceed the number of deaths from the coronavirus itself. The goal is not to prevent people from getting sick in an overall sense, but to prevent too many from getting sick all at once. So much so that our healthcare system cannot handle it. Healthcare workers getting infected does not just decrease the number of healthcare workers, it also increases the remaining healthcare workers' load. It's a doubling effect. Means testing done on the front end puts the burden on the people. They must fill out forms to prove to an anonymous faraway bureaucrat that they are poor enough to deserve that benefit. Only then do they receive it. Means testing can also be done on the back end (such as by collecting taxes from those who don't need it), which puts the burden on the government, and gets the benefit out there for all, immediately. #LearnMMT For an overview of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with many reliable sources to learn more, here is a good place to start: On the web: My layperson intro with many expert sources listed at the bottom. On Twitter: My massive pinned tweet with expert sources and layperson tutorials. On Facebook: Follow this podcast :) The pinned post contains the above web-article. Also, the pinned post on Modern Monetary for Real Progressives contains a wealth of information. Please become a monthly patron of Activist #MMT We shouldn't have to beg, but we do have to beg. So it's not *that* we beg, but *who* we beg. I am choosing to beg you, my listeners, to financially support this show. $1 patrons are very much appreciated. Every little bit helps. Thank you. $5 patrons get exclusive access to episodes (generally) four days before they are released to the public, and exclusive "patron only remixes". $10 patrons get much earlier access to episodes – sometimes weeks in advance. To be clear, all episodes of Activist #MMT are free for all, forever. Patrons only get the opportunity to hear them before the public. Take a listen. If you like what you hear, thank you for considering becoming a patron of Activist #MMT (here: https://www.patreon.com/activistmmt). ✌️, ❤️, and #MMT

This week, FedEx President & COO Raj Subramaniam joined to talk about about how the company is grappling with increased shipping demand while keeping their employees safe. Nathan Tankus, a research Director for the Modern Money Network, explained how a Medicare for all policy could serve as an automatic fiscal stabilizer for the U.S. economy. George Pyne, the founder & CEO of Bruin Sports Capital, went through the bottom line impact of the Olympics getting delayed. Then Curaleaf Executive Chairman Boris Jordan came on to talk about the company gaining essential service designation to stay open amid the pandemic and how demand has been impacted.

Emma Caterine of DSA & Modern Money Network joins us to talk about loan sharks, payday loans, credit card debt and the great recession.

Steve’s guest, Emma Caterine, is a consumer rights attorney with special interest in predatory lenders like loan sharks and payday loan companies. She begins by talking about credit as a social construct, To fully grasp the causes of Great Recession we must understand the difference between consumer debt, with a high risk of default, and federal spending, which is new money and can never default. When our economy grows through private debt, it’s unsustainable and leads to crises like the Great Recession. MMT economists, including Wynn Godley, Stephanie Kelton, and L. Randall Wray, have shown that the idea that public “debt” and the deficit are inherently evil and to be avoided at all costs, or that financial crises are caused by “imbalance in the economy” are all myths. What we see then is that cutting public spending -- austerity -- is a political choice. Emma asserts that private household debt and private corporate debt have similar consequences on different scales, though the households bear more of the burden. Private equity firms load companies with tons of debt to be serviced by cutting labor and selling real estate holdings, which is detrimental to surrounding local communities -- people of color and the working poor in particular. This growth model based on private debt proves that lessons weren’t learnt from the Great Recession. It’s a more intense and modern version of basic capitalism. The data underscores how undemocratic it is. It’s actually about who gets the power to make these decisions. Emma boils down the increasingly neoliberal method: austerity politicians deregulate and cut funding, then the private financial sector fills the gap with privatization. Nearly everything in our lives has private equity behind it, prepared to strip all value with no regard to long-term sustainability. Emma expresses the hope that politicians like Warren and Sanders can and will stop the Wall Street looting. Steve and Emma then turn to the effects of austerity, from abandoned malls and virtual ghost towns to shorter, more brutish lives, and an ever-growing private debt bubble from payday and title loans -- death traps for the already suffering. The average family cannot afford a $400 emergency but are forced to turn to these predatory forms of credit. Steve, as someone who suffered the ill effects of the recession, and Emma, a consumer rights attorney whose clients are working-class and mostly people of color, discuss how we cannot simply talk about income inequality but must actively choose to reverse austerity and the neoliberal paradigm to end the punishment of poverty. Emma advocates increasing public investment, regulating private corporations and the financial industry. She supports the Loan Shark Prevention Act, putting a cap on interest rates. This regulation would counter any inflationary risks of the Green New Deal and Medicare For All. Plans are not enough here; an organized, people-led movement is essential for any paradigm shift. Emma doesn’t trust “professional middle-class experts” to solve the problem but instead focuses on community groups, agitation, organizing, and allying with labor. The movement needs to be people-powered, and groups like DSA are there to hand out the (metaphorical) torches and pitchforks. Emma Caterine is a consumer rights attorney on the board of the Modern Money Network, a decades-long writer and advocate of economic justice, LGBTQIA+ racial and feminist justice movements - and a proud member of Democratic Socialists of America. @EmmaCaterineDSA on Twitter Sign the manifesto at https://jobguaranteenow.org/ https://lpeblog.org/category/piercing-the-monetary-veil/

“How do you pay for The Green New Deal?” is a serious question in today’s political environs -- though as Nathan Tankus clarifies, not for the reasons you might think. In Part 3 of his interview with Steve Grumbine, he recognizes that MMT and the US Bond market don’t finance spending in financial terms but shows us how non-fiscal “pay-fors” can give the US economy resource room to reallocate workers and energy through financial and environmental regulation. This can be accomplished without interest rate management and raising taxes to appease those who still believe the US is constrained by debt.   The Green New Deal and a Job Guarantee will make it possible to identify which areas in the US need more resources allocated to them simply by analyzing how many citizens sign up for the program. While the state of the US economy is oft described as a whole, the number of people entering the job guarantee program can show what counties are affected more by poverty and unemployment and allow them to remain in their home regions rather than flock to major urban centers to seek employment.   He also notes that the largest American cities are coastal and would be first affected by the rising waters due to climate change. Rather than drive people to those regions, we should be planning escape routes when those cities become uninhabitable. Describing a recent video narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nathan points out how an army of workers is going to be needed to help rebuild areas that are destroyed by natural or man-made disasters.   Using the example of how Syria endured years of drought which drove rural workers to city centers to find work, Nathan shows us how many poor & unemployed young people are now basically housed in prisons and argues that they should be emptied, primarily for moral reasons, but also to increase the productive capabilities of the United States. He cites the example of inmates being utilized as (unpaid) firefighters in California to show that we already do this to a limited extent and in an immoral way.   The remainder of the interview deals with Balance of Payments. Nathan explains that countries can have either a balance of payments deficit or surplus, depending on outflows such as payments for exports, interest payments and dividend payments netted with payment inflows. The addition of all balances of payments from all countries will, therefore, theoretically be zero. Monetary Sovereignty is a spectrum. Most countries in the world pay globally in US dollars because the large sums of debts and treaty obligations are denominated in dollars -- which in turn lead to exports and imports "invoiced" in dollars, which prevents countries from using their own currencies in payments. Thus, dollar exchange rates and interest rates are very important.   Nathan and Steve then examine the concept of the International currency hierarchy and the two elements that determine a country’s standing: Financial Strength and Physical Resources. A country can have a large current account deficit and a pegged currency but be rich in physical resources -- and be in equal or better standing than a country with a current account surplus and full monetary sovereignty but with few physical resources.   In closing, Nathan compares how US states have current account positions with one another, similar to those between Eurozone states. However, understanding this relationship is difficult because no records have been kept - and the data could be distorted to criticize states with large deficits as lazy or delinquent, simply because they have fewer jobs or lower incomes. Such data could be used by ‘bad actors’ who wish to divide people based on race.   Armed with this information, America could do some amazing things using the Green New Deal and the Federal Job Guarantee   Nathan Tankus is Research Director at Modern Money Network.   @NathanTankus on Twitter

Public banking is a hot topic in progressive circles. We at Macro n Cheese support it as long as it serves the public purpose, but not all visions of public banking are equal. Luckily, we have Nathan Tankus to help us navigate the shoals. In this second episode of a three-part series, Nathan begins by addressing the overall question of banks as public institutions. All banks, whether private, public, or democratic cooperatives, are given government charters and must abide by regulations. There may be similarities in the structure of governance, but when it comes to incentives, they are very different creatures. Nathan compares the different kinds of banks, including China’s state-owned banking system and looks at possibilities for regulations and services. Steve brings up proposals for infrastructure banks and the concept of financing public spending through a network of public banks. Some of these ideas don’t necessarily jibe with the MMT perspective; Nathan, Raul Carrillo and Andres Bernal recently wrote an article in Business Insider making the case that the federal government must pay for the Green New Deal. Full stop. The power of the federal purse is far superior to public-private partnerships or, worse, nudging the private sector to finance local public projects. Public banks can and should provide much-needed services -- at present, state and local governments keep their funds in, and make payments through, private banks that charge astronomical fees for the privilege. (We’re looking at you, Wells Fargo.) Nathan explains what it means to be “unbanked” or “underbanked,” as with individuals and communities who are denied services by the private banking industry. Much of this is taken for granted by those who have always had access. Banks provide a place to cash a check or receive automatic deposits from one’s employer, not to mention mortgages and car loans. In the US, the poor are crowded out of the banks and pushed towards predatory actors like check-cashing and payday lenders -- the high cost of poverty. Public and postal banks would provide normal banking services for those who are traditionally excluded. Nathan suggests that rather than simply making loans, public banks should award grants and emergency funds to individuals. In the second half of the episode, Steve and Nathan turn to a positive vision of the future. Steve refers to the combination of the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a Federal Job Guarantee and a universal right to housing as an end-to-end, 360-degree plan to address inequality. Nathan looks at different aspects of each and how they are interconnected. For example, right now people migrate to a handful of metropolitan areas because that’s where they can find employment. With the job guarantee, previously abandoned communities can be revitalized, housing can be refurbished and retrofitted, and choices can be made based on preference rather than necessity. Nathan points out that a minimum wage is a leaky wage floor; it’s meaningless for those who don’t have a job. The FJG provides a true floor, forcing employers to compete with wages and benefits. Creating a “just transition” for unemployed coal miners will require more than FJG jobs. With the other social insurance in place, compensation will more nearly approximate their lost salaries. They will need childcare, supplemental income through an expanded Social Security or basic income, affordable housing, and free education. In the heat of this presidential campaign season, candidates are competing for our attention with complicated proposals. After listening to this episode you’ll be equipped to unpack their promises and assess them through a true MMT lens. https://www.businessinsider.com/green-new-deal-climate-change-government-spending-no-private-money-2019-9 Nathan Tankus is Research Director at Modern Money Network. @NathanTankus on Twitter

If you follow the financial press you’ve probably noticed some recent hysteria about the “repo market.” Since this involves the dealings of the Federal Reserve, it falls under our purview here at Macro ‘n Cheese. Because unraveling the strands of this dense subject requires someone more knowledgeable than we are, we called upon friend-of-the-podcast Nathan Tankus to help us out. Nathan is Research Director at Modern Money Network and can often be found on Twitter, educating the world about MMT. “Repo” simply refers to the repurchase of bonds. Banks and bond traders sell Treasury bonds back to the Federal Reserve with the understanding that they (the banks) will buy them back the following day. As Nathan points out, this is always spoken of from the point of view of the central bank as buyer; it could just as well be called the resale market. Why does this matter? Why do the banks sell back their Treasurys for such a brief period of time? When banks buy them back the price is higher due to the interest charged. So why do it at all? It turns out to be the mechanism by which banks ensure that they have enough balance reserves to ensure that their payments clear. To do this they need to deal with liquid assets, which can quickly be bought and sold and converted to "money" (or at least change the balance in their account). Nothing is more liquid than a Treasury bond. See? Perhaps the banking industry isn’t just lawlessness and anarchy after all? Well, they certainly want us to believe the system is self-regulating so we won’t demand that the lawmakers rein them in and protect the public. As Nathan explains it, concern about the repo market is much ado about nothing. The central bank has been doing these repurchase agreements since 1917 and during some periods they are a normal part of the Fed’s toolbox. But the 2008 financial crisis put a halt to the practice for a while. In response to the liquidity crisis (ie, the lack of liquid assets), the Fed created trillions of dollars of what most of us think of as bail-out money, which was distributed to all the banks. At that point, banks didn’t need to sell bonds to meet their reserve balances because they all had plenty. Thus, no need for repo. When repo agreements started up again, some in the media thought that, since it hadn’t been done since 2008, it must be a sign that there’s a new crisis at hand. It doesn’t help that the FDIC, headed by Trump appointee Jelena McWilliams, is investigating the central bank, insisting that the repo market is actually another bank bailout by the Fed. Somehow, people have forgotten that these have historically been normal activities. In this interview we learn the meaning of the liquidity trap -- and liquidity itself. We learn about settlement balances, quantitative easing, and overnight interest rates. We learn of regulations like Dodd-Frank and international banking agreements like Basel III. We learn how these things are connected to such far-flung historical events as Bretton Woods, the Yom Kippur War, and German postwar reparations. We learn why MMT economists have promoted a detailed understanding of monetary operations and argue that the banking system does not serve the public purpose. The next time you get spooked by a headline in the financial press, tune into this episode again. It all makes so much sense when explained by someone who knows what he’s talking about.  Nathan Tankus is Research Director at Modern Money Network. modernmoneynetwork.org @NathanTankus on Twitter

In this episode, Rohan Grey, a J.S.D. student at Cornell Law School and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network, discusses his work on the intersection of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and intellectual property theory. Grey begins by briefly explaining the fundamental premises of MMT and the job guarantee, observing that MMT is an extension of Keynesian economic principles, and that the job guarantee is a way of setting a floor on the price of labor. He also observes that MMT scholarship has not focused on the role of property, and explains why he thinks property is in tension with the social goals of MMT. In particular, the non-rivalry of the intangible goods protected by intellectual property rights should be unnecessary in an MMT framework. He argues that the job guarantee and other policies can make intellectual property unnecessary, and discusses several potential policy approaches. Grey's scholarship is available here, and his article "Who Owns the Intellectual Fruits of Job Guarantee Labor?", in M. Murray & M. Forstater (Eds.), The Job Guarantee and Modern Money Theory: Realizing Keynes's Labor Standard (2017) is available here. Grey is on Twitter at @rohangrey.This episode was hosted by Brian L. Frye, Spears-Gilbert Associate Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky College of Law. Frye is on Twitter at @brianlfrye. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When we talk about debt, it’s not just what someone owes, it’s also that someone has something owed to them. That’s the absurdity of the World Debt Clock. If the entire planet is in debt, who will we pay? Jupiter?   In the second half of our interview with Rohan Grey, he begins with the fact that all money is debt, but the cash in our pockets is not recorded as part of the national debt, which is concerned with debt instruments. He compares a $100 bill and a Treasury note to a checking account and a savings account. Only the latter pays interest.   When Rohan goes through the realities of this secondary market for government debt -- wholly a creature of the Fed -- it is clear that all worries are for naught. Most T bonds are rolled over, and if someone wants to cash out, there’s always someone else who wants them. If there arises a situation in which nobody wants to buy them, the central bank itself will do so.   The question of government debt comes up whenever there’s talk of the Green New Deal. Some have suggested it be financed by public banks, either because of political calculations or because those proposing it do not understand how money is created and believe we should take advantage of the huge pools of private wealth. Rohan points out the danger of both of those approaches. Lending rather than spending is a trap. If you need to be convinced of that, look no further than the student debt crisis. Rather than fund higher education, we said “let them eat loans!” As for the second option, well, the marrying of corporate financing and the public purpose is a good definition of fascism.   Asking the Green New Deal to give a return on the investment is entirely misguided. Do we ask school children to pay back the cost of their education by the time they turn 18? Do we insist that the military to turn a profit? When we try to turn public service into a revenue-generating endeavor, we distort the entire industry. Profit itself becomes the motive force, and the actual service takes a back seat.   Nowadays it’s impossible to have a conversation with a Modern Money Theorist without talking about the ubiquitous Yang gang and the UBI. Our objection can be summed up in the words of C. H. Douglas, an early creator of the UBI. His goal was to create “a democracy of consumers and an aristocracy of producers.” That says it all, doesn’t it? In their debate with Matt Bruenig in “In These Times,” Raul Carrillo and Rohan Grey expressed the demand for a world where the production process is as democratic and empowering for workers and average people as the consumption process.   Steve Grumbine often speaks of the job guarantee as a democracy enhancer. The community determines which work needs to be done. Democracy at the workplace is just as important as at the ballot box. Steve and Rohan talk about democratizing the fruits of intellectual labor as well as more traditional concepts of work. They address the hysteria about robots replacing all the workers. Certain jobs can be automated, however any job that requires human beings to interact with other human beings, by definition cannot be automated.   Some of our listeners may be surprised to learn that Rohan’s view of the job guarantee is significantly different from Warren Mosler’s. Tune in to find out how.   Rohan Grey is the founder and president of the Modern Money Network, a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and a J.S.D. candidate at Cornell Law School, where his research focuses on the law of money in the internet society.   http://inthesetimes.com/features/job-guarantee-universal-basic-income-up-for-debate.html   https://modernmoneynetwork.org/   https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admissions/degrees/graduate-legal-studies/JSD-Student-Profiles-Rohan-Grey.cfm

Surely Rohan Grey is one of the smartest guys in the world. It’s not just that he possesses an impressive amount of knowledge. He has a unique way of using analogies and metaphors to give shape to an idea. He illustrates his points with references to popular films, folklore and lyrical poets. With his experience in the realms of music, early childhood education, political economy, and jurisprudence, he brings Modern Monetary Theory to life in unexpected ways. Throughout this two-part interview he frequently correlates economics and the law by making connections and illustrating subtle conceptual parallels.   The episode begins where any discussion of macroeconomics should begin — talking about money. Instead of thinking of it as a “thing,” or a store of value, Rohan asks us to think of money as a series of relationships, structured by law. He calls it a web of invisible filaments. The MMT story starts with state-created money. While the original logic had to do with tax obligations, the desire for money takes on a life of its own. We don’t wake up thinking about wanting money to pay taxes. We want it for all those other goods and services  we need and desire.   Steve asks Rohan to discuss talk about the Federal Reserve, an institution often misunderstood by even the sharpest political minds. The rest of this episode takes us through its history and before, beginning with the earliest years of the American colonies, when states were developing their own economies. This was a time when local governments were still relatively accountable to their constituents and the democratic process was vibrant. The constitution was designed in large part to move monetary powers from the state level up to the federal level. In fact, Rohan says that, in contrast to the American revolution, the creation of the US Constitution was a counter-revolution.   There’s far too much history to recount here. Rohan takes us through Lincoln’s creation of greenback dollars, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, FDR, and the decades-long bitter political battle for supremacy between the Department of Treasury and the Fed culminating in the Treasury-Fed Accord of 1951.   The struggle to create a central bank was basically a power grab by the capitalist class. Throughout its history, the Fed has zealously guarded its autonomy just as the Supreme Court has done; each determined to remain unaccountable to democratic forces. Both institutions employ the same tactic, convincing the public that they alone have the unique expertise to deal with complex matters. Ultimately Rohan maintains that the Federal Reserve adds no real value to the government or the economy. Our listeners will surely agree.   Rohan Grey is the founder and president of the Modern Money Network, a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and a J.S.D. candidate at Cornell Law School, where his research focuses on the law of money in the internet society.   https://modernmoneynetwork.org/   https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admissions/degrees/graduate-legal-studies/JSD-Student-Profiles-Rohan-Grey.cfm

In this episode, we talk with Nathan Tankus, Research Director of the Modern Money Network, and Research Fellow at the Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell Law School. Nathan recently co-authored an opinion piece in the Financial Times with Scott Fullwiler and former MoL guest Rohan Gray about MMT’s position on the causes of inflationLink to the piece: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/01/1551434402000/An-MMT-response-on-what-causes-inflation/ In the conversation, we ask Nathan to expand upon and deepen his engagement with the inflation question in all its historical, political, and rhetorical complexity. More specifically we discuss the different historical approaches to inflation; how the Post Keynesian MMT perspective diverges from those approaches; the vital contributions of economist Fred Lee to the foundations of Modern Monetary Theory; as well as how we ought to be thinking about issues of inflation and growth as they pertain to the Green New Deal. The conversation is as compelling as it is challenging.

Rent control, redux. Back in 2017, Steve interviewed Nathan Tankus, of the Modern Money Network, shortly after the 1st MMT conference where Nathan spoke of the heterodox approach to planning housing affordability. With renters now the majority in major US cities, and homelessness on the rise throughout, we are re-releasing this as a podcast to introduce it to a whole new audience.   The US is plagued with problems of housing insecurity, gentrification, and rents that are too damn high. Nathan guides us through the ins and outs of the faux rent control laws in urban centers like New York, where landlords avail themselves of more loopholes than a crochet needle.   Modern Monetary Theory allows us the policy space to deal with unemployment, public health, and student debt. But how do we navigate the labyrinth of federal, state, and municipal issues that affect the cost of housing? US cities and states cannot literally create dollars but they can come surprisingly close by creating monetary value through zoning policies that can elevate or reduce trillions of dollars of land value overnight.     Peering through the lens of MMT, Nathan lays out the two major types of obligations that governments impose. The first is familiar to fans of this podcast: the direct monetary obligation to pay taxes, fines and fees. The second is the obligation to respect property rights. In the US this refers almost entirely to private property. So, if the lack of sufficient federal spending and planning are responsible for both joblessness and homelessness, then the government has a dual obligation to the public. Just as a job guarantee will eliminate unemployment, using the public planning and regulatory apparatus can eliminate housing insecurity and homelessness.   Nathan Tankus is Research Director at the Modern Money Network and Research Fellow at Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell.   https://modernmoneynetwork.org/

Our host, Jessica Vaughn, speaks to Scott Ferguson about Modern Monetary Theory Scott Ferguson: sferguson@usf.edu https://twitter.com/videotroph Money on the Left podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/172776 Modern Money Network: https://modernmoneynetwork.org/

Steve Grumbine’s guest is Raul Carrillo of the New Economy Project and Modern Money Network.  As an anti-poverty & economic justice attorney he has a unique perspective on the monetary system. Raul talks about his seminal article, “The Dangerous Myth of Taxpayer Money,” and the legal history of taxation, citing the Supreme Court ruling that the gov’t has power to issue money backed only by the full faith & credit of the US gov’t - not backed by gold, taxes, or bonds.  He reveals some startling facts about the connection between taxation and the civil rights struggle for public education. Raul & Steve discuss the scramble to find truncated ways to present complex ideas.   Progressives must attack false scarcity, which is at the core of both conservative & liberal thinking.  Raul says that fighting for the Job Guarantee brings people to understand the concentration of power.  It’s an awareness that can create the momentum to take on the system itself.   Racial Taxation: Schools, Segregation, and Taxpayer Citizenship, 1869-1973, by Camille Walsh https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469638942/racial-taxation/ https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902 @RaulACarrillo on Twitter Modern Money Network https://modernmoneynetwork.org/ New Economy Project https://www.neweconomynyc.org/   Special Thanks to Geoffrey Ginter for the excellent intro song! And of course special thanks to our guest Christian Reilly, the donors of Real Progressives and our excellent staff of volunteers.

In this episode, we’re joined by Rohan Grey, President of the Modern Money Network, Director of the National Jobs for All Coalition, Research Fellow at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and JSD student at Cornell Law school.Our conversation is dedicated to Rohan’s current work on the political, economic, and cultural implications of money’s digital future.Rohan's report on digital fiat money: https://bit.ly/2K4els2Twitter: @rohangrey

The series continues by considering how to pay for the social contract, in particular through taxation. We hear from Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots and current President of Citizens for Self-Governance; Raúl Carrillo and Danny Sufranski, leaders of the Modern Money Network; and Michele Oberholtzer, a housing advocate in Detroit and candidate for State Representative of Michigan’s 4th District.For additional information on the issues we briefly examine, we recommend the following resources:Shamus Khan, The Rich Haven’t Always Hated Taxes, TIME (Sept. 18, 2012), http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/18/the-rich-havent-always-hated-taxes/.Mark Meckler, The Health Care Fiasco Should Make Americans Sober to This Reality, Breitbart (Mar. 28, 2017), http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/28/meckler-health-care-fiasco-make-americans-sober-reality/.Convention of States, https://conventionofstates.com/ (last visited May 22, 2018).Raúl Carrillo & Jesse Myerson, The Dangerous Myth of Taxpayer Money, Splinter (Oct. 19, 2017), https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902.Michele Oberholtzer, Myth-busting the Detroit foreclosure crisis, Detroit Metro Times (Sept. 13, 2017), https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/myth-busting-the-detroit-tax-foreclosure-crisis/Content?oid=5552983.This episode was produced by Mareva Lindo.Thanks to Doctor Turtle for the music:"Lullaby for Democracy" (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/The_Double-Down_Two-Step/lullaby_for_democracy)"Go Tell It On the Molehill" (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/Flush_Your_Rolex_1416/go_tell_it_on_the_molehill_2)

7 May 2018 – Job Guarantee remains the talk of the Twitter town (nest?) as well as some mainstream media. Critics have been vocal and a core of MMT thought leaders have been guiding the response to the push-back. Nathan Tankus (@nathantankus), who is a research scholar at the Modern Money Network and a terrific follow on Twitter, is among those leaders and joins us for the interview. Will focuses in on the court case between the British and Scottish Parliaments and why that is another example of the losses incurred by the structures of norms which underlie both the US and UK systems of governments. I am on to the third part in my series on framing MMT. In this show I cover better and more accurate framing for neoliberal deficit, surplus and balanced budget memes. I think I have just one more week on framing before I hop onto another topic. Many Carrots to All – Arliss

Update: The original episode released this morning did not contain the extended interview. We've corrected that this evening. 7 May 2018 - Job Guarantee remains the talk of the Twitter town (nest?) as well as some mainstream media. Critics have been vocal and a core of MMT thought leaders have been guiding the response to the push-back. Nathan Tankus (@nathantankus), who is a research scholar at the Modern Money Network and a terrific follow on Twitter, is among those leaders and joins us for the interview. Will focuses in on the court case between the British and Scottish Parliaments and why that is another example of the losses incurred by the structures of norms which underlie both the US and UK systems of governments. I am on to the third part in my series on framing MMT. In this show I cover better and more accurate framing for neoliberal deficit, surplus and balanced budget memes. I think I have just one more week on framing before I hop onto another topic. Many Carrots to All - Arliss