Podcasts about modern money theory

In this episode, Money on the Left shares audio from "The Black University & Community Currencies,” a public workshop convened by Professor Andrew J. Douglas at Morehouse College on April 25, 2025. This episode presents Part 1 of the workshop. It features an introduction by Professor Douglas and two panels. The first panel is titled “What is Public Money?” (Delman Coates, Scott Ferguson & Benjamin Wilson. The second asks: “What is the Uni Currency Proposal?” (Scott Ferguson & Benjamin Wilson). Money on the Left will release audio from Part 2 of the workshop within a few weeks' time.Description:In the late 1960s, in the context of the Black Power movement and amid calls to develop Black Studies programs at many US colleges and universities, Black student activists and radical intellectuals sought to imagine a more revolutionary "Black University," an institution or network of institutions dedicated entirely to Pan-African study and research. This workshop revisits the theory and vision of the Black University. It foregrounds questions of political economy—ranging from the theoretical critiques of capitalism and empire that inspired the Black University concept to more practical questions about financial viability and the "business model" of a revolutionary Black institution. And it considers how an emerging school of heterodox economic thinking—what has come to be known as Modern Money Theory—might inform a renewal of the Black University and its commitment to Black community building.This comes at a time of great crisis in US higher education, especially at HBCUs. Students are unsustainably indebted, encouraged to think of their education as little more than a private economic transaction or "return on investment." Schools, increasingly desperate for funding, are made to compete for private capital, often in ways that compromise their ability to serve even the nominally progressive aspects of their missions. Surrounding neighborhoods have become little more than sites of extraction, sources of low-wage labor and opportunities for land speculation, otherwise walled off from the very institutions they are made to sustain. More broadly, democratic questions about what kind of society the university is meant to serve or what kind of society we want an education for are rarely if ever addressed. Meanwhile, fascism's dramatic resurgence is renewing questions about whether Black institutions can rely on even minimal support from white society. In many ways, we appear to face some of the very same conditions that inspired the vision of the Black University more than a half century ago.What would it mean to renew the theory of the Black University? What are the challenges involved in building the Black University from within today's HBCUs? How might we reimagine the financial architecture of the university and its commitment to surrounding communities? How might new thinking about public money and banking-heterodox ideas about credit creation, public investment, jobs programs and the mobilization of community resources inform such a reimagining? How might HBCUs experiment with the creation of complementary currencies? And does this new thinking go far enough, or does it reflect simply a recommitment to the structures of domination and exploitation imperial state projects, the logic of capital, the instruments of antiblack violence that the Black University concept was always meant to expose and challenge?Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructureMusic by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com

The Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) crowd prides itself on fidelity to actual history. But Murphy shows how leading MMT guru Randall Wray completely distorts his discussion of two historical episodes in his college lecture.Wray, "Modern Money Theory for Beginners": Mises.org/HAP496aThe NBER Paper on Colonial Virginia's Money Regime: Mises.org/HAP496bNPR Planet Money, "A Giant Stone Coin At The Bottom Of The Sea": Mises.org/HAP496cMilton Friedman, "The Island Of Stone Money": Mises.org/HAP496dBob's Article, "MMT and Treasury Debt Payoff": Mises.org/HAP496eThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Murray Rothbard's, What Has Government Done to Our Money? Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFreeJoin the Mises Institute on April 26 in Phoenix, Arizona, as we expose the danger and waste of bureaucracy: Mises.org/Phoenix25

The Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) crowd prides itself on fidelity to actual history. But Murphy shows how leading MMT guru Randall Wray completely distorts his discussion of two historical episodes in his college lecture.Wray, "Modern Money Theory for Beginners": Mises.org/HAP496aThe NBER Paper on Colonial Virginia's Money Regime: Mises.org/HAP496bNPR Planet Money, "A Giant Stone Coin At The Bottom Of The Sea": Mises.org/HAP496cMilton Friedman, "The Island Of Stone Money": Mises.org/HAP496dBob's Article, "MMT and Treasury Debt Payoff": Mises.org/HAP496eThe Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Murray Rothbard's, What Has Government Done to Our Money? Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFreeJoin the Mises Institute on April 26 in Phoenix, Arizona, as we expose the danger and waste of bureaucracy: Mises.org/Phoenix25

Steve's guest is noted economist L. Randall Wray, one of the early developers of modern money theory. As many times as this podcast has talked about MMT, it's always topical. In fact, just last week, Elon Musk discovered 14 magic money computers in government agencies! So, Trump had to hire the richest man in the world who hired who knows how many hundreds of young tech kids to discover what we've been saying for 30 years, which is that Congress appropriates money, and then the computers keystroke it into people's accounts. There's no mystery about this at all, but they think they've discovered not only something that people didn't know, but something that's, oh, it's so scary. It's nefarious that the government uses computers to increase the size of people's accounts. Well, that's spending. That's the way it's done. Clearly, this is a good time to revisit the valuable insights of MMT and look at the implications for building a society that serves its people. This episode dives deep into the fundamentals, debunking misconceptions about government spending, the role of taxes, and the myth that the US government can run out of money, like a household. Randy and Steve talk about changes in the economy due to financialization, and the difference between budget constraints and inflation constraints. Randy explains why we need to look at the history of debt in order to understand money. He talks about banking, including transactions between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. The conversation breaks down complex concepts into relatable terms, sometimes with a touch of humor. Illustrating the creation of currency, Randy describes an imaginary scenario in which the fictional characters Robinson Crusoe and Friday devise a currency to facilitate barter. Randy: So, they come up with the idea of, ‘hey, we can use seashells as a medium of exchange.' And this is where money came from. It was Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Okay, think about this a little bit. It's pretty bizarre. We've got Crusoe and Friday marooned on a desert island. I can think of two much more likely scenarios. Okay, one, Crusoe came from Europe. What do Europeans do when they come across native people? Steve: Kill them. Anyone with an interest in how the economy truly operates will learn something from this episode. L. Randall Wray is a Professor of Economics at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Emeritus Professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is one of the developers of Modern Money Theory and his newest book on the topic is Understanding Modern Money Theory: Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies (Elgar), forthcoming in spring 2025. Recent books on MMT include Making Money Work for Us (Polity, November 2022), a companion illustrated guide, Money For Beginners (Polity, May 2023, with Levy Institute graduate Heske Van Doornen), and the third edition of Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems (Springer, 2024). He is also the author of Why Minsky Matters (Princeton, 2015) as well as the author, co-author, and editor of many other books. Find more of his work at levyinstitute.org

Near the start of this episode, Yeva Nersisyan talks with Steve about leftist economists who are still wedded to the belief that government spending relies on taxpayer money. She says if an academic on the left uses the ‘taxpayer dollar' framing, then you cannot be surprised when the right uses it too – to say they're saving taxpayer money, cutting wastefulness, cutting inefficiency. It's why being consistent is so important. If one side can use it, the other side can too.“It leads to the Elon Musks of the world using this taxpayer money trope to basically take a sledgehammer or a chainsaw to the public sector.” Yeva and Steve revisit some basics of MMT, including the understanding that a government is not like a household. Our own spending doesn't really affect our own income. We'll still get our wages, we will still have that, and then we will continue consuming, but consuming less and therefore end up with more savings. But it doesn't work for the economy as a whole. Because for the economy as a whole, if spending goes down, that means there is now less income, and less income means someone somewhere is earning less and therefore they have to cut their consumption and they also have to cut their saving. And it becomes this cycle where, okay, someone cut their consumption, now someone else is earning less or the grocery store is earning less, right? And now they have to fire their workers. Now their workers don't have income and they are spending less, and so on and so forth. Yeva and Steve go into other insights of MMT, including sectoral balances and the reality of the so-called national debt. They unravel the absurd dynamics of current economic policy and look at the implications of proposed spending cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Fallout from the government's ruthless abandonment of social programs will be disastrous. Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. She received her B.A. in economics from Yerevan State University in Armenia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in economics and mathematics from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is a macroeconomist working in the Modern Money Theory, Post-Keynesian, and Institutionalist traditions. Her research interests include banking and financial instability, and fiscal and monetary theory and policy. She has published a number of papers on the topics of shadow banking, fiscal policy, government deficits and debt, and the Green New Deal. Nersisyan is currently coediting the Elgar Companion to Modern Money Theory with L. Randall Wray. Find her work at levyinstitute.org/publications/yeva-nersisyan

In a stunning reversal, the Democrat Party has announced plans to reconnect with its New Deal roots in hopes of regaining the trust of the working class. Haha just kidding! This week, Yeva Nersisyan joins Steve to cut through the cacophony of phony punditry trying to explain the 2024 election results. Spoiler alert: it's economics. It's always economics. Yeva points to the stark realities of inflation, highlighting the persistent rise in food and housing costs. She points out that while inflation is often cited as a primary concern, the real issue lies in how US economic policies have consistently failed to address the needs of the people, especially those at the lower end of the income scale. Voters are not dazzled by Wall Street's success. The conversation goes into the failures of past administrations and takes a look at mistakes made during and after the height of the Covid pandemic. Promising policies were on the table, yet the monies were often spent in ways least helpful to the majority. As an MMT economist, Yeva has worked on comprehensive economic proposals that demonstrate the affordability of providing a green new deal, healthcare, and a job guarantee. The episode continually reinforces the necessity of a class perspective when looking at the failure of neoliberalism. Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. She received her B.A. in economics from Yerevan State University in Armenia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in economics and mathematics from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is a macroeconomist working in the Modern Money Theory, Post-Keynesian, and Institutionalist traditions. Her research interests include banking and financial instability, and fiscal and monetary theory and policy. She has published a number of papers on the topics of shadow banking, fiscal policy, government deficits and debt, and the Green New Deal. Nersisyan is currently coediting the Elgar Companion to Modern Money Theory with L. Randall Wray. Find her work at levyinstitute.org/publications/yeva-nersisyan

This Flashback Friday is from episode 1139 published last Feb 27, 2019.  Jason Hartman and Adam start off today's show discussing one of the keynote speakers for this year's Meet the Masters event, George Gilder. Gilder has quite the history and the two break down what he did back in the 90s, what he's doing now, and why he's still relevant. Then Jason talks with Dr. Randy Wray, one of the foremost experts in Modern Monetary Theory, about why Minsky the philosopher is important, what exactly MMT is and why it's relevant in today's monetary society. They especially tackle the job guarantee program that MMT espouses and what's coming up for the US in the economy for the next few years. Key Takeaways: 4:58 George Gilder is a thought leader today just like he was 20 years ago 7:55 When Gilder spoke back in the 90s the markets moved Dr Randy Wray Interview: 13:03 Who is Minsky and why is he someone we should concern ourselves with? 16:20 What is Modern Monetary Theory and why is it applicable? 22:08 The governments going back to the colonies spends money into existence and then taxes it back to avoid causing inflation 25:15 Has all the money that was put into the economy during Obama's term been taken back out by taxes or is it causing inflation? 29:28 The test you need to use to discover if you're doing monetary policy correct 33:25 Spending during The New Deal greatly helped move our nation forward and allowed us to become the richest, most developed nation on Earth 37:26 The job guarantee that Dr Wray is focusing on now would involve a lot of care work, and it would be decentralized 40:35 What's coming up, economically, for the United States Website: www.JasonHartman.com/Masters www.YouTube.com/JasonHartmanRealEstate www.Levy.org   Follow Jason on TWITTER, INSTAGRAM & LINKEDIN Twitter.com/JasonHartmanROI Instagram.com/jasonhartman1/ Linkedin.com/in/jasonhartmaninvestor/ Call our Investment Counselors at: 1-800-HARTMAN (US) or visit: https://www.jasonhartman.com/ Free Class:  Easily get up to $250,000 in funding for real estate, business or anything else: http://JasonHartman.com/Fund CYA Protect Your Assets, Save Taxes & Estate Planning: http://JasonHartman.com/Protect Get wholesale real estate deals for investment or build a great business – Free Course: https://www.jasonhartman.com/deals Special Offer from Ron LeGrand: https://JasonHartman.com/Ron Free Mini-Book on Pandemic Investing: https://www.PandemicInvesting.com  

Bestselling author and professor, Stephanie Kelton, joins Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng to break down the flexibilities of government finances despite being in a deficit and how the Modern Money Theory can help change how we interpret government spending. Also, Jordan and Ronny sit down with Kyle Chayka, New Yorker staff writer and author of "Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture," to explain how the social media algorithms affect our taste and culture in real life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.  Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 700 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls Stephanie Kelton is a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University. She is a leading expert on Modern Monetary Theory, a former Chief Economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (Democratic staff), and an advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. She was named by POLITICO as one of the 50 people most influencing the policy debate in America. Her highly-anticipated book, The Deficit Myth (2020), became an instant New York Times bestseller. FINDING THE MONEY follows American economist Stephanie Kelton on a journey through. Modern Money Theory or “MMT”. Kelton provocatively asserts the National Debt Clock that ticks ominously upwards in New York City is not actually a debt for us taxpayers at all, nor a burden for our grandchildren to pay back. Instead, Kelton describes the national debt as simplya historical record of the number of dollars created by the US federal government currently being held in pockets, as assets, by the rest of us. MMT bursts into the mainstream media, with journalists asking, “Have we been thinking about how the government spends money, all wrong?” But top economists and politicians from across the political spectrum condemn the theory as “voodoo economics”, “crazy” and “a crackpot theory”. FINDING THE MONEY traces the conflict all the way back to the story we tell about money, injecting new hope and empowering countries around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century: from climate change to inequality. Join us Thursday's at 8EST for our Weekly Happy Hour Hangout! Pete on Tik Tok Pete on YouTube Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page All things Jon Carroll Follow and Support Pete Coe Buy Ava's Art  

Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng tackle Jesse Watters labeling Trump being forced to sit in a courtroom for eight hours a day as cruel and unusual punishment and Joe Biden's controversial claim that his uncle was eaten by "cannibals" in New Guinea. Plus, Desi Lydic gives live updates on Trump's endless string of gag order hearings. In today's world, you need a car where you can sit in the front seat and record yourself going on an unhinged rant. That's where Rant-A-Car comes in. You provide the rant, we'll provide the car. Also, Stephanie Kelton, bestselling author of “The Deficit Myth” and professor of economics and public policy, talks to Jordan and Ronny about changing our understanding of government spending through MMT, or Modern Money Theory. She also explains how the national deficit is not a number to be fearful of, but can be put to good use, and how government finance is far more flexible than you might think. Take a quick survey to help us improve The Daily Show: Ears Edition: https://cohst.app/tdsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

FINDING THE MONEY follows American economist Stephanie Kelton on a journey through Modern Money Theory or “MMT”. Kelton provocatively asserts the National Debt Clock that ticks ominously upwards in New York City is not actually a debt for us taxpayers at all, nor a burden for our grandchildren to pay back. Instead, Kelton describes the national debt as simply a historical record of the number of dollars created by the US federal government currently being held in pockets, as assets, by the rest of us. MMT bursts into the mainstream media, with journalists asking, “Have we been thinking about how the government spends money, all wrong?” But top economists and politicians from across the political spectrum condemn the theory as “voodoo economics”, “crazy” and “a crackpot theory”. FINDING THE MONEY traces the conflict all the way back to the story we tell about money, injecting new hope and empowering countries around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century: from climate change to inequality. Filmmaker Maren Poitras tackles the fascinating linked concepts of taxation and debt by foregrounding the work of an underdog group of American economists including Stony Brook professor Stephanie Kelton. With a radical shift in thinking around a concept dubbed Modern Money Theory, Kelton provocatively asserts new hope for democracies around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century. For more go to: findingmoneyfilm.com

In this podcast extra we speak with William Thomson who along with Kairin Van Sweeden co-founded Scotonomics. It was set up with" a commitment to enhancing economic literacy and fostering discussions that are informed, objective, and accessible to a wide audience, with a particular focus on the economic context of Scotland."A major part of this is its annual Scotonomics Festival which is taking place in various venues across Dundee and online from Friday the 22nd of March until Sunday the 24th.It's Scotland's biggest festival of economics with over 30 sessions covering aspects of the Scottish, UK and global economy with academics, activists, economists, policymakers, politicians and the public coming together to discuss people, place and planet.We cover what the founding principles and ideology of Scotonomics are and just what they mean for Scotland in the here and now and in an independent future.If you're interested in attending here's the linkhttps://scotonomics.scot/event/festival-of-economics/As well as the events in Dundee there will be an "Economics of the Real World" event  at Leith Dockers Club on Thursday March the 21st. Four internationally renowned economists will challenge  the mainstream economic dogma currently dominating political thought.https://scotonomics.scot/event/economics-of-the-real-world-edinburgh/This includes screening of the movie "Finding the Money"It follows former chief economist to Senator Bernie Sanders, Stephanie Kelton, on a journey through Modern Money Theory or “MMT”, to unveil a deeper story about money, injecting new hope and empowering democracies around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century: from climate change to inequality.https://scotonomics.scot/event/finding-the-money-film-leith/It will also be shown in Dundeehttps://scotonomics.scot/event/finding-the-money/ ★ Support this podcast ★

John Harvey, Professor and Hal Wright Chair of Economics at Texas Christian University talks with Levy Research Scholar and Director of the Bard Economic Democracy Inititiative, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, regarding Modern Monetary Theory and the case for a job guarantee.    Recommended readings:  The Case for a Job Guarantee, Pavlina Tcherneva "Seismic shifts in economic theory and policy: From the Bernanke Doctrine to Modern Money Theory," Pavlina Tcherneva and Eric Tymoigne "Unemployment: The Silent Epidemic," Pavlina Tcherneva The Lost Cause, Cory Doctorow “Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?” Ben Bernanke

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

How did we get to the financial crisis of 2008? Where were the signs, and what did we miss? For these questions and more, we turn to the person who wrote a book on the subject. Dr. George Cooper is an author and the chief investment Officer of Equitile investments. He has 27 years of investment experience including with JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and BlueCrest Capital before. His first book, The Origin of Financial Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles, and the Efficient Market Fallacy, has an updated version out, and his latest book is called Fixing Economics: The story of how the dismal science was broken - and how it could be rebuilt. George and Greg talk about the limits of neoclassical economics, the importance of systems thinking, and they go into the origins of financial crises. George and Greg talk about the ideas of Keynes, Minsky, Marx, Maxwell,  Kuhn, and Brahmagupta. George introduces his view of dynamic equilibrium and his perspective on Modern Money Theory and other alternative schools of economics.Episode Quotes:Recognizing the role of credit creation system11:18: When you understand the connection between asset inflation, profit formation, and credit creation. When you realize that all three of those are intimately entwined, then you can no longer believe in an equilibrium model anymore because asset inflation leads to credit creation. And interestingly, the creation of credit also leads to a boom in corporate profits.49:21: When we talk about money creation, we need to also think about anti-money creation, which is debt. So debt and money combined are literally created and destroyed.Are we analyzing the wrong side of economic theory? 16:07: We tend to analyze the economy only from the private sector side, but there are no successful economies in the world that are 100 percent private sector. Every successful economy in the world has a public sector that is comparable in size to the private sector.Finding important truths and valid insights in economics25:51: Many social scientists, even today, talk about emotions as if it were one great category, but emotions to their work by virtue of their specificity, that is, by their community entities and action tenses that are also very specific or different from the different emotions. So if you are angry, you want to make the other person suffer. If you hate, then you want other person to disappear from the face of the earth.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Hyman MinskyJohn Maynard KeynesParadox of ThriftAustrian SchoolLehman BrothersWilliam HarveyAlfred WegenerCharles DarwinJames MaxwellBrahmaguptaLuca PacioliBenoit MandelbrotThe Structure of Scientific RevolutionsunSILOed EP #12 | Understanding Carry Trades feat. Kevin ColdironGuest Profile:Professional on Equitile InvestmentsAuthor's Profile on  Penguin Random House ProfileSpeaker's Profile on Specialist SpeakerGeorge Cooper's WebsiteHis Work:Articles on EvonomicsThe Origin of Financial Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles, and the Efficient Market FallacyMoney, Blood and Revolution: How Darwin and the doctor of King Charles I could turn economics into a scienceFixing Economics: The story of how the dismal science was broken - and how it could be rebuilt 

Staaten können so viel Schulden machen, wie sie wollen. Was für die einen nach magischem Denken klingt, bildet die Grundlage der Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Diese ökonomische Denkschule, die in Deutschland nur wenige Anhänger findet, ist in den USA in den vergangenen Jahren überaus populär geworden. Im Podcast erklärt Dr. Dirk Ehnts, einer der bekanntesten deutschen MMT-Vertreter, warum Geld für ihn keine knappe Ressource ist. Warum steigende Staatsschulden nicht zu höherer Inflation führen müssen. Und warum die Geldpolitik des vergangenen Jahrzehnts trotz des Nullzinses seiner Meinung nach gar nicht expansiv war. Folgen Sie Carsten Roemheld auf LinkedIn Hören Sie hier Teil 2. Disclaimer: Wertentwicklungen in der Vergangenheit sind keine Garantie für zukünftige Erträge und Ergebnisse. Der Wert von Anteilen kann schwanken und wird nicht garantiert. Anleger werden darauf hingewiesen, dass insbesondere Fonds, die in Schwellenländern anlegen, mit höheren Risiken behaftet sein können. Die dargestellten Standpunkte spiegeln die Einschätzung des Herausgebers wider und können sich ohne Mitteilung darüber ändern. Daten und Informationsquellen wurden als verlässlich eingestuft, jedoch nicht von unabhängiger Stelle überprüft. Eine detaillierte Beschreibung der mit den jeweiligen Fonds verbundenen Risiken finden Sie in den entsprechenden Fondsprospekten. Fidelity übernimmt keine Haftung für direkte oder indirekte Schäden und Verluste. Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter www.fidelity.de. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to episode 134 of Activist #MMT. Today's part two of my two-part conversation with Charles Hayden. In part one, Charles described how he created at least three important milestones in MMT history, and how Warren Mosler played a integral role his journey to understanding and accepting MMT. Today in part two, we discuss some of the many varied realistic views of inflation, and how each of them is connected by the fact that the national government is the monopoly price setter for the entire economy – whether they know it or not. This is one of the unique contributions of Modern Money Theory. The first realistic view of inflation is how it's not a disease or a symptom, but rather a measurement of some prices going up somewhere in the economy for some reason. It's not possible to know what the problem is without going out into the real world and discovering them for yourself. If you address those real-world problems, then those prices will naturally go down, which will in turn result in a lower measurement of inflation. This is not unlike how a thermometer measures the temperature of a sick person. The rabid desire to "lower inflation" is not unlike dunking the thermometer into a cup of ice, and ignoring the actual sickness of the actual patient, and doing nothing to help them. This is the idea behind lowering inflation by raising interest rates – if we lock all the starving people out of the kitchen, then we can truthfully say that "everyone who enters this kitchen gets a good meal." These are all examples of how real costs are pushed by those with the most onto those with the least – and subsequently onto the families and communities in which those people exist. A second realistic view is the class conflict theory of inflation. This is as originated by Marx and adopted by MMT. Inflation is essentially a battle between business owners and their workers, where one side fights to increase their profits, and the other fights to increase their wages. A wage-price spiral can only happen if we allow it to happen. The only way it can stop is if one side is empowered enough to prevent the other from pushing back. More broadly, this is a centuries-long battle between rich and poor to increase their power over the other. In all the above cases, outside of natural catastrophe, the government must be complicit in order for the inflation to persist. Currently, the government is essentially entirely on the side of the rich, business owners, and capitalists. So, in almost all cases, all real and financial costs are borne by workers and the poor. The idea that the government is the monopoly price setter, essentially means to me that: We as a collective are in control of our own destiny. The government is us as a collective. We have let it decay into the morass that it currently is. We've let the leash out way too far and now it's going to take a whole lot of effort in order to reign it back in. Regardless, no matter how unlikely or even impossible that task may be, if we are to survive, there is a no alternative. Outside of natural disaster, everything we do and don't do is a choice. We are choosing to go extinct. We could choose to not do that. And now, let's get right back to my conversation with Charles Hayden. Enjoy. Audio chapters 6:23 - Inflation- first thoughts 7:24 - Inflation is to the real world like a thermometer is to sickness (also, inflation the boogeyman) 12:34 - Government is the monopoly price setter. This is behind every other (valid) view of inflation 20:10 - Government is dog walker 24:07 - Foreign demand for a currency 26:40 - The government passively delegates its price setting powers (plus neglect and suppression) 38:29 - Inflation affects peoples lives 40:54 - Fortunate to learn MMT directly from Warren Mosler 42:34 - The language of Warren, versus other academics, versus activists, versus 46:08 - Warren's extreme examples as thought experiments 47:21 - MMT was all over TV (trying to do to MMT what they did to CRT) 49:43 - Dennis Kucinich and my monetary reform article 50:54 - Inflation is an area of concern MMT 53:33 - The first MMT Activist 56:24 - Inflation and the real world, grades and children, temperature and sickness 1:01:46 - Raising interest rates (to 100%!) 1:04:03 - Street protester (there's power in protest) 1:08:30 - MMTers in Texas 1:09:45 - Campaigning 1:13:18 - Vote blue no matter who 1:14:59 - Goodbyes 1:18:44 - Duplicate of introduction, with no background music (for those with sensitive ears)

Welcome to episode 134 of Activist #MMT. Today's part two of my two-part conversation with Charles Hayden. In , Charles described how he created at least three important milestones in MMT history, and how Warren Mosler played a integral role his journey to understanding and accepting MMT. Today in part two, we discuss some of the many varied realistic views of inflation, and how each of them is connected by the fact that the national government is the monopoly price setter for the entire economy – whether they know it or not. This is one of the unique contributions of Modern Money Theory. The first realistic view of inflation is how it‘s not a disease or a symptom, but rather a measurement of some prices going up somewhere in the economy for some reason. It's not possible to know what the problem is without going out into the real world and discovering them for yourself. If you address those real-world problems, then those prices will naturally go down, which will in turn result in a lower measurement of inflation. This is not unlike how a thermometer measures the temperature of a sick person. The rabid desire to "lower inflation" is not unlike dunking the thermometer into a cup of ice, and ignoring the actual sickness of the actual patient, and doing nothing to help them. This is the idea behind lowering inflation by raising interest rates – if we lock all the starving people out of the kitchen, then we can truthfully say that "everyone who enters this kitchen gets a good meal." These are all examples of how real costs are pushed by those with the most onto those with the least – and subsequently onto the families and communities in which those people exist. A second realistic view is the class conflict theory of inflation. This is as originated by Marx and adopted by MMT. Inflation is essentially a battle between business owners and their workers, where one side fights to increase their profits, and the other fights to increase their wages. A wage-price spiral can only happen if we allow it to happen. The only way it can stop is if one side is empowered enough to prevent the other from pushing back. More broadly, this is a centuries-long battle between rich and poor to increase their power over the other. In all the above cases, outside of natural catastrophe, the government must be complicit in order for the inflation to persist. Currently, the government is essentially entirely on the side of the rich, business owners, and capitalists. So, in almost all cases, all real and financial costs are borne by workers and the poor. The idea that the government is the monopoly price setter, essentially means to me that: We as a collective are in control of our own destiny. The government is us as a collective. We have let it decay into the morass that it currently is. We've let the leash out way too far and now it's going to take a whole lot of effort in order to reign it back in. Regardless, no matter how unlikely or even impossible that task may be, if we are to survive, there is a no alternative. Outside of natural disaster, everything we do and don't do is a choice. We are choosing to go extinct. We could choose to not do that. And now, let's get right back to my conversation with Charles Hayden. Enjoy. Audio chapters 6:23 - Inflation- first thoughts 7:24 - Inflation is to the real world like a thermometer is to sickness (also, inflation the boogeyman) 12:34 - Government is the monopoly price setter. This is behind every other (valid) view of inflation 20:10 - Government is dog walker 24:07 - Foreign demand for a currency 26:40 - The government passively delegates its price setting powers (plus neglect and suppression) 38:29 - Inflation affects peoples lives 40:54 - Fortunate to learn MMT directly from Warren Mosler 42:34 - The language of Warren, versus other academics, versus activists, versus 46:08 - Warren's extreme examples as thought experiments 47:21 - MMT was all over TV (trying to do to MMT what they did to...

Welcome to episode 133 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Charles Hayden about his role in creating at least three important milestones in MMT history, and how Warren Mosler played a integral role his journey to understanding and accepting MMT. The first milestone, as hinted at in the cool quote (what you heard at the very beginning), is the 2013 debate between Warren and Austrian economist Robert Murphy. The second is the 2020 conversation between MMT economist Pavlina Tcherneva and billionaire Mark Cuban, as hosted by Real Progressives. The third is a three-and-a-half-hour long talk and Q&A Warren gave in 2012 at a Texas church. This event was a personal milestone for a previous guest of mine, although I've not yet determined who. (Here's a link to part two. A list of the audio chapters in this episode can be found at the bottom of this post.) In part two, Charles and I discuss the many different realistic views of inflation, and how they're all connected by the fact that the national government is the monopoly price setter for the entire economy – whether they know it or not. This is one of the unique contributions of Modern Money Theory. As Charles told me, he wouldn't choose to be so public, or to have to fight so hard as an activist. He'd rather just enjoy his family, home, and backyard. There's not much hope in doing those things, however, without a stable, and not-blazingly hot, world in which to do it. Helping the general public understand the reality of our economic and financial systems is an important prerequisite in consolidating the power we need, in order to stand against those who benefit from instability and inequality – and who, most unfortunately, are exactly those who currently stand at nearly all the levers of power. If you like what you hear, then I hope you might consider becoming a monthly patron of Activist #MMT. Patrons have exclusive access to several full-length episodes, right now. A full list is here, each with a brief highlight. Patrons also get the opportunity to ask my academic guests questions, like in recent episodes with Dirk Ehnts, John Harvey, and Warren Mosler. They also support the development of my large and growing collection of learn MMT resources. To become a patron, you can start by going to patreon.com/activistmmt. Every little bit helps a little bit, and it all adds up to a lot. Thanks. And now, onto my conversation with Charles Hayden. Enjoy. Audio chapters 4:22 - Hellos, radiant barriers, time, and Stranger Things 6:10 - How he discovered MMT 14:56 - Warren talks for 3 1/2 hours at a Dallas church in 2012 23:45 - Mark Cuban 31:47 - MMT during COVID 35:20 - Frederic Lee - "Prices begin with Warren's monopolist." 38:57 - Mistaking Mark Cuban for Nick Hanauer 39:51 - You need to start from scratch (Mosler's business card story.) 50:08 - John Harvey 54:24 - Inflation- first thoughts 55:25 - Inflation is to the real world like a thermometer is to sickness (also, inflation the boogeyman) 1:01:01 - Duplicate of introduction, with no background music (for those with sensitive ears)

Welcome to episode 133 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Charles Hayden about his role in creating at least three important milestones in MMT history, and how Warren Mosler played a integral role his journey to understanding and accepting MMT. The first milestone, as hinted at in the cool quote (what you heard at the very beginning), is the between Warren and Austrian economist Robert Murphy. The second is the between MMT economist Pavlina Tcherneva and billionaire Mark Cuban, as hosted by Real Progressives. The third is a three-and-a-half-hour long talk and Q&A Warren gave in 2012 at a Texas church. This event was a personal milestone for a previous guest of mine, although I've not yet determined who. (Here's a link to part two. A list of the audio chapters in this episode can be found at the bottom of this post.) In part two, Charles and I discuss the many different realistic views of inflation, and how they're all connected by the fact that the national government is the monopoly price setter for the entire economy – whether they know it or not. This is one of the unique contributions of Modern Money Theory. As Charles told me, he wouldn't choose to be so public, or to have to fight so hard as an activist. He'd rather just enjoy his family, home, and backyard. There's not much hope in doing those things, however, without a stable, and not-blazingly hot, world in which to do it. Helping the general public understand the reality of our economic and financial systems is an important prerequisite in consolidating the power we need, in order to stand against those who benefit from instability and inequality – and who, most unfortunately, are exactly those who currently stand at nearly all the levers of power. If you like what you hear, then I hope you might consider becoming a monthly patron of Activist #MMT. Patrons have exclusive access to several full-length episodes, right now. A full list is , each with a brief highlight. Patrons also get the opportunity to ask my academic guests questions, like in recent episodes with , , and . They also support the development of my large and growing collection of . To become a patron, you can start by going to . Every little bit helps a little bit, and it all adds up to a lot. Thanks. And now, onto my conversation with Charles Hayden. Enjoy. Audio chapters 4:22 - Hellos, radiant barriers, time, and Stranger Things 6:10 - How he discovered MMT 14:56 - Warren talks for 3 1/2 hours at a Dallas church in 2012 23:45 - Mark Cuban 31:47 - MMT during COVID 35:20 - Frederic Lee - "Prices begin with Warren's monopolist." 38:57 - Mistaking Mark Cuban for Nick Hanauer 39:51 - You need to start from scratch (Mosler's business card story.) 50:08 - John Harvey 54:24 - Inflation- first thoughts 55:25 - Inflation is to the real world like a thermometer is to sickness (also, inflation the boogeyman) 1:01:01 - Duplicate of introduction, with no background music (for those with sensitive ears)

Modern Money Theory

This week's episode is another chapter in our mission to educate ourselves about modern China. Yan Liang specializes in Modern Money Theory, international trade and finance, and economic development, with a special regional focus on China. She is also the wife of friend-of-the-podcast Eric Tymoigne. Steve and Yan discuss the truth and misconceptions about the ongoing competition between the US and China. It has created winners and losers, with the working class in both countries affected by globalization. Trade war is class war. The explanation for China's growth is sometimes attributed to market reform and opening itself to trade, but Yan points to the role of the state in financing development, formulating industrial policies, and building infrastructure, both hard and soft. Policymakers are beginning to tighten the grip on private enterprise as they plan to grow China in a more sustainable way, unlike in the past, where extensive growth was a major driving force. US officials pay lip service to job creation while ceding power to private corporations. Steve compares the role of government: It seems like in China it's a little bit more egalitarian. The wealth gap is not as severe, and there is more universal opportunity at some level for leading a life without the precarity. Everything seems to be taken care of with a mindset of empowering and improving the lives of Chinese citizens. Market reform brought about widening inequality in China, between urban and rural, and between east and west. But public healthcare and pensions guarantee certain protections and the Ji Xinping administration's “common prosperity” policies are further addressing inequality. There is a crackdown in the tech sector; they are trying to solve the so called three mountains on people's back: education, housing, and healthcare. So, this idea of common prosperity is really trying to elevate even more that egalitarianism that I think gradually eroded in China because of market reform and opening up. This interview looks at China's use of capital controls, its shift to sustainability, and the role of Taiwan as a focal point for US economic interests and propaganda (and its strategic position in the semiconductor industry.) They talk about the meaning of human rights, which is seen by the Chinese as the right to a livelihood and freedom from poverty. Finally, Yan talks about the possibility of the Chinese accepting MMT and how it would affect the respective roles of central and regional governments. Yan Liang is Peter C. and Bonnie S. Kremer Chair, Professor of Economics and Chair of International Studies at Willamette University. She is also a Research Scholar at the Global Institute of Sustainable Prosperity. Yan specializes in Modern Money Theory, International Trade and Finance, Economic Development, with a special regional focus on China. @YanLian31677392 on Twitter

Welcome to Activist #MMT candidate interview number six, hosted by Ramona Massachi (Twitter/@RamonaMassachi) and co-hosted by me. Today, we talk with Ezra Watson, who's running to represent New York's twenty-first Congressional district. (Here's a list of all MMT candidate interviews.) Ezra was inspired to run by the January insurrection at the Capital building, and his own precarious job as a contingent worker in the semiconductor industry. Despite requiring highly specialized skills, he describes his job as comparable to, and precarious as, the gig workers employed by companies such as Uber and DoorDash. Ezra says a primary reason for the precariousness of these jobs is the lack of good healthcare options, which is sometimes prohibitively expensive or not option at all. Ezra's running in New York's 21st Congressional district, which is enormous. It encompasses the Adirondack mountains and takes several hours by car to traverse. The district, which is agriculture-heavy, has for years voted almost exclusively Republican. Even so, the Democratic primary field is crowded, with a front-runner who is, not-so-surprisingly, a former CIA agent. Ezra's the only self-proclaimed Bernie Sanders-style progressive in the race, but the Republican incumbent calls every single Democratic candidate "a far-left socialist". This is leveraging nebulous and meaningless fear to give people a boogeyman to run away from, while marketing themselves as the only one who can ward these zombie-like boogeymen off. It's a lesser-of-two-evils race to the bottom, with no space for positivity or hope. That's where Ezra comes in. The two pillars of his campaign are the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, the latter in response to his own difficulties in getting healthcare. (He's currently on a payment plan for what should have been a routine visit.) Despite being a long shot, he is fighting for people who have been deceived into believing that getting what they need can only hurt them even more. Modern Money Theory, or MMT, illuminates a large part of that deception. Ezra is enthusiastically learning MMT, and is determined to leverage it to provide some of that hope and positivity, and ultimately, desperately needed policy – whether they realize it or not. You can support Ezra's candidacy by visiting watsonforcongress.org and @ezrawatsonforcongress on Facebook and @EzraWatsonforNY on Twitter. You'll also find a link to donate to his campaign in the show notes. (A big thanks to Beyond the Spectrum for the "MMT Candidate" logo.) There are three goals of this MMT candidate interview series: the first is to support and give a platform to candidates who care about all people, and because of this, are ignored by the so-called news outlets that are, in reality, news of, by, and for the rich. The second goal is to determine what these candidates need to beat corrupt opponents supported by a corrupt party in a corrupt campaign finance system, and especially, once in office, to avoid becoming corrupted themselves. Finally, the third goal is to create a community of like minded, MMT-aware candidates who can support each other through their campaigns, and especially once in office. The latter is in order to remain focused on what really matters, which is all their constituents, in an environment where there is overwhelming pressure to focus only on the needs, favors, promises, and especially money of big donors – both in and out of their district. If you're a candidate and would like to be interviewed by Ramona, please contact her directly on Twitter at @RamonaMassachi, or me at activistmmt@gmail.com. If there's a candidate you would like to see interviewed by Ramona, please let us know, and please recommend us to them! This candidate interview series is above and beyond Activist #MMT's regular episodes. If you like what you hear and would like to support this interview series and this podcast, please consider becoming a monthly patron at patreon.com/activistmmt. And now, onto our conversation with candidate for New York's twenty-first Congressional district, Ezra Watson. Enjoy.

Welcome to Activist #MMT candidate interview number six, hosted by Ramona Massachi (Twitter/@) and co-hosted by me. Today, we talk with Ezra Watson, who's running to represent New York's twenty-first Congressional district. (Here's a list of .) Ezra was inspired to run by the January insurrection at the Capital building, and his own precarious job as a contingent worker in the semiconductor industry. Despite requiring highly specialized skills, he describes his job as comparable to, and precarious as, the gig workers employed by companies such as Uber and DoorDash. Ezra says a primary reason for the precariousness of these jobs is the lack of good healthcare options, which is sometimes prohibitively expensive or not option at all. Ezra's running in New York's 21st Congressional district, which is enormous. It encompasses the Adirondack mountains and takes several hours by car to traverse. The district, which is agriculture-heavy, has for years voted almost exclusively Republican. Even so, the Democratic primary field is crowded, with a front-runner who is, not-so-surprisingly, a former CIA agent. Ezra's the only self-proclaimed Bernie Sanders-style progressive in the race, but the Republican incumbent calls every single Democratic candidate "a far-left socialist". This is leveraging nebulous and meaningless fear to give people a boogeyman to run away from, while marketing themselves as the only one who can ward these zombie-like boogeymen off. It's a lesser-of-two-evils race to the bottom, with no space for positivity or hope. That's where Ezra comes in. The two pillars of his campaign are the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, the latter in response to his own difficulties in getting healthcare. (He's currently on a payment plan for what should have been a routine visit.) Despite being a long shot, he is fighting for people who have been deceived into believing that getting what they need can only hurt them even more. Modern Money Theory, or MMT, illuminates a large part of that deception. Ezra is enthusiastically learning MMT, and is determined to leverage it to provide some of that hope and positivity, and ultimately, desperately needed policy – whether they realize it or not. You can support Ezra's candidacy by visiting and @ezrawatsonforcongress on and @EzraWatsonforNY on . You'll also find a link to in the show notes. (A big thanks to for the "MMT Candidate" logo.) There are three goals of this MMT candidate interview series: the first is to support and give a platform to candidates who care about all people, and because of this, are ignored by the so-called news outlets that are, in reality, news of, by, and for the rich. The second goal is to determine what these candidates need to beat corrupt opponents supported by a corrupt party in a corrupt campaign finance system, and especially, once in office, to avoid becoming corrupted themselves. Finally, the third goal is to create a community of like minded, MMT-aware candidates who can support each other through their campaigns, and especially once in office. The latter is in order to remain focused on what really matters, which is all their constituents, in an environment where there is overwhelming pressure to focus only on the needs, favors, promises, and especially money of big donors – both in and out of their district. If you're a candidate and would like to be interviewed by Ramona, please contact her directly on Twitter at @, or me at . If there's a candidate you would like to see interviewed by Ramona, please let us know, and please recommend us to them! This candidate interview series is above and beyond Activist #MMT's regular episodes. If you like what you hear and would like to support this interview series and this podcast, please consider becoming a monthly patron at . And now, onto our conversation with candidate for New York's twenty-first Congressional district, Ezra Watson. Enjoy.

Welcome to episode 94 of Activist #MMT. Today's part two of my two-part conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy, on her own show, late night with Lenin. Esha has me cold read two pieces by Lenin, written more than 100 years ago, and she describes why they remain important and relevant. (Here's a link to .) Esha is the host of the podcast Historic-ly, Which is realistic history, similar to how a MMT is realistic economics. You can follow Historic-ly on Twitter at @ and . I've hosted eight episodes for her podcast, you can find in the show notes. Although I admittedly struggle through the readings, with its unusual names and concepts, and early twentieth century Russian history. Even so, it results in very interesting conversation throughout, all anchored by Modern Money Theory. And now, let's get right back to my conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy. Enjoy.

Welcome to episode 94 of Activist #MMT. Today's part two of my two-part conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy, as a guest on her own show, late night with Lenin. Esha has me cold read two pieces by Lenin, written more than 100 years ago, and she describes why they remain important and relevant. (Here's a link to part one.) Esha is the host of the podcast Historic-ly, Which is realistic history, similar to how a MMT is realistic economics. You can follow Historic-ly on Twitter at @historic_ly and historicly.substack.com. I've hosted eight episodes for her podcast, links to which you can find in the show notes. Although I admittedly struggle through the readings, with its unusual names and concepts, and early twentieth century Russian history. Even so, it results in very interesting conversation throughout, all anchored by Modern Money Theory. And now, let's get right back to my conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy. Enjoy.

Welcome to episode 93 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Esha Krishnaswamy on her own show, Late Night with Lenin. Esha has me cold read two pieces written by Lenin more than 100 years ago, and describes why they remain important and relevant. (Here's a link to __PART_TWO__.) Esha is the host of the podcast Historic-ly, which is realistic history, similar to how MMT is realistic economics. You can follow Historic-ly on Twitter at @ and . I've hosted eight episodes for her podcast, you can find in the show notes. The Lenin readings don't start until part two. In part one, we discuss the basics of MMT and how it illuminates the centuries long battle between rich and poor. MMT reveals that when the rich say, "depriving the poor is unfortunate but necessary", what they really mean is "of course we can provide for the poor – we just don't want to." Importantly, MMT makes this clear to average people, not unlike Martin Luther and his papers nailed to the church door during the reformation. In the same fashion (although with printed paper instead of on social media), Lenin illuminated the same things to average Russian citizens, ultimately leading to a rare successful popular uprising. I admittedly struggle through the readings, with its unusual names and concepts, and early twentieth century Russian history. Even so, it results in very interesting conversation throughout, all anchored by Modern Money Theory. Finally, as a brief aside, both of our incredible theme music was created by Wreck Tech. You can find Wreck Tech on and Spotify. And now, onto my conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy. Enjoy. Resources My 2020 interview with Esha on Historic-ly, Anatomy of a Revolution: Parts and Episode 71 of Activist #MMT with graduate student Jane Ball: , which is part two of a two part episode. This episode was by Historic-ly.

Welcome to episode 93 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Esha Krishnaswamy as a guest on her own show, Late Night with Lenin. Esha has me cold read two pieces written by Lenin more than 100 years ago, and describes why they remain important and relevant. (Here's a link to __PART_TWO__.) Esha is the host of the podcast Historic-ly, which is realistic history, similar to how MMT is realistic economics. You can follow Historic-ly on Twitter at @historic_ly and historicly.substack.com. I've hosted eight episodes for her podcast, links to which you can find in the show notes. The Lenin readings don't start until part two. In part one, we discuss the basics of MMT and how it illuminates the centuries long battle between rich and poor. MMT reveals that when the rich say, "depriving the poor is unfortunate but necessary", what they really mean is "of course we can provide for the poor – we just don't want to." Importantly, MMT makes this clear to average people, not unlike Martin Luther and his papers nailed to the church door during the reformation. In the same fashion (although with printed paper instead of on social media), Lenin illuminated the same things to average Russian citizens, ultimately leading to a rare successful popular uprising. I admittedly struggle through the readings, with its unusual names and concepts, and early twentieth century Russian history. Even so, it results in very interesting conversation throughout, all anchored by Modern Money Theory. Finally, as a brief aside, both of our incredible theme music was created by Wreck Tech. You can find Wreck Tech on SoundCloud and Spotify. And now, onto my conversation with Esha Krishnaswamy. Enjoy. Resources My 2020 interview with Esha on Historic-ly, Anatomy of a Revolution: Parts one and two Episode 71 of Activist #MMT with graduate student Jane Ball: Government-designed racist zoning to prevent popular uprising, which is part two of a two part episode. This episode was re-published by Historic-ly.

Welcome to episode 85 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with systems consultant and GIMMS associate, Neil Wilson. Neil is also the co-author of the 2020 paper, An Accounting Model of the U.K. Exchequer, which is published by The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies (or GIMMS). This is part one of a two-part episode, but it's also part four of a larger seven-part series with all three co-authors, first individually and personally, and ending with a joint interview with all three, where we discuss the paper in depth. (Here's a link to part two with Neil. A link to all seven parts can be found here.) Like my previous guests Patricia Pino [parts one and two], Andrew Chirgwin [parts one and two], and others, Neil discovered Modern Money Theory, or MMT, by stumbling onto Bill Mitchell's blog. A precursor to discovering and understanding MMT was a lawsuit Neil led against the U.K. government in 1999, in the defense of tens of thousands. At the time, U.K. law allowed (and unfortunately still allows) for workers to be treated such that they can be taxed as if they're an official employee, but treated in other ways as if they're not. In the era before Brexit, the lawsuit was an attempt to override British law with EU law. Although unsuccessful, it led him to question more deeply the government and how it really works. Neil also talks about his job as a systems consultant. Companies and the government choose to bring him in, they pay him to come in, to evaluate and improve their computer systems. Only sometimes, however, do they give him the power to actually make his recommended changes. So it seems to me that some of these organizations want the appearance of doing their best, without actually having to do their best. Rather than eliminating what's bad and replacing it with good, the very idea of eliminating anything at all becomes simply and seemingly an impossibility. It results in the system becoming overly complex – paint on top of paint on top of paint – and for new pieces to now have to overcompensate for the ones that really shouldn't be there at all. This is a parallel for the final three episodes in this seven-part series, which is all about the over-complexity of the UK economy, or Exchequer, and its 800 years of redundant paint jobs. Neil and I end with a conversation of MMT on the only social media platform Neil is active on: Reddit. We also talk about the questionable practices of the decidedly mainstream group, r/AskEconomics. (I am happy to announce that both Neil and I are now moderators of r/mmt_economics/.) Finally, I have some thoughts about the very first thing Neil and I talk about, which is unrelated to MMT, Neil, and his paper. To avoid distracting from the heart of our conversation, you will find these thoughts after the closing music, at the very end of today's episode. (Note Neil is always available for discussion and questions on his Discord server.) But for now, onto my conversation with Neil Wilson. At the very beginning of today's episode, I tell Neil that my wife and I are under contract to purchase our first home. As I write these words, it was inspected two days ago. Yesterday, we submitted our rather modest list of repair requests, and are now waiting for the sellers' response. This is the final major hurdle before the likeliness of the home becoming our own gets pretty close to 100%. I tell Neil that the home is enormous. At least, to me it is. The backyard is about the size of half a football field. The house itself is 700 ft.² larger than our current rental – 1900 versus 1200 ft.². There are a whole lot of critical small to moderate things it needs, but structurally, the home and all its major systems are in great shape. So although the first several years will be a very expensive struggle, overall, we now have a mortgage that's $400 cheaper a month than our current rent, and a really world asset that will become even more valuable after everything's done. Especially in this crazy market, we hit the jackpot. It's basically been a fairytale so far. We are so lucky. We are so privileged. (If you'd like to see it, you can find some pictures in the show notes.) After part two of my interview with Jane Ball, however (episode 71), I'm feeling very conflicted about the whole thing. There is so much suffering all around us, and it's soon to increase by orders of magnitude as the climate crisis starts to changes all our lives dramatically, whether we like it or not, whether we do a lot or a little. Something very big is going to be happening in the not-so-distant future. It's either going to be controlled or it's not going to be controlled. Given how perfectly and elegantly the grip on every lever of power the elite now have, I am really not seeing how it's going to be controlled. And yet here I am, suddenly having achieved the so-called American Dream. I now have a sense of security and, at least for a time, a real-world asset with a worth that's very likely to get a lot higher. Who am I to have this? The color of my skin is obviously a very big factor. So I continue to care about the powerless (like those with skin color different than my own), but now I get to do it from a perch of privilege. A perch that how many black and brown people have been kept away from and knocked off of? My accepting this home makes the world a worse place, and yet at the same time, I'm doing exactly what's best for my family. Resources Neil's conversation with Phil Armstrong, as hosted by GIMMS and recorded by MMT Podcast. "Our intellectual powers are rather geared towards static relations. Our power to visualize processes evolving over time are relatively poorly developed." We struggle with dynamics. We're very good at static. Because we understand it statically, we understand it dynamically, and it's not the case. Activist #MMT interview with Bill Peeples, called Accounting, and the story you want to tell [episodes 76 and 77 2020 paper by Edward Lane and L. Randall Wray, Why President Biden Should Eliminate Corporate Taxes to Build Back Better. From the abstract: The authors "explain how federal taxes on corporate profits are not well suited to either containing inflationary pressures or reducing inequality. [They are also] inefficient and ineffective taxes more broadly" Information on ”The Spine” of the National Health Service's (NHS) computer network in the U.K.: Overview by the NHS, From the company contracted to manage it Neil's blog posts: May 2021: The 'Too Much Money Chasing Too Few Goods' Myth 2021: UK Government Spending - The Gory Details November 2020: IT'S THE EXPORTERS STUPID, quoted by Randall Wray in his book, Modern Money Theory (pp289)

Welcome to episode 85 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with systems consultant and GIMMS associate, Neil Wilson. Neil is also the co-author of the 2020 paper, , which is published by (or GIMMS). This is part one of a two-part episode, but it's also part four of a larger seven-part series with all three co-authors, first individually and personally, and ending with a joint interview with all three, where we discuss the paper in depth. (Here's a link to __PART_TWO__ with Neil. A link to all seven parts can be found .) Like my previous guests Patricia Pino [parts one and two], Andrew Chirgwin [parts one and two], and others, Neil discovered Modern Money Theory, or MMT, by stumbling onto Bill Mitchell's blog. A precursor to discovering and understanding MMT was a lawsuit Neil led against the U.K. government in 1999, in the defense of tens of thousands. At the time, U.K. law allowed (and unfortunately still allows) for workers to be treated such that they can be taxed as if they're an official employee, but treated in other ways as if they're not. In the era before Brexit, the lawsuit was an attempt to override British law with EU law. Although unsuccessful, it led him to question more deeply the government and how it really works. Neil also talks about his job as a systems consultant. Companies and the government choose to bring him in, they pay him to come in, to evaluate and improve their computer systems. Only sometimes, however, do they give him the power to actually make his recommended changes. So it seems to me that some of these organizations want the appearance of doing their best, without actually having to do their best. Rather than eliminating what's bad and replacing it with good, the very idea of eliminating anything at all becomes simply and seemingly an impossibility. It results in the system becoming overly complex – paint on top of paint on top of paint – and for new pieces to now have to overcompensate for the ones that really shouldn't be there at all. This is a parallel for the final three episodes in this seven-part series, which is all about the over-complexity of the UK economy, or Exchequer, and its 800 years of redundant paint jobs. Neil and I end with a conversation of MMT on the only social media platform Neil is active on: Reddit. We also talk about the questionable practices of the decidedly mainstream group, . (I am happy to announce that both Neil and I are now moderators of .) Finally, I have some thoughts about the very first thing Neil and I talk about, which is unrelated to MMT, Neil, and his paper. To avoid distracting from the heart of our conversation, you will find these thoughts after the closing music, at the very end of today's episode. But for now, onto my conversation with Neil Wilson. At the very beginning of today's episode, I tell Neil that my wife and I are under contract to purchase our first home. As I write these words, it was inspected two days ago. Yesterday, we submitted our rather modest list of repair requests, and are now waiting for the sellers' response. This is the final major hurdle before the likeliness of the home becoming our own gets pretty close to 100%. I tell Neil that the home is enormous. At least, to me it is. The backyard is about the size of half a football field. The house itself is 700 ft.² larger than our current rental – 1900 versus 1200 ft.². There are a whole lot of critical small to moderate things it needs, but structurally, the home and all its major systems are in great shape. So although the first several years will be a very expensive struggle, overall, we now have a mortgage that's $400 cheaper a month than our current rent, and a really world asset that will become even more valuable after everything's done. Especially in this crazy market, we hit the jackpot. It's basically been a fairytale so far. We are so lucky. We are so privileged. (If you'd like to see it, you can find some pictures in the show...

In this week's Talking Wealth podcast, Dale looks at Australia's federal deficit and whether, as a country, we have gone overboard by taking on way too much debt. He also asks the question whether this is something we should all be concerned about. In answering these questions, Dale refers to Modern Money Theory.

In this week's Talking Wealth podcast, Dale looks at Australia's federal deficit and whether, as a country, we have gone overboard by taking on way too much debt. He also asks the question whether this is something we should all be concerned about. In answering these questions, Dale refers to Modern Money Theory.

Welcome to episode 82 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with 10th-year MMT activist, Richard Tye (Twitter/@widespreadhaze). Richard is the co-author of – and historian for – the 2020 paper called An Accounting Model of the U.K. Exchequer, which is published by The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies (or GIMMS). This is the first of a seven-part series on the paper and its three authors. It starts with an individual and personal interview with each of the authors and ends with a two-part episode with all three jointly, where we discuss the paper in depth. Here are links to all other episodes in this larger series, in order: Part 2: Andy Berkeley, part one: Palestine and piano [NOT MMT] Part 3: Andy Berkeley, __PART_TWO__: Confirming the theory applies to the real world. Part 4: How Neil Wilson discovered MMT (and Reddit) Part 5: Neil Wilson: Real-world economics requires understanding dynamics. Parts 6 and 7: An Accounting Model of the U.K. Exchequer [parts __ONE__ and __TWO__] For the past 20 years, Richard has flown a helicopter for Search and Rescue, under perilous conditions on both land and sea, serving millions of U.K. citizens. For the U.K. Exchequer paper, he became a historian, placing today's economic and political systems into proper historical context. Using only the internet, he and his co-authors discovered original government documents from all the way back to the 11th century. Because of the COVID health crisis, writing the paper would have been an impossible task without the internet. Richard describes several historical concepts and events related to the U.K. economy, including the use of wood tally sticks as a primitive form of money, and the so-called "stop of the exchequer". We also discuss how history moves at a pace that's impossible to directly observe in a human lifetime. We consider this final concept especially in the context of the MMT project. (Before attempting to read the paper, I strongly recommend first listening to their @MMTpodcast interview, and watching co-author Andy Berkeley's forty-minute presentation [as organized by my previous guest, Asker Voldsgaard].) Before we begin, I have several observations to make about history. First, in part one of my previous episode with Andrew Chirgwin, and as inspired by Steven Hail, we discussed how neoclassical economists don't "stay in their lane". Those in power and the economists who advise them, have declared that "finding the money" (and preventing the boogeyman of inflation) is the primary prerequisite for doing anything and everything. If one can't find the money in a way that satisfies these economists, then they get to veto the entire project – sight unseen, and very likely, without understanding its intricacies or consequences at even a basic level. In other words, those in power and their economists have made themselves gatekeepers over every aspect of our lives, pretending that without money – their money – it's impossible to accomplish anything. (Note that this also implies that everything in life must have a precise financial cost applied to it.) In reality, the only reason it's impossible to accomplish anything without money is because we choose for it to be impossible. Knowing this, the resistance to the idea of making education and healthcare free at point-of-service (and therefore free of debt!), now becomes clear: without a price tag, it takes away the ability of those in power to gate-keep and veto. (Not to mention the cherry on top, of profit baby!) Providing education and healthcare for all is not just about making people smarter and healthier, it's about power. (Another related example is the reserve currency or "petrodollar". Nations must transact for oil in the US dollar, simply because the US has muscled its way into the OPEC cartel in order to make that the case. Without the reserve currency, the United States would lose a valuable barometer with which to monitor the behavior of most other nations. It would not change all that much in a financial sense.) Along with many other fields, such as science, sociology, and politics, history also illuminates connections that would otherwise remain hidden. As Richard says in today's episode, knowing something new and unknown happened to occur at around the era of another important event, provides valuable context and reveals a new avenue to pursue. History also provides a convenient method of organization, allowing one to confidently place a puzzle piece down in the correct spot and orientation, despite not yet knowing the location of any surrounding piece. In other words, it provides an anchor of sorts, making it clear in some contexts if we are being led astray. The fact that Modern Money Theory or MMT, and Post Keynesianism in general, are explicitly interdisciplinary, is a reflection of their attempts to ensure their theories apply to the real world. By imposing its money onto all other disciplines, neoclassical economics resists the idea of interdisciplinarity, which is yet a reflection of their decision to grasp onto assumptions that benefit an ideology, at the expense of empirical truth and caring for others. It is little more than further entrenching their power at all costs. Finally, being interdisciplinary is essentially a decision to have balance and to be aware of the world around you. It's not possible to care about the world if you refuse to recognize its existence. What this means to me personally, as out there as it may seem, is how our emotions and thoughts are considered separate from our physical existence. It's not unlike how "the economy" is considered separate from people. We're essentially told we can't help people if the economy is unstable. The news tells us that because the stock market is at an all-time high, "the economy is doing great!" And yet at the same time, millions of actual human beings are suffering in the real world, homeless and hungry, not to mention we're on the brink of global societal collapse. The truth is that the economy is us. It's all of us. We are the economy. So if the economy's doing well while millions are suffering, it can only be true by taking those who suffer, and defining them out of the economy. It's just as true that our mental and emotional existence cannot be separated from our physical existence. Our emotions and thoughts are greatly influenced by our physical condition and vice versa. If we are in physical pain, it can be minimized as much as is possible by managing our emotions. If we are an anguish, it can be minimized by taking care of our body, such as through nutrition, activity, and exercise (and by being lucky enough to have a home whose water supply isn't poisoned!). We're also not alone. We can't separate ourselves from our family, community, and society. By caring for ourselves, we help others. By caring for others, we help ourselves. It's up to us to find the proper balance between all these things, and to resist those who try and stop us. And yet, we as MMTers know more than most, that we exist in a world in which many believe wholeheartedly in these false dichotomies and ideas. We must rage against the system and be kind to individuals. My next interview is with co-author Andrew Berkeley and then after that, Neil Wilson, and then the joint interview. Now, onto my conversation with Richard Tye. Resources Naked Capitalism financial blog. General news through an MMT lens. Twice daily list of links.

You may need to get your wheelbarrow ready. The dollar will be dead. Does it matter what Jay will say today.  Modern Money Theory. Simply a way for the Fed to make It up as they go along.  This is why you need to buy gold to protect yourself from the Fed, Banks, and Fiat money. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to episode 80 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with sixth-year MMT activist Andrew Chirgwin. Andrew graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry and Pure Mathematics, and a masters in secondary teaching. Andrew's introduction to Modern Money Theory, or MMT, was in 2015 when he stumbled on the blog of University of Newcastle economics professor and original MMT developer, Bill Mitchell. Andrew spent the next nine months reading five years of Bill's blog posts. Those who are familiar with the blog will understand how this is no small feat. (Here's a link to __PART_TWO__.) The heart of our conversation, however, was influenced by a February 2021 Facebook post by Steven Hail (the text of which can be found below). Steven is an economics professor at the University of Adelaide and the author of the 2018 book Economics for Sustainable Prosperity, which is a good introduction to MMT. In the post, Steven discusses how neoclassical economists don't "stay in their lane". What this means is that economists impose themselves onto and dominate conversations about healthcare, when they should be led by healthcare professionals and their patients. They dominate conversations about education that should be led by educators and their students. And to bring it back to today's episode, neoclassical economists dominate conversations about mitigating the climate crisis that should be led by true experts in the field, such as climate scientists, energy specialists, chemists, and so on. This domination is in the form of forcing all conversation and concepts to be expressed in financial terms, as exemplified by the "how're you gonna pay for it?" question. This essentially gives those in power and their economists veto power over every facet of our lives, subjecting us to their biases, ignorance, and ideology. It prevents the true experts from ever being able to complete their highly-complex and critical conversations, and it also keeps the public unaware of the depths of the problems they face. Finance is a purely-human-created concept. Therefore, purely-financial crises are also purely-human-created concepts. This means we can prevent and mitigate financial crises merely by choosing to do so. It also implies that the Great Depression and the Great Financial Crisis are largely man-made disasters, caused and exacerbated by the actions and inactions of those in power and their economists. And yet this is who we allow to dominate highly complex conversations on topics that are largely outside of human control, such as mitigating the climate crisis. In other words, if neoclassical economists can't get their own house in order, then why do we allow them to be in charge of every house?! And of course, when problems are framed in financial terms, then problems that face the rich are always more profitable to solve than those that face the poor. An analogy I keep coming back to is viewing a child only through their report card. Doing this will do nothing to help the student if she is hungry and homeless, and suffering from abuse. It is very unlikely the problems will even be seen. In the same way, forcing the climate crisis and other real-world problems to be seen through a financial lens basically guarantees that these problems will never be acknowledged, let alone properly and fully dealt with. Part two of our conversation turns decidedly dark, as we consider our fate as a species and our choices as parents of young children, if we continue to leave the climate crisis in the hands of neoclassical economists. There's no solving a problem if you don't understand its depth. So buckle up. But that's next week. For now, let's start part one of my conversation with Andrew Chirgwin. Resources Steven Hail's Facebook post (that inspired much of our conversation) and Andrew's Twitter debate with John Hearn can be found below. The 2006 paper by S. Abu Turab Rizvi, Steven Hail, February 2nd, 2021, : Some people I...

Welcome to episode 80 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with sixth-year MMT activist Andrew Chirgwin. Andrew graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry and Pure Mathematics, and a masters in secondary teaching. Andrew's introduction to Modern Money Theory, or MMT, was in 2015 when he stumbled on the blog of University of Newcastle economics professor and original MMT developer, Bill Mitchell. Andrew spent the next nine months reading five years of Bill's blog posts. Those who are familiar with the blog will understand how this is no small feat. (Here's a link to __PART_TWO__.) The heart of our conversation, however, was influenced by a February 2021 Facebook post by Steven Hail (the text of which can be found below). Steven is an economics professor at the University of Adelaide and the author of the 2018 book Economics for Sustainable Prosperity, which is a good introduction to MMT. In the post, Steven discusses how neoclassical economists don't "stay in their lane". What this means is that economists impose themselves onto and dominate conversations about healthcare, when they should be led by healthcare professionals and their patients. They dominate conversations about education that should be led by educators and their students. And to bring it back to today's episode, neoclassical economists dominate conversations about mitigating the climate crisis that should be led by true experts in the field, such as climate scientists, energy specialists, chemists, and so on. This domination is in the form of forcing all conversation and concepts to be expressed in financial terms, as exemplified by the "how're you gonna pay for it?" question. This essentially gives those in power and their economists veto power over every facet of our lives, subjecting us to their biases, ignorance, and ideology. It prevents the true experts from ever being able to complete their highly-complex and critical conversations, and it also keeps the public unaware of the depths of the problems they face. Finance is a purely-human-created concept. Therefore, purely-financial crises are also purely-human-created concepts. This means we can prevent and mitigate financial crises merely by choosing to do so. It also implies that the Great Depression and the Great Financial Crisis are largely man-made disasters, caused and exacerbated by the actions and inactions of those in power and their economists. And yet this is who we allow to dominate highly complex conversations on topics that are largely outside of human control, such as mitigating the climate crisis. In other words, if neoclassical economists can't get their own house in order, then why do we allow them to be in charge of every house?! And of course, when problems are framed in financial terms, then problems that face the rich are always more profitable to solve than those that face the poor. An analogy I keep coming back to is viewing a child only through their report card. Doing this will do nothing to help the student if she is hungry and homeless, and suffering from abuse. It is very unlikely the problems will even be seen. In the same way, forcing the climate crisis and other real-world problems to be seen through a financial lens basically guarantees that these problems will never be acknowledged, let alone properly and fully dealt with. Part two of our conversation turns decidedly dark, as we consider our fate as a species and our choices as parents of young children, if we continue to leave the climate crisis in the hands of neoclassical economists. There's no solving a problem if you don't understand its depth. So buckle up. But that's next week. For now, let's start part one of my conversation with Andrew Chirgwin. Resources Steven Hail's Facebook post (that inspired much of our conversation) and Andrew's Twitter debate with John Hearn can be found below. The 2006 paper by S. Abu Turab Rizvi, The Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu: Results after Thirty Years Steven Hail, February 2nd, 2021, Facebook post: Some people I respect think you should value our ecosystem in financial terms and then manage a portfolio of natural assets the way a fund manager might use portfolio theory to manage a diversified portfolio of financial assets. I could not disagree with them more profoundly. Never mind the fact that this buys into the notion of a simple link between GDP per capita and well-being, which should have been dismissed by now in all high income countries, where there is demonstrably no such link. Never mind that they habitually use a measure of ecological footprint which allows rich countries to 'export' their pollution to poor countries, allowing them to claim that ecological impact does not rise as GDP rises beyond a certain point. My biggest problem with this approach is the idea that the financial economics of portfolio management implies the safe management of anything - let alone the natural environment. Portfolio theory requires measurable risks and known probability distributions, or in other words the absence of complexity, non-linearities, feedbacks and fundamental uncertainties. The complexity and feedbacks and resulting uncertainties of financial systems is the reason we have so many endogenously driven financial crises in our history. The thing about financial crises is you can recover from them. Our natural environment is far more complex, has far more feedbacks and non-linearities and connections, and is as a result far more uncertain than our financial system. So if you can't trust economists to manage the financial system so that it remains healthy and robust, why would you imagine that by financialising ecosystem services, you will be able to trust them to manage that far more complex 'portfolio'? It is a profound mistake to financialise the natural world, in my opinion. Instead, we should identify where it is safe to be, add a big margin to allow for unavoidable uncertainty (if we can), and then set limits on what we can tolerate. Dollars shouldn't come into the limits. Then we should take a step back and identify what we need to allow people to have the best possible chance of a good, secure, just, engaged life. To an extent, this has been done in the UN Sustainable Development goals, but it is done better in Kate Raworth's doughnut, which can be and is being applied at national, regional and local levels. What is someone who has spent a career training finance professionals doing saying we ought not to be applying the tools of financial management to our natural environment? I am saying it is entirely inappropriate, misleading and liable to bias the narrative, policies and outcomes in potentially dangerous ways. Andrew's conversation with economist John Hearn Many line breaks have been removed. Andrew: What is a stock of income? Hearn: There is no stock of income only a stock of money. Andrew: Flow of incomes become stocks of money. Accounting 101 Hearn: Accounting 101 is wrong. A stock of money is used to measure a flow of income. Economics always teaches accountants not the other way round. Andrew: Accounting is incorrect? So your conjecture here can't even stand up to basic bookkeeping? The net sum of flows is a stock. Hence the net sum of incomes is a stock of incomes, and the stock of incomes is savings or money. Hearn: Accounting is bean counting it does not require any understanding of what it is counting. Flows are not stocks so there is no hence. Andrew: If accounting is just beam counting, how do you measure any of your work? Economic activity is measured using accounting... that's how Taxes are determined, savings calculated, policy assessed into potential outcomes. Your statement here is like saying "physics ignores distance" Hearn: Economists understand simple accounting, accountants rarely understand economics. Andrew: That's a nice hasty generalisation there. You seem to be shaky on elementary accounting Professor, especially about credit creation by balance sheet expansion. Hearn: Test me. Andrew: Credits are created with a matching debts. Currency is is therefore both a credit and a debt. Money, as a credit issued by other entities, are both a credit and debt. Hence currency, and all other money, are debts created by balance sheet expansions. Hearn: Yes it is double entry bookkeeping. A deposit at a bank is double entered as an asset and liability. It is not the currency. Money can be created by a net increase in newly created loans. Fiat money is not a debt, commodity backed currency is. Andrew: Fiat money is a debt, because it is also a credit. It is a balance sheet expansion of a different balance sheet. I thought you said you were good at accounting... Hearn: Think assets and liabilities as these appear on a balance sheet not credit and debit. Andrew: That's another red herring professor. You should be running a cafe at this rate. Red herring for everyone. Currency and other money are accounted for on balance sheets along with other credits as assets of the balance ledger. Stop trying to play coy. Hearn: Explain how the Aussie dollars in your wallet are a debt Andrew: Because the federal government created a credit by balance sheet expansion, hence making them also a debt. Hearn: Think liability not debt, asset not credit. Andrew: See my other response. This is a red herring and we both know it professor. Liabilities, and debts, are accounted for on the balance sheet as much as assets and credits. Your accumulated credits appear as assets. But again, a red herring to avoid the actual topic. Andrew: It's also their liability to me. The Treasurer signed it. Hearn: How will the Treasury fulfil its liability to you? Andrew: When they contract their balance sheet. Until they are willing to do so, they recognise the liability exists because they recognise the asset existing. Hearn: You are wasting your time and your intellect trying to play word games rather than understanding what you are talking about. Spend the rest of the day trying to understand that fiat money is not debt and commodity backed currency is. Come back tomorrow when it is solved. Andrew: Apparently, Professor, balance sheet contractions and expansions bother you. The collection of an national import duty is a balance sheet contraction of the Issuer of Currency. The collection of a fee for operating a company by the national government as above. The issuing of a, now very limited, UK Passport comes with a contraction of the balance sheet of the UK Government. The settling of a debt incurred from a court case at the National Law level comes with a contraction of the balance sheet of the national government. Four concrete examples all generalised as: "The liability to me will be expunged when I do something that the Currency Issuer will contract its balance sheet in response."

Welcome to episode 76 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with seventh-year MMT activist Bill Peeples. Bill earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He then opened a retail computer store and managed his business with accounting software. This served as his introduction to double-entry accounting, for which he received some extra support from his father who is a Certified Public Accountant. Bill later worked for a major computer manufacturer, using computer programming and data analytics to determine why certain systems fail. All of this is to say, logic comes easily to Bill, and this helped him to very quickly pick up some important concepts underlying Modern Money Theory, or MMT. (Here is a link to __PART_TWO__.) Bill wants to understand accounting all the way down to the individual transaction. In the context of economics, this is essentially the atomic level. Understanding this level of detail, Bill says, makes the aggregate become more clear. It also turns some of what is commonly portrayed as scary and complicated, into something decidedly mundane. An example is how the public is often told that China may "dump its debt“ and that this is somehow a threat or even potential act of war against the United States. A related insight I recently learned from Bill is the very concise and simple idea that only the issuer can create and delete its own money (this includes bonds, treasuries, and securities). After being created and before being deleted, the money and bonds can do nothing but change ownership. “Dumping its debt” is a hyperbolic term meaning to sell off its entire holdings of US bonds. First of all, given the nature of the Chinese economy, it’s extremely unlikely that they would ever choose to do this. But even if they did, what Bill’s insight reveals is that China would do nothing more than exchange their bonds for cash. China would be giving up money that earns regular interest income (bonds) for money that earns no interest. In addition, because of the quantity of bonds involved, China would be very likely lose a lot of money in the process. In other words, the total amount of bonds and money in the world would remain unchanged and China would almost certainly harm itself – and not harm the United States. You will find several sources recommended by Bill in the show notes, along with some example balance sheets he’s created during his experience of responding to common questions. And now onto my conversation with Bill Peeples. Resources Books: Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie’s textbook, Monetary economics, an integrated approach to credit, money, income, production, and wealth James Galbraith’s 2008 book The Predator State: how conservatives abandoned the free market and why liberals should too 2020 book by Stephanie Kelton, The Deficit Myth 2010 book by Warren Mosler, The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy Steven Hail’s 2018 book, Economics for Sustainable Prosperity Interviews: Mark Cuban and Pavlina Tcherneva, hosted by Charles Hayden on Real Progressives Superstructure podcast episode The virus is the virus MMT Podcast interview with John Harvey on his book Contending Perspectives: Parts one and two. Other: People and organizations mentioned: Sam Levey and Deficit Owls, Nathan Becker, Charles Hayden New Economics Perspectives Bill Mitchell’s blog Eric Tymoigne’s Money and Banking series on New Economics Perspectives Steve Keen’s Minsky model Examples of Bill’s work https://i.imgur.com/IlRyEnq.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Bid9vkW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SLAYS0x.jpg https://i.imgur.com/hNKMq31.jpg https://i.imgur.com/fjinGcY.jpg And finally, the mind-twisting optical illusion (that reminds Bill "of the illusion of government ‘borrowing’ ".) https://i.imgur.com/VGayolB.jpg

Welcome to episode 76 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with seventh-year MMT activist Bill Peeples. Bill earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He then opened a retail computer store and managed his business with accounting software. This served as his introduction to double-entry accounting, for which he received some extra support from his father who is a Certified Public Accountant. Bill later worked for a major computer manufacturer, using computer programming and data analytics to determine why certain systems fail. All of this is to say, logic comes easily to Bill, and this helped him to very quickly pick up some important concepts underlying Modern Money Theory, or MMT. (Here is a link to __PART_TWO__.) Bill wants to understand accounting all the way down to the individual transaction. In the context of economics, this is essentially the atomic level. Understanding this level of detail, Bill says, makes the aggregate become more clear. It also turns some of what is commonly portrayed as scary and complicated, into something decidedly mundane. An example is how the public is often told that China may "dump its debt“ and that this is somehow a threat or even potential act of war against the United States. A related insight I recently learned from Bill is the very concise and simple idea that only the issuer can create and delete its own money (this includes bonds, treasuries, and securities). After being created and before being deleted, the money and bonds can do nothing but change ownership. “Dumping its debt” is a hyperbolic term meaning to sell off its entire holdings of US bonds. First of all, given the nature of the Chinese economy, it’s extremely unlikely that they would ever choose to do this. But even if they did, what Bill’s insight reveals is that China would do nothing more than exchange their bonds for cash. China would be giving up money that earns regular interest income (bonds) for money that earns no interest. In addition, because of the quantity of bonds involved, China would be very likely lose a lot of money in the process. In other words, the total amount of bonds and money in the world would remain unchanged and China would almost certainly harm itself – and not harm the United States. You will find several sources recommended by Bill in the show notes, along with some example balance sheets he’s created during his experience of responding to common questions. And now onto my conversation with Bill Peeples. Resources Books: Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie’s textbook, James Galbraith’s 2008 book : how conservatives abandoned the free market and why liberals should too 2020 book by Stephanie Kelton, 2010 book by Warren Mosler, Steven Hail’s 2018 book, Interviews: , hosted by Charles Hayden on Real Progressives Superstructure podcast episode MMT Podcast interview with John Harvey on his book Contending Perspectives: Parts and . Other: People and organizations mentioned: and , , Eric Tymoigne’s on New Economics Perspectives Examples of Bill’s work https://i.imgur.com/IlRyEnq.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Bid9vkW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SLAYS0x.jpg https://i.imgur.com/hNKMq31.jpg https://i.imgur.com/fjinGcY.jpg And finally, the mind-twisting optical illusion (that reminds Bill "of the illusion of government ‘borrowing’ ".) https://i.imgur.com/VGayolB.jpg

Welcome to episode 74 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Chris McArdle (Twitter/@ChrisMctwtr) on the politics and pitfalls of implementing the MMT-designed job guarantee. Chris was politically active in the 2000s, and an early and strong supporter of then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel P. Malloy. Chris later joined the Malloy administration during its two terms, conducting policy research and providing public and governmental relations around economic development, housing, and workforce. [Here’s a link to part two of this episode.] While traveling around Connecticut in 2010 with candidate Malloy, Chris encountered other candidates at all levels of government. One of them was running for the then-open seat for US Senate, first attempting to earn the Democratic nomination, and ultimately running as a third-party candidate in the general election. What set this candidate apart was his unique policy proposals, highlighted by the promise of a job for anyone who wanted one. That candidate was Warren Mosler. After the campaign ended, Chris joined Warren and his son for lunch, noting the fancy car out front that Warren himself had built. Warren bought lunch and Chris bought two of Warren’s books (Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds Of Economic Policy and Soft Currency Economics). The two stayed in touch, and Chris was introduced to the then still-small community of economists and students of MMT. He soon spent many hours reading MMT papers and posts, and learning key concepts like Wynne Godley’s sectoral balance identity, Abba Lerner’s functional finance, and Georg Fredric Knapp’s state theory of money. In 2018, MMT economists released their paper Public Service Employment: A Path to Full Employment. Chris used the paper as an opportunity to introduce the possibility of a job guarantee to the Commissioner and staff of the Connecticut Department of Labor. Chris praises the authors of the paper for its acknowledgment of political realities. An example is how it considers existing Prevailing Rate structures in a number of states, including Connecticut. This is important because it avoids unnecessarily alienating the building trades unions, therefore increasing the chances that they will support the proposal. He’s also proud to have made a small contribution to this particular aspect of the proposal. The other concept Chris and I discuss regarding the job guarantee is one I struggle to grasp during this episode, but became more clear of in follow-up conversations. The job guarantee as designed by MMT economists would be a federal law that is federally funded and locally designed and administered. This means that state, county, and municipal governments would design the implementation they deem appropriate for their communities. Chris remembers well the pitfalls and potential abuse of a government-run jobs program such as those endured by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1973. One of those pitfalls is the stigma associated to having a "government job." What Chris recommends is that the actual hiring and management of those jobs be placed into the hands of, for example, non-profits and public-private partnerships. As is already the case in areas such as for the provisioning of social services and construction of housing, governmental and quasi-governmental entities would provide professional selection and oversight, while avoiding creation of a large new government workforce and bureaucracy. Finally, it should also be noted that in Chris’ state (Connecticut), there is no county government – implying that the job guarantee would most likely be delivered at the state level. Where I live in New Jersey, county governments are more prominent. This episode is part one of a two-part conversation. In part two, Chris and I discuss online activism, and also the concept of "Truth" versus theory. MMT is not "the truth about economics" as I have, admittedly, often said, it is simply the most convincing economic theory (to both me and Chris). Truth is an inherently-subjective term and using it is therefore not conducive to encouraging others to look into MMT, let alone be convinced by it. We end by giving a rundown of our lists of important sources that we find valuable to pass on to others interested in learning more about MMT, both from an introductory point of view, and for those wanting more detail. Many links to these sources and more can be found in the show notes. Now onto my conversation with Chris McArdle. Resources Regarding the political issues surrounding the implementation of a job guarantee: A 2018 paper by L. Randall Wray, Policy Note: A Consensus Strategy For A Universal Job Guarantee Program MMT resources recommended by Chris: The podcast interview where Warren Mosler is interviewed by Alan Kohler (as highly praised by Chris in this episode) Video: Alan Greenspan speaks with Paul Ryan Warren Mosler’s MMT White Paper Stephanie’s 1998 paper, Can taxes and bond sales finance government spending? L. Randall Wray’s paper, The state theory of money to Modern Money Theory Introductory MMT resources recommended by me: Good first academic papers to learn MMT (for the layperson) What is an academic theory? And how does the term relate to Modern Money Theory?: Understanding what the T in MMT involves, Bill Mitchell, 2018: post, interview Read the first chapter of the 2020 book by John Harvey, Contending Perspectives in Economics Mentioned by Chris: The concept of degrees of separation BJ Fogg, founder, Stanford’s Behavior Technology Labs Nicholas Christakis' book Blueprint 2019 Johann Hari book about the failed War on Drugs, Chasing the Scream Mentioned by me: Bill Cimbrelo, MMT federal candidate from Massachusetts Comfirmation that MMT and its job guarantee are inseparable. Two additional in recent sources related to the CETA program: April 2021 article: Artists say a forgotten Nixon-era jobs program could radically alter federal arts funding 2018 it’s out of the podcast Money On the Left: Ballerinas On the Dole with Colleen Hooper

Welcome to episode 66 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Asker Voldsgaard and Dirk Ehnts on their 2020 response to a paper criticizing Modern Money Theory, or MMT. Dirk is a PhD economist based in Berlin and Asker is a Danish PhD student in innovation and public policy, with a Master’s in international political economy and economics. Their paper is in response to a 2019 paper by Danish PhD mainstream economist Jeppe Druedahl, called “A Kinder Egg On MMT." It expresses primarily the mainstream concern for the long-term fiscal sustainability of government spending, and its corresponding debt and interest. Since MMT demonstrates that large amounts of new spending on public purpose is perfectly safe (not to mention desperately needed by millions) the criticism is essentially aimed at the MMT project itself. This interview and the mainstream argument inspired a lengthy post addressing the several assumptions on which the argument is based and why each of them are incorrect. A link to the post can be found in the show notes: The long-term fiscal sustainability of government spending (is a non-issue). A major reason that Asker and Dirk decided to write their response was because Druedahl’s paper was written in what we consider to be good faith. By that, we mean that it cites MMT academic literature and treats its authors with respect. Too many so-called critiques do neither, pretending that MMT says something it doesn’t and then vehemently criticizing that made-up argument. They are also often snide and personally insulting to the MMT project and its developers and supporters, both as individuals and as a whole. I’ve collected several examples of good-faith arguments against MMT in a post, along with responses by MMTers, a link to which can also be found in the show notes: What are some **good-faith** criticisms of Modern Money Theory (MMT)? Regardless of faith, the argument between mainstream and MMT is not occurring in the academic papers themselves but in the assumptions on which those papers are based. In other words, the argument is not taking place in the papers but in the world around them. Asker and Dirk’s response does not directly address Druedahl’s arguments but rather rejects its assumptions and replaces them with ones that reflect the world in which we actually live. After seeing Dirk and Asker’s response, Druedahl stated on Twitter, “this is a non-reply." Especially with those critiques that are of less-than-good faith, they are not written in the spirit of learning or improving MMT, or the economics discipline as a whole. Rather, they are to convince the general public to dismiss MMT and its developers and supporters out of hand. MMT clearly has the more convincing argument and is also understandable by the general public. (It is convincing substantially because it is understandable by the general public.) The only hope mainstream has is to prevent the public from looking at those arguments or to its authors to begin with, and to convince them that if they do, they shouldn’t believe they’re lying eyes. This episode is part one of a two-part conversation, and it’s also part one of a larger four-part series on the relationship between mainstream or neoclassical economics and MMT. Parts two and three are with Sam Levey on the core assumptions of mainstream economics, and part four is again with Dirk and Asker on the larger political context in which these issues exist. And now, onto our conversation. Resources Master's Thesis: Money and the Fiscal Space of Monetarily Sovereign Governments: The Case of Denmark, Asker Voldsgaard Ruge, Rethinking Economics, 2018 Historical time and economic theory, Mark Setterfield, 2006

Welcome to episode 66 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with and on to a paper criticizing Modern Money Theory, or MMT. Dirk is a PhD economist based in Berlin and Asker is a Danish PhD student in innovation and public policy, with a Master’s in international political economy and economics. Their paper is in response to a 2019 paper by Danish PhD mainstream economist , called “." It expresses primarily the mainstream concern for the long-term fiscal sustainability of government spending, and its corresponding debt and interest. Since MMT demonstrates that large amounts of new spending on public purpose is perfectly safe (not to mention desperately needed by millions) the criticism is essentially aimed at the MMT project itself. This interview and the mainstream argument inspired a lengthy post addressing the several assumptions on which the argument is based and why each of them are incorrect. A link to the post can be found in the show notes: . A major reason that Asker and Dirk decided to write their response was because Druedahl’s paper was written in what we consider to be good faith. By that, we mean that it cites MMT academic literature and treats its authors with respect. Too many so-called critiques do neither, pretending that MMT says something it doesn’t and then vehemently criticizing that made-up argument. They are also often snide and personally insulting to the MMT project and its developers and supporters, both as individuals and as a whole. I’ve collected several examples of good-faith arguments against MMT in a post, along with responses by MMTers, a link to which can also be found in the show notes: Regardless of faith, the argument between mainstream and MMT is not occurring in the academic papers themselves but in the assumptions on which those papers are based. In other words, the argument is not taking place in the papers but in the world around them. Asker and Dirk’s response does not directly address Druedahl’s arguments but rather rejects its assumptions and replaces them with ones that reflect the world in which we actually live. After seeing Dirk and Asker’s response, Druedahl stated on Twitter, “this is a non-reply." Especially with those critiques that are of less-than-good faith, they are not written in the spirit of learning or improving MMT, or the economics discipline as a whole. Rather, they are to convince the general public to dismiss MMT and its developers and supporters out of hand. MMT clearly has the more convincing argument and is also understandable by the general public. (It is convincing substantially because it is understandable by the general public.) The only hope mainstream has is to prevent the public from looking at those arguments or to its authors to begin with, and to convince them that if they do, they shouldn’t believe they’re lying eyes. This episode is part one of a two-part conversation, and it’s also part one of a larger four-part series on the relationship between mainstream or neoclassical economics and MMT. Parts two and three are with Sam Levey on the core assumptions of mainstream economics, and part four is again with Dirk and Asker on the larger political context in which these issues exist. And now, onto our conversation. Resources , Asker Voldsgaard Ruge, Rethinking Economics, 2018 , Mark Setterfield, 2006

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy have questions for market analyst John Rubino of DollarCollapse.com about the future of the greenback in the year of its 50th birthday. Will it survive? How many more trillions will have to be printed to keep it going? Will we see Modern Money Theory, or even a new Bretton Woods system, which the International Monetary Fund called for right in the middle of the US elections? And what about the Great Reset the Davos set’s clamoring for? There’s a whole lot to ponder…

Welcome to episode 56 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Pakistani PhD economist, Asad Zaman (, ). Professor Zaman arrived in the United States in 1971 at the age of sixteen to pursue a masters and then doctorate in economics and econometrics, starting at MIT in Boston. Five years later, in addition to earning his doctorate, he realized his personal life was a mess, poisoned by the individualism promoted by the West that says a primary goal in life is nothing more than to maximize one’s own pleasure. He worked through this crisis, but it would take him another twenty-five years to realize, have, and finally resolve another major crisis in economics. In 1996, Professor Zaman published a highly-advanced textbook on econometrics, after working on it for ten years. The book received accolades and is still used as a reference in university classrooms around the world. One of the important things he realized while writing his textbook, however, was the vast gulf between those who get their hands dirty with real-world data, and those who earn prestige and status by developing theory. Because the two sides never communicate, the theory becomes progressively more unrealistic. This is called the theory-practice divide. In fact, only a few years after being published, he realized that it, and indeed everything his entire academic career was based upon, was fatally flawed. Professor Zaman talks about the many incorrect and insidious concepts underlying mainstream economics, first and foremost being the idea of logical positivism, which he calls one of the most poisonous philosophies ever developed by human beings. Logical positivism says that if something cannot be externally observed and measured, it must be discarded – not just from economics but one’s life in general. It means that our internal realities of thoughts, emotions, and spirituality are not important because they cannot obviously witnessed or measured by others or with instruments. Here is a haunting quote from Professor Zaman’s , which comes from the book by Zygmunt Bauman: It was not illiterate savages, but graduates of the finest educational systems of the West who designed the gas chambers used to burn millions of innocent men, women and children in Germany. The philosophies of logical positivism (combined with the those of individualism and binary logic, the teachings of Kant and Hume, and others), is substantially why man can do the evil that he does: we are taught that we must do what’s best for us alone, we can only trust what can be reduced to maths and models, and we must also ignore our own inner emotions and spirituality. How could this lead to anything but disaster? We have cut ourselves off from the only signals that can truly guide us and know nothing about those we harm, or that they exist at all. Most unfortunately, the deep flaws of mainstream economics are not accidental, they’re in service of keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. Especially in the US, daring to challenge or question these things results in brutal suppression. Professor Zaman says he may never have realized these things had he not taken his family to Turkey for six years. Being out of the United States, especially in a less-advanced and -wealthy country, allowed him to study other subjects and schools of thought, and also to take a look at the mainstream economics of the West from the outside. His life is now dedicated to educating others on real world economics, which includes Islamic Economics and MMT. Finally, in the show notes, you will find links to some of Professor Zaman’s prolific body of work. This includes his 2020 paper on models as we discuss, his full video-course on Modern Money Theory, and his six part series describing the economics of his home country and how MMT can apply to it. The MMT course has an hour-long segment on most of the chapters in the MMT textbook. This is part one of a two part episode. Enjoy. Resources Professor Zaman’s work: ...

Welcome to episode 53 of Activist #MMT. Today is part two of my two-part conversation with one of the original developers of Modern Money Theory, L. Randall Wray. Today we talk briefly about the differences between the words sufficient and necessary, and the concept of desired net savings. (In , Dr. Wray spoke about his personal history before meeting Warren Mosler and Bill Mitchell in the PKT email forums, and then we discussed his November, 2019 Congressional testimony, partially in response to the February, 2019 Republican resolution to denounce MMT. The heart of our conversation today, however, is in two parts. The second half is an overview of MMT from the Kansas City point of view, as documented Dr. Wray's new paper, . [A link to which, along with many other resources, can be found in the show notes for both parts one and two]. The Kansas City version of MMT differs in one important way from the broader version as agreed upon by all its original developers: and that is, the influence and inspiration of Hyman Minsky, and the importance of his concept of financial fragility. His paper and our discussion on it inspired this MMT-reference post: The first part of our conversation, though, focuses on the true meaning of the word productivity. This was in response to strong criticism I received regarding the job guarantee, and more specifically, to the April 2018 Levy paper called ", of which Dr. Wray is a co-author. Before I go on, I want to be clear, these are my own words, not Dr. Wray's or MMT's. It's my best interpretation of what I learned in my preparation for and conversation with Dr. Wray. Although I'm confident I'm much closer than I was before talking with Dr. Wray, I'm not pretending to be an expert or that what I'm about to say is perfect MMT. Just like you, I have more to learn. I'm also obviously taking the knowledge of MMT and applying my own progressive values to it. That said, I'd like to take a step back and start with an analogy: Something cannot be removed from a container until something is first put into that container. A leakage from the economy cannot happen until something is first injected into the economy. The only institutions that can make injections are commercial banks and the central government. Savings therefore cannot cause bank lending, and taxes cannot finance (federal) government spending. Regarding productivity and the job guarantee, in a similar way, jobs can create skills but skills cannot create jobs. As Dr. Wray explains, washing my own dishes is not considered to be officially productive, but paying someone else to do it is. Why? Because they were paid, I wasn't. In other words, productivity as officially measured is substantially a reflection of, not the production itself, but how much workers were paid in exchange for it. Despite consistently increasing output, wages have remained stagnant since around 1970 – nearly half a century. Have workers really been less and less productive? Or have they been more and more screwed? Currently, the only thing that's considered officially productive is what makes somebody else richer – who, by the way, is someone that seems to never be me. Productivity is essentially equated to profit because business owners are essentially the only ones who get to decide who is to be paid, what they will be paid for, and how much to pay them. Instead of only paying people for making some business owners profit, perhaps we can also start paying people for making our world a better place. For helping other people. For cleaning our environment, for holding the hand of the dying, for recording the history of the old, for helping a child with homework, or a teacher in the classroom, or a youth soccer coach on the field. Wages are not created by productivity, productivity is created by wages. How do you increase productivity? By paying workers more. By paying them at all. We don't have to measure productivity with maths and models, we don't have to equate...

Welcome to episode 52 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with one of the original developers of Modern Money Theory, L. Randall Wray. Dr. Wray tells the story before the story: his life before meeting Warren Mosler and Bill Mitchell in the Post-Keynesian Talk or PKT email forums in 1996, where MMT came to be. Dr. Wray originally set out to be a fourth grade elementary school teacher and did his student teaching in Mexico City. Since the OPEC oil crises made it difficult to start a teaching career, he instead got a job in solid waste management in Sacramento County, California. He got the job thanks to the Jimmy Carter administration's Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, or CETA, which was a New-Deal style public-sector job creation program. It was here where he had the opportunity to take free college courses, but only if they somehow applied to his job. His boss suggested he take some courses in economics, which he did at Sacramento State College. Dr. Wray said that he really liked the mainstream courses he took... because they took so little thinking, as long as you could do a bit of mathematics. He says he immediately knew how unrealistic it was, and to such an extent that he felt it wasn't even worthy of choosing a garbage truck, which happened to be part of his subsequent job at the California Energy Commission under the Governor Brown administration. He took every course he could, in both mainstream and heterodox, and despite still wanting to be an elementary school teacher, he decided to try a PhD. in economics. He ended up studying under Hyman Minsky, who he was told was "the best Keynesian there is," at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. We end today's episode by discussing Dr. Wray's November 2019 , which was partially in response to the March 2019 Republican resolution to denounce MMT. We look back at a particularly unfriendly set of questions he had to endure, and how the hearing that was supposed to contain many friendly faces, due to a last-minute vote, unfortunately had fewer than expected. Here's the of the 2.5 hour hearing (and where it comes from), and a that I believe will be of interest to MMTers (and where it comes from). The latter contains all of Dr. Wray's testimony, plus interesting (and painful) statements by Congress members on both sides of the aisle. Finally, we discuss his , as submitted in advance. This is a unique document written exclusively to a mainstream audience, identifying and validating their fears of deficit and debt and then slowly walking them, step-by-step, to exactly why deficits are not fearful in the way they think, and that they are largely not even under their direct control as members of Congress. Dr. Wray calls it the best, strongest case he's ever made using data. In part two, we move on to some general MMT questions, and especially focus on two subjects: the real meaning of the word productivity, and an overview of the entirety of MMT specifically from the Kansas City point of view. A full introduction will also be included before part two. Many resources, both related to part one and two of this interview, can be found in the show notes of part one. This includes the full audio to the hearing in which Dr. Wray participated, and another, both in audio and video formats, that contains only highlights I believe will be interesting to MMTers. Note: Before we get started, a small correction: Dr. Wray wanted me to mention that he believes Warren Mosler's initial undergraduate degree was in fact, engineering. Resources MMT: REPORT FROM THE FRONT, parts , , and . A of the congressional hearing, and Dr. Wray's , which includes a question by Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, and a detailed response Dr. Wray's July 2020 paper, and a that is a kind of precursor to the KC paper. His 1997 paper, which serves an excellent introduction to the MMT-JG guarantee, "" #LearnMMT For an overview of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with many reliable sources to learn...

Modern Money Theory is a new heterodox macroeconomic conjecture. The idea that governments no longer need to balance budgets, a nation’s revenue need not be derived from taxation, and where governments can now borrow indefinitely from themselves… A theory, now widely endorsed amongst academics, supports that economic data is no longer a contributing factor to […]

Im Interview: Manuela Schwesig Unsere weiteren Themen: Die Corona-Milliardenhilfen des Bundes sind bisher kaum in Anspruch genommen worden. Bislang ist nur ein Prozent der 24,6 Milliarden Euro für kleine und mittlere Unternehmen abgerufen worden. Prof. Lars Feld, der Chef der Wirtschaftsweisen, diskutiert im Interview mit Gabor Steingart die ‘Modern Money Theory’. Feld warnt unter anderem vor der Gefahr einer Inflation. Unsere Börsenreporterin Anne Schwedt berichtet aus New York über die Amazon-Pläne für Paketzustellungen per Drohne. Außerdem steht eine erste Entscheidung zur TikTok-Übernahme an.

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). While this progressive economist welcomes any resistance to austerian economics and the policy rethink that the new theory is triggering, he warns against MMT's seductive appeal and its significant practical shortcomings. Gerald Epstein co-directs the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tim Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Global Advisors (FT Group) in London.  

Pengar och politik samlar ihop lösa trådar och svarar på era frågor och funderingar. Och vilka frågor sen! Sandro ger beröm. Var avgörs den stora politiken? Vad är chanserna för en omfattande skattereform? Modern Money Theory och mycket mer. Del 1 av 2. Glad sommar! Medverkande: Sandro Scocco och Alicia Heimersson

Nima & Dylan discuss recent developments regarding the coronavirus hysteria and its economic impact. Sources: #CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai and Stefan Molyneux (HD) (https://www.bitchute.com/video/ndy76mJHD6o/) 0.37% death rate confirmed in Germany: "Vorläufiges Ergebnis und Schlussfolgerungen der COVID-19 Case-ClusterStudy" (Gemeinde Gangelt) (https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwischenergebnis_covid19_case_study_gangelt.pdf) Untested people added to inflated Coronavirus count: "New York City coronavirus death toll jumps past 10,000 in revised count" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/new-york-city-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-revised-count)

In dieser Folge interviewt Robert einen Experten zum Thema Geld - den Volkswirtschaftler Dr. Dirk Ehnts. Dr. Ehnts ist ein deutscher Vertreter der "Modern Monetary Theory" und hat hierzu mehrere Bücher geschrieben. Momentan lehrt er an der TU Chemnitz. In diesem Interview geht es um Fragen wie: - Was ist Geld? - Wie entsteht Geld? - Welche Auswirkungen haben hohe Staatsschulden auf die Gesellschaft? - Wie sicher ist der Euro? - Musste es zu der Eurokrise kommen? - Wie wird das Geld der Zukunft aussehen? - Worauf muss der private Sparer achten? -- Über MONEY MASTERS Germany: Wir sind Privatinvestoren, die auf der vielleicht nie endenden Suche nach der optimalen Art und Weise, Kapital zu investieren und dabei zu sichern und gleichzeitig zu vermehren, sind. Was wir dabei gelernt haben, möchten wir mit euch teilen. Die Themen umfassen die Geldanlage in Wertpapiere (Aktien und Anleihen). Genauso wie wir auch über das Investieren in Immobilien sprechen. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf Value Investing à la Warren Buffett, Momentum Investing, Trading, Trend-Following, Optionshandel, Factor-Investing, passives Investieren mit ETFs, Duales Momentum Investing à la Gary Antonacci, und und und. mehr zu MONEY MASTERS findet ihr hier: www.money-masters.de

MMT is gaining traction among progressives as an option for paying for massive government spending projects such as the Green New Deal. Even if it is useful for countries such as the U.S., can it be applied in developing countries? PERI's Matias Vernengo says only to a limited extent.

Welcome to Finance and Fury We live through transformational times – new environment for finance and investing   We are fast reaching the limits of monetary printing - markets are still trying to work out how to price that in Past model – print money Get GDP growth through aggregate demand increase – mainly consumption Therefore – due to velocity of money (turnover) – get multiplier effect – more times money changes hands the bigger the effect = $1 might lead to $3.2 Trouble is that turns out inflation is mostly driven by behaviours/psychological phenomenon GDP growth, inflation, productivity are all missing in action despite 9 years of declining rates and 6 years of monetary doping and financial engineering the world over. If you increase money supply – money needs to go somewhere – sometimes through existing off investment managers or pension funds or new bonds issued from the bank RBA will give CBA $1bn of newly printed money – in return gets CBA Bond to the value of $1bn with a coupon Bank uses new money as deposits to fund further lending – leading to more economic growth through increased consumption – then we are meant to get inflation – Found to be very ineffective – UK QE = £375 billion of new money just to create £23-28bn billion of extra spending in the real economy Over time reduces growth if money went into mortgages – lowers spending due to larger loans to repay as borrowing capacities rise as rates drop due to this policy No positive outcomes have led to falling credibility of Central Bankers, as they ran out of policy space Falling credibility is typical precursor to imbalances compounding (including bubbles) Creates a lack of confidence – and becomes its own tipping point for a financial crisis. Yet - Australia – Lowering rates – calls for QE – Quantitative easing – printing money for liquidity Officially - known as large-scale asset purchases through using newly created money Type of monetary policy– an extreme one – where a central bank creates a policy to buy predetermined amounts of government bonds or other financial assets in order to inject liquidity directly into the economy Purchase of bonds and assets (life ETFs) – To inject liquidity – money to be spent – money terminology very similar to maritime/water – Trouble is that there is a lot of evidence that this policy type won’t work – just leave with money to pay back   What this means for the market Without growth and inflation from here - future for market economies looks very different – want to spend a few episodes to run through Looking at the past – economic change has occurred a lot – financial system has had its resets 1920’s - structural deflation led to Keynes revolution in economics 1940’s –world fully abandon gold standard to a semi- gold backed system 1970’s - chronic inflation led to Milton Friedman counter-revolution, and governments like Thatcher or Reagan Market-based economies survived these – what has changed – we are in a new form of global capitalism Entangled things – Financial System is Global – no longer is it nationally important – look at GFC (US banks) = 68% loss on the big 4 here Accelerated things - the industrial revolution took years to equate to growing productivity and wealth, while it went through its implementation phase. Industrial and aggregate productivity growth slowed down markedly in the years 1890 to 1913, as we moved towards the second industrial revolution What has been true in every case - Deflation is like a death penalty for debt-laden economies Low rates decrease service costs on debt, but negative inflation rates increase its real burden, leading into more debt-deflation. Now that interest rates and inflation are below zero, the economy is cornered and time is running out. From here – Central banks hope to see GDP reverting to the mean, inflation to spring back up – wishful thinking Debt overhangs, bad demographics, chronic oversupply, technological disruption all conspire to the deficient aggregate demand, the structural deflation and the liquidity trap we see the world over. If inflation and nominal GDP cannot be resurrected soon enough - the bubble in markets will eventually bust Asset prices drop, economy stagnates, and discontent will trigger a change of regime into populists’ parties, for them to try what current politics could not. Major issue in a lot of countries – France and yellow vests, china/HK, India people protesting over banks   Existing examples for an economy with years of QE  Japan: living laboratory for the Great Policy Experiment - One such place where experimental policymaking may be tested is Japan. Japan is likely to be the laboratory where new forms of crisis policymaking are implemented. Japan is likely to lead the way. It is the pinnacle of desperation after 26-year long unfruitful attempts at re-igniting growth and inflation.   There are a few reasons why Japan is desperate enough to be forced into pioneering innovative policymaking: Exhausted effectiveness of monetary printing - QE - printed almost $800bn p.a. since mid-2013 monetary base having grown to be as large as in the US – with an economy of 1/3rd the size - 0.5% real GDP growth in first three years but contracted by 0.3% in the last year money multiplier and velocity of money have been on free-falls - new lows = Inflation was negative in April at -0.3%. Currency headwinds - JPY strengthened by 10% against the USD and other trade partners = lower exports = lower GDP Cash hoarding problem - negative rates and new tax regulation = households are stashing cash under the mattress a 17% increase for physical cash year-on-year - demand for cash is deflationary – when demanded for savings = lower velocity of money – lower multiplier effects and less GDP growth Hence why governments are slowly working towards cashless societies – avoid Japan example The Market Economy going forward: an illustration exercise Big disclaimer - transformational markets are something that cannot be 100% predicted – no way to know where it will end up But will look at possible outcomes – look at what is out there – what the economics are advising Gov to do A new evolutionary phase of combining QE, deficit spending, and ‘helicopter money’ - the nuclear fusion of monetary and fiscal policies – might well be the next stop for policymakers, as they move from price setting to direct resource allocation, in certain markets more than others, in certain places sooner than in others Helicopter drop is an expansionary fiscal policy that is financed by an increase in a economy's money supply. It could be an increase in spending or a tax cut, but it involves printing large sums of money and distributing it to the public in order to stimulate the economy Funded through deficit spending – so Gov issues bonds to fund spending – more debt every year Money to spend/buyers of bonds are the Central Banks by more QE – in perpetuity Economic theory will change as well – flavour of the day to guess again what is best New economic paradigms (a new Keynes coming up? A new Friedman?) - Modern Monetary Theory or Modern Money Theory is a heterodox macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly for the government and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires This is where the concept of UBI has its roots – helicopter money through printing money accidents along the way (deep deflation, hyperinflation, default events etc) political shifts (populist parties winning over, from the US down) – need Govs to promise this Want to explore what the market economy going forward may look like - plausible scenarios based around current trajectory Work off a trend of what has occurred so far in policy – attempt to piece it together in a coherent manner No timelines on this – may happen in 12 months, few years, or never Doesn’t take a genius to see that unless inflation and growth are resurrected - bad things happen -   To get that – run through main components of the market economy going forward Permanent QE Lowering rates and moving towards cashless economy to avoid BOJ situation Fiscal expansion – Government spending – redistribution Helicopter money Abandon the dollar – IMF SDR – new reserve digital currency Start breaking this down in the next ep on Monday Thanks for listening to today's episode, if you would like to get in contact you can do so here https://financeandfury.com.au/contact/      

2 April 2018 – Since I, admittedly, went on and on about debt politics in this episode, I will keep my description very short. Will updates you on the latest on Brexit crazy. May has completely lost control of Parliament and Macron will not continue to be impatient with British incompetence. I talk little bit about the mechanism of federal debt and a lot about the politics of federal debt. The concept of federal debt has been weaponized for a reason.I said on the show that next week I would talk about some of the myths that surround federal debt and I will do that but the next show may end-up being an interview with Charles Gaba, @brainwarp, because Trump is seriously planning to destroy healthcare and even the GOP is furious. Cheers! – Arliss

Jason Hartman and Adam start off today's show discussing one of the keynote speakers for this year's Meet the Masters event, George Gilder. Gilder has quite the history and the two break down what he did back in the 90s, what he's doing now, and why he's still relevant. Then Jason talks with Dr. Randy Wray, one of the foremost experts in Modern Monetary Theory, about why Minsky the philosopher is important, what exactly MMT is and why it's relevant in today's monetary society. They especially tackle the job guarantee program that MMT espouses and what's coming up for the US in the economy for the next few years. Key Takeaways: [4:34] George Gilder is a thought leader today just like he was 20 years ago [7:31] When Gilder spoke back in the 90s the markets moved Dr Randy Wray Interview: [12:26] Who is Minsky and why is he someone we should concern ourselves with? [15:43] What is Modern Monetary Theory and why is it applicable? [21:31] The governments going back to the colonies spends money into existence and then taxes it back to avoid causing inflation [24:38] Has all the money that was put into the economy during Obama's term been taken back out by taxes or is it causing inflation? [28:51] The test you need to use to discover if you're doing monetary policy correct [32:48] Spending during The New Deal greatly helped move our nation forward and allowed us to become the richest, most developed nation on Earth [36:49] The job guarantee that Dr Wray is focusing on now would involve a lot of care work, and it would be decentralized [39:58] What's coming up, economically, for the United States Website: www.JasonHartman.com/Masters www.YouTube.com/JasonHartmanRealEstate www.Levy.org

This week, we conclude our discussion with Tom O'Brien of From Alpha to Omega on L. Randall Wray's 2015 book "Modern Money Theory" by going off the rails and opening up a broader conversation about marxism and the philosophy of science. Help us turn the world upside-down! patreon.com/FromAlpha2Omega patreon.com/swampsidechats paypal.me/swampsidechats

This week, we welcome on Tom O'Brien of the legendary From Alpha to Omega podcast to discuss L. Randall Wray's 2015 book "Modern Money Theory". Help us turn the world upside-down! patreon.com/FromAlpha2Omega patreon.com/swampsidechats paypal.me/swampsidechats

2 October 2017 – Some days it’s hard to remember that despite all appearances, there is a world out there beyond Trump and all the many, many ways he is failing this week. The truly dazzling economist Dr. Pavlina Tcherneva (her excellent site is here) is with us for the interview. I was able to interview her in person at the First International Conference of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT Conference). We talked about how the, now famous, chart (see above) she developed was able to influence the conversation around inequality and how a job guarantee program can add more than just jobs to a society. It is inspiring to know the modern monetary theory rests in the hands of economists, like Pavlina, who have a clear connection to the ground truth of the programs and policies they imagine into existence. I start out the show with just a quick overview of my experience at the MMT conference. It was genuinely compelling and I was overwhelmed by all the ideas and applications of MMT to which I was exposed. You will be hearing about many of these in depth in the future and I promise you will be intrigued too. Will then updated everyone on the events in Catalonia related to the independence vote. Spain is refusing to acknowledge the vote and tension is ratcheting up. Will has covered Catalonia in the past and promises a deep dive next week. We touched briefly on Puerto Rico. Now that it is (finally) being followed by major media we are leaving most of that to actual journalists but people are suffering and our President, while golfing, is too busy trying to shame the Mayor of San Juan with tweets to actually send an appropriate level of support. It’s not just frustrating or inhumane, it’s evil. In Will’s main block he talked about Brexit. Many are saying that all the economic ills projected by those who wanted to remain in the European Union have not come to pass and were therefore simply election scare tactics. Will points out the obvious, the UK is still in the EU and the pain from Brexit will not be felt until Brexit actually occurs. It remains reasonable to expect cost-push inflation (also known as supply shock) as the UK strikes out on its own. In my block I briefly lay out my reasons for supporting Bernie’s current “Medicare for All” bill. This may surprise some of you but I find this bill to be essential and extremely well-timed. Don’t get me wrong, this bill won’t move and, ultimately, the bill that does move will look different but here’s the thing – we can’t legislate until we get elected. Will disagrees but I think “Medicare for All” is a good bumper sticker way to sum up the shared Democratic party value that healthcare is a right. I think having this bill under active discussion now gives us an opportunity to build coalition and consensus in preparation for a non-Trump future. No matter what, this bill has already moved the Overton Window and that in and of itself is critical. Bernie has written a solid bill and he is gathering important voices. There is long, hard work ahead to build unstoppable grassroots momentum but this is how healthcare gets changed for real. It will take all of us…and it should. Carrots! – Arliss Since recording this episode, the Spanish government has acted without restraint or dignity in Catalonia, attacking unarmed civilians with a wave of brutal repression. Many folks who oppose the referendum say that holding it is illegal. That may be true, but it isn’t an excuse for state violence. Spain had every ability to refuse to acknowledge the vote, which was itself an act of civil disobedience. But instead of responding to this act with restraint, and refusing to acknowledge the results, they chose to wage an unnecessary and unnecessarily brutal campaign of violence against the Catalan people. These actions bring the legitimacy of Rajoy’s governance of Catalonia into question. Things will likely only get worse in the coming days. I will report in depth on the situation next week, and tal

3 July 2017 - Will is on vacation this week (and next) so I am joined on the show by two of our three new associates, Joel Dent and David Paquette. David, a self-professed connoisseur of lies, starts us off with a spectacular lie direct from a true master of the subject, Senator Orrin Hatch. I respond with a whopper from Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry but Hatch won the day on style points. Here, by the way, is David's recommended maple syrup video. "The moment" is right at the very end but the whole thing is hilarious. Remember as you watch it that this is the man curating the nuclear arsenal of the USA. Joel brought us the latest NRA ad which is so filled with hate that it just blows right past "abomination" as a descriptor. After the election, the NRA and the gun manufacturers had a problem. With Obama gone and no enemy to focus on how are they going to sell mountains of guns? They need a new enemy and they have found one...all of us. Joel uses video shot during one of the Milo Yiannopoulos protests (also here) as an example of the depth of the problem. He also quoted from some alt right gun blogs here and here. The psychosis is both depending and spreading. I go back to my roots a bit to talk about the modern money take on trade and how trade works in economies like ours. The meme of the trade deficit being a problem is the same as the meme of the US needing a balanced budget. Both are ludicrous on the face if you take a minute to think about it. We give away pixels (fiat money) and get real goods and services in return. That's the best possible deal especially when there is absolutely nothing standing in the way of making sure that everyone who wants a good job has one...except, of course, political will. *sigh* All of this is especially pertinent because while the whole country is looking the other direction, Trump is starting a trade war with our closest allies! We have no interview this week (so no Extra Mad). Again a thank-you goes out this week to Michele LeSure, for her assistance in editing this episode. Michele will be on the show next week so you will have the chance to hear from her too! If you are in the US, enjoy your holiday! Many carrots! - Arliss

Dylan Lawrence Moore interviews Nima Mahdjour with EconomicsJunkie.com to discuss Modern Money Theory and why it is so dangerous to "balance the federal budget". It is typical for conservative administrations to attempt to practice "sound economics" by balancing the budget. However, the rules for economy function differently with the federal government than they do for the rest of us. Nima uses MMT to describe what's going on in the current economy. Sources for the discussion: 17:35 - How Government Budget Surpluses Can Cause Economic Depressions http://www.economicsjunkie.com/government-budget-surpluses-can-cause-economic-depressions/ 21:00 - Trump’s Tax & Deficit Stance Might Be Spot On https://beinglibertarian.com/trumps-tax-deficit-stance-spot/ Empiricism Shatters the Barter Theory of Money: http://www.economicsjunkie.com/empiricism-shatters-barter-theory-money/

31 October 2016 - Modern Monetary Theory innovator and torchbearer, Dr. L. Randall Wray is with us for most of the show in a deep dive interview on his book, Why Minsky Matters: An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist (here from Princeton University Press or here from Amazon). If you have been a listener for more than a couple of weeks you have undoubtedly heard me speak of Dr. Wray. I may have discovered MMT through Dr. Stephanie Kelton but it was Dr. Wray's book, Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems, which entirely captured my imagination, gave me hope as to how we get to where we need to go and (finally) made economics make real sense to my very pragmatic mind. Still, even though this was one of our longest interviews to date I could have easily asked another hundred questions–Wray is that interesting. I think you will be fascinated. At the top of the show Will takes just a few minutes to knock down the persistent Clinton bashing related to Honduras. People, facts matter. Really. Twitter is just loaded-up with Bros who are convinced that Hillary backed a war in Honduras facts not withstanding. ...very frustrating. I take a similar ride only related to the most recent e-mails FBI Director James Comey detonated into the election, likely breaking the Hatch Act while he was at it. According to Kurt Eichenwald, of Newsweek, who seems to have an inside source, none of the e-mails involved appear to be either to or from Hillary. None of the e-mails appear to have been withheld by Hillary from the investigation. The FBI has had the laptop with the e-mails for weeks and they were told about the e-mail accounts involved in April! Director Comey said, in the bomb he sent to Congress, that he has no idea what is in the e-mails. He just thought he would blow-up the election for the hell of it! Sadly, Will and I will be off next week. Will has an election-related job and I am, of course, busy making sure the Rabbit American vote turns out. We will be back on the 14th. Carrots! - Arliss

Summary Today our hosts, best-selling author Kim Butler and no bs money guy Todd Strobel, discuss a financial article that Todd read on Modern Money Theory. Modern money theory is the idea that is actually makes sense to lower people's taxes, increase benefits, reduce the sale of bonds, and just inject more money into the money supply. Find out - is this a long term strategy? Will policies like this make for a stable economy? And more on this episode of the Prosperity Podcast. If you would like the opportunity for us to answer your question on the show or to be a guest on our show, be sure to keep sending us questions and reach out to us!   Show Notes 0:00 Intro 0:48 What is Modern Money Theory? 1:54 Is Modern Money Theory a Good Idea? 3:36 A Hypothetical Question About Alpacas 6:34 What Can We Learn From Equating These Examples? 9:18 Your Thoughts on This? 11:14 Outro