In the latest episode of our Of Interest podcast, Steven Hail gives the MMT perspective on the monetary system, inflation, climate change & more — Gareth Vaughan

Audio and summary of talk.

interest.co.nz
In the latest episode of our Of Interest podcast, Steven Hail gives the MMT perspective on the monetary system, inflation, climate change & more
Gareth Vaughan

Currency Hierarchy — Eric Tymoigne

In Stabilizing and Unstable Economy, Minsky noted that “[a]n economy has a number of different types of money: everyone can create money; the problem is to get it accepted” (p. 228). While governments and banks usually get the spotlight, tens of thousands of monetary instruments have been issued by localities, ecclesiastic domains, local seigneurs, taverns and other private agents in many periods of monetary history, worldwide, up to the present [see Burn (1853); von Glahn (1996); Fletcher (2003); Blanc (2017)]. All these instruments are part of a “hierarchy of money” (Bell, 2001), “debt pyramid” (Olivecrona, 1957), “pyramid of credit” (Murad, 1954), or “scale of credit” (Wilson, 1811); a concept used to categorize the variety of monetary instruments available in a given area common to all of them, and the extent of the operation of a payment system and its integration within other, usually broader, payment systems. While the given common area is often the domestic economy, the international scale can also be considered (see de Conti et al., 2013; Palludeto and Abouchedid, 2016).

Monetary Policy Institute Blog #148

Currency Hierarchy
Eric Tymoigne, MMT economist
Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis & Clark College
Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

UK MMT Conference 2024 – Slides available for download

Download PDF's of slide sets from the presentations at the recent UK MMT conference.

The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies
UK MMT Conference 2024 – Slides

See also

The National (Scotland)
Scotland needs its own currency ASAP after indy, say top economists

Scotonomics

MMT’s Leeds conference and disinvitations — Richard Murphy

For the record. Trouble in MMT-land.

Funding the Future
MMT’s Leeds conference and disinvitations

Funding the Future (formerly Tax Research UK)

Richard Murphy, Tax Research LLP

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) as ideological fortress for monetary technocrats — Vadym Syrota

 Not MMT per se, but it explains something of the tenacious hold that neoliberalism has on economic and monetary policy owing to the Bank of International Settlements ((BIS).

Monetary Policy Institute Blog #146
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) as ideological fortress for monetary technocrats
Vadym Syrota, Ph.D. in economics, independent banking expert, contributor to the specialized blog of the Kennan Institute Woodrow Wilson Center (USA)

See also

The development of BRICS and its expansion in the Global South speaks to this issue internationally. In this view, it is not possible to reform the existing system. Another system this is based on different assumptions needs to be developed instead.The failure of heterodox approaches to reform or replace neoclassical economics also argues for this.

Developing Economics — A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

Is It Possible to ‘Decolonize’ Economics?*

Eiman Zein-Elabdin | Professor of Economics at Franklin & Marshall College, USA

Season 2 of our Manga – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money — Bill Mitchell

Today (July 12, 2024), MMTed releases Episode 1 in the Second Season of our Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money. We have spent the last several months developing the storylines and graphics and Season 2 will run from today to December 6, 2024 with episodes appearing on a fortnightly basis.

Have a bit of fun with it while learning Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

Season 2 of our Manga – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – available now
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Thinking back 50 years to Nixon's resignation.

Thinking back to President Nixon's resignation in 1974 due to the Watergate scandal, it almost seems juvenile by today's level of scandals. Nevertheless, Nixon resigned. (He would have been impeached by the Senate anyway, most likely.)

Now we have a geriatric, senile old man who can't find his way off a stage or put intelligible sentences together and who is under pressure from his own party but won't step down for the good of the country. The total collapse of integrity and accountability from 50 years ago. No surprise.

Today, we lack leaders like Nixon. None of the current figures would make the same decision he did, especially for an issue that would be considered minor by today's standards.

Warren Mosler Says US Is Spending Too Much — Bloomberg

Bloomberg
Odd Lots Podcast: Warren Mosler Says US Is Spending Too Much

MAEIL BUSINESS NEWSPAPER Korea's No. 1 Economic Media

Warren Mosler warns of snowball U.S. fiscal deficit "There's no guarantee that high interest rates will bring down inflation".

Yoon Wan Sup

Machine Translation

Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure (video)–Promo — Bill Mitchell

Here is a short video about our new book – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure – which will be published on July 15, 2024.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure – Promo
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Atlanta Fed reduces Q2 GDP forecast once again, as I said they would

 Back in April, the Atlanta Fed's first GDP forecast for Q2 was 4.2%. I said that was ridiculous based on the year-over-year drop in net government transfers. I said they would have to revise that lower, probably equal to Q1 GDP of 1.6% if that. And sure enough, they did...FIVE TIMES, until they got it down to 1.5%-1.6%.

Then, because of one strong retail sales report in May, they boosted it back up to 3.2%. Once again, I said they'd have to bring that down because the year-over-year drop in net government transfers had gotten worse. And sure enough, they did. Now they have it at 2.1%, which probably has to decrease even more.

I don't know what their model is, but mine is very simple, more accurate, and timely. Net government transfers are the first derivative of all economic activity.

Dems warn Trump could “stoke inflation!”…

 

Dems doubling down on their current moron monetarist thesis that a plurality of voters will prefer the current regressive high interest rate policy over some other less regressive Trump fiscal/monetary policy…

Sixteen of the world's most notable economists — all Nobel Prize winners — are warning that former President Donald Trump could stoke inflation if he wins the presidency in November and moves forward with his economic plans. https://t.co/JRbXTuje2F

— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 26, 2024

Watch this Movie — Bethesda 1971

The Daily Kos is influential "on the left." This is good review of "Finding the Money" and hopefully it will wake more folks up to the fact that affordability is not the issue but rather the availability of real resources.

Daily Kos
Watch this Movie
Bethesda 1971

Everything you want to know about MMT — Lars P. Syll

One of the positive contributions of MMT, especially from a European point of view, is that it makes it transparently clear why the euro-experiment has been such a monumental disaster. The neoliberal dream of having over-national currencies just doesn’t fit well with reality. When an economy is in a crisis, it must be possible for the state to manage and spend its own money to stabilize the economy.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog

Everything you want to know about MMT
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Print Money in Structured Manner to Plug Deficit Instead of Raising Taxes, Economist Tony Mwiti Advises Kenyan President William Ruto — Muyela Roberto

MMT without naming it.

Tuko (Kenya)
Print Money in Structured Manner to Plug Deficit Instead of Raising Taxes, Economist Tony Mwiti Advises Kenyan President William Ruto
Muyela Roberto

Trump floats concept of eliminating the income tax and replacing it with tariffs

 

Even libertarian douchebag and alleged STEM degree Massie on board….  Would need a big GOP sweep to get it passed….

I guess the tax elimination is going to over ride the debt doomsday thesis of these libertarian morons in their pea brains….  Hard to understand how their brains work….

I’d  take it…  we could get rid of the tax but they would still be stupid…

Can’t have everything…

👍

Most intriguing policy idea from the GOP meeting at the Capitol Hill Club this morning:

Trump briefly floated the concept of eliminating the income tax and replacing it with tariffs. 🧐 pic.twitter.com/hw0k8gwlGa

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 13, 2024

IMF: Dollar’s "stealth erosion" in global reserves by other currencies—Serkan Arslanalp, Barry Eichengreen, Chima Simpson-Bell

Taking a longer view, over the last two decades, the fact that the value of the US dollar has been broadly unchanged, while the US dollar’s share of global reserves has declined, indicates that central banks have indeed been shifting gradually away from the dollar.

BNE
IMF: Dollar’s "stealth erosion" in global reserves by other currencies

Serkan Arslanalp for the IMF, Barry Eichengreen, Chima Simpson-Bell

MMT — the key insights — Lars P. Syll

As has become abundantly clear during the last couple of years, it is obvious that most mainstream economists seem to think that Modern Monetary Theory is something new that some wild heterodox economic cranks have come up with. That is actually very telling about the total lack of knowledge of their own discipline’s history these modern mainstream guys like Summers, Rogoff and Krugman have.

New? Cranks? Reading one of the founders of neoclassical economics, Knut Wicksell, and what he wrote in 1898 on ‘pure credit systems’ in Interest and Prices (Geldzins und Güterpreise) soon makes the delusion go away….

Lars P. Syll’s Blog

MMT — the key insights
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Senior mainstream economist now admits central banks are not as independent as many believe — Bill Mitchell

The UK Guardian published quite an odd article the other day (May 30, 2024) by Mr GFC Spreadsheet Fudge Man Kenneth Rogoff – Why policymakers are more likely to risk high inflation during periods of economic uncertainty – which essentially claims that economic policy has been conducted for several years by institutions that do not meet the essential requirements that are specified by the mainstream New Keynesian macroeconomic approach, upon which the institutions have claimed justification. If that makes sense. He now claims that the eulogised principle of ‘central bank independence’, which is a mainstay of the New Keynesian justification that macroeconomic counter stabilisation policy should be left to monetary authorities and that fiscal policy should play a supporting but passive role, no longer exists as policy makers have had to come to terms with multiple crises. Of course from an Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) perspective such independence never existed and was just a ploy to allow the governments to depoliticise economic policy making and thus distance themselves, politically, from the fall out of unpopular policy interventions. If it wasn’t the IMF to blame, then it was the ‘independent’ central bank for austerity and interest rate hikes and all the rest of it. Now we have a senior Harvard professor admitting it was a ruse and bemoaning the fact....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

Senior mainstream economist now admits central banks are not as independent as many believe
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW,

See also

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
The deficit myth
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Odd posts from Warren Mosler claiming "crowding out."

Investment boom, crowding out consumption.

— Warren B. Mosler (@wbmosler) May 31, 2024

Odd "X" posts from Warren Mosler recently talking about "crowding out." He says business investment is "crowding out" personal consumption. This is an odd claim because crowding out is not a condition that would be claimed under MMT understanding, where money is a function of demand and where there is no theoretical limit to its creation. (Under a free-floating FX regime.)

If business spending rises and personal consumption falls, so what? All that is, is a shift in the cohort doing the net spending. The economy may look a little different (factories getting built rather than expenditure on consumer goods, leisure, etc), but why is that a concern and how does he conclude, necessarily, that this is the reason for an economic slowdown?

It's wrong and it misses the main point which is the fact that the slowdown in the economy is coming from a decline in net government transfers (i.e. the "deficit") because "reverse stabilizers" are kicking in. (Tax deposits are rising faster than Treasury withdrawals.)

He ought to know this. 

In Defense Of Deficits — Steven Desmyter

I invited Stephanie Kelton to speak at our Man Alternative Investment Symposium in Oxford in 2021. Kelton was Bernie Sanders’s economic advisor and a leading proponent of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a neo-Keynesian movement that asserts that there ought to be no theoretical limit to a country’s ability to borrow, providing that it is in control of its own currency. Kelton and Sanders were near-perfect exemplars of the kind of “fiscal irresponsibility” (as their opponents would see it) that Conservatives (and, indeed, conservatives) like to hold out as a warning. Joe Biden, resolutely of the center, friend to the markets and the banks, was able to position himself as a far more rational and responsible alternative....

Forbes
In Defense Of Deficits
Steven Desmyter, President of Man Group

Government debt fears – more fiction from the mainstream media — Bill Mitchell

After all these years of trying, the insights provided by Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) still haven’t cut through. One doesn’t even need to accept the complete box of MMT knowledge to know that, at least, some of it must be factual. For example, how much brainpower does a person need to realise that a government that issues its own currency surely doesn’t need to call on the users of that currency in order to spend that currency? Even if we could get that simple truth to be more widely understood it would change things. But every day, economists and journalists, that just give platforms to the economists write and say things that demonstrate even that simple understanding of the monetary system fails them. Are they stupid? Some. Are they venal? Some. What other reason is there for continuing to use major media platforms, which give the author a massive privilege in terms of influence and reach, to pump out fiction masquerading as informed economic commentary? And the gullibility and wilful indifference of the readerships just extends the licence of these liars. Some days I think I should just hang out down the beach and forget all of it....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Government debt fears – more fiction from the mainstream media
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

MAGA: The Biden Admin Has Had Zero Coordination Between Fiscal and Monetary Policy

Current MAGA thesis… “inflation!”…  “deficit too high!”… “the dollar is going down!”…  same shit as always…. if Trump gets back in he’s going to have a lot of trouble with these Art Degree morons on his right flank…

Nvidia now worth over $2.5 Trillion, more than the market cap of the entire German stock market

Perma bears are going to be FREAKING… OUT…

Nvidia now worth over $2.5 Trillion, more than the market cap of the entire German stock market. pic.twitter.com/Q7sJctOeoR

— Erik Brynjolfsson (@erikbryn) May 23, 2024

 

UK MMT Conference 2024

15-17 July, 2024 / University of Leeds, UK

UK MMT Conference 2024

The conceptual roots of the Global South’s debt crisis — Ndongo Samba Sylla

MMT taking hold in the Global South?

The Jordan Times
The conceptual roots of the Global South’s debt crisis
Ndongo Samba Sylla, head of research and policy for the Africa region at International Development Economics Associates, is a former technical adviser for the presidency of the Republic of Senegal and a co-author of “Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story” (Pluto Press, 2021) and a co-editor of Economic and Monetary Sovereignty in 21st Century Africa (Pluto Press, 2021)

Treasury Settlement

 

Much easier to understand by the monetarist morons figuratively as “they’re printin’ money!”…

U.S. government securities clearing & settlement visualized pic.twitter.com/ngYUXHWpBu

— Conks (@concodanomics) May 7, 2024

De-Dollarization Bombshell: The Coming of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem — Pepe Escobar UPDATED

 Footsoldier posted this in the comments. I am promoting it to a post. 

So-called de-dollarization is envisioned to happen in two major steps stages each with many incremental iterations. 

The first stage stage is conducting bilateral trade in the currencies of the trading partners. This is already well advanced. 

However, this is not actual de-dollarization, which is the establishment of a competing monetary system with a goal of eventually replacing the USD as the primary global currency. 

No one thinks that this will happen quickly and without growing pains, or without Western opposition. But it is a stated goal rather than simply an aspiration. 

The Unit plan is now on the table.

Sputnik Globe

De-Dollarization Bombshell: The Coming of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem
Pepe Escobar

See also

Pepe waxes philosophical here. 

For some reason there is increasing interest in Stoicism right now.  

The most prominent Stoics were Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, and Epictetus who was born into slavery. That pretty well covers the spectrum.

Those wishing to up their mental game may profit from reflecting on the Stoics.

Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)

We should all be Stoics now

Pepe Escobar

UPDATE

A new order may be in the works already. (The Economist)

Moon of Alabama

A Pessimistic Economist Laments The End Of Order

b

 

If Government Can Print Money, Why Does It Borrow? — L. Randall Wray (2005)

Recently, the neglected question of why the US government borrows, given that it can print money, has arisen in the context of discussions surrounding a new documentary, Finding the Money. As L. Randall Wray observes in this one-pager, Modern Money Theory has been providing answers to this question for some time; and, he argues, it is a topic that mainstream economists are ill-equipped to address, since very few concern themselves with the monetary operations that underlie the question of why a currency-issuing government issues debt.

Underground Network ONE-PAGER No. 72 | May 2024

If Government Can Print Money, Why Does It Borrow?
L. Randall Wray, Levy Economics Institute, 2005

Also at Underground Network May 9, 2024

New documentary that explains how money works and how pretty much everyone today gets it all backwards.

Finding the Money – There’s another side to the national debt.

Cleveland Fed for May

CPI nowcast for May reporting low:

Corporate buybacks

No not so fast there buddy. ..  According to MMT the US government is “borrowing money!” from the tax exempt foreign divisions of these multinationals…

It’s not just transferring retained earnings into foreign UST accounts at the Fed as part of a scheme to reduce overall corporate tax liabilities… that’s not what is happening..

I wonder how many people know these “buybacks” are mostly unpaid taxes distributed to investors in US 🤔

In the case of $AAPL profits are kept offshore in 0% tax countries like Ireland, then $AAPL issues bonds in #US to finance these buybacks and when the bonds mature they use… https://t.co/HKwjqY8PYx

— JustDario 🏊‍♂️ (@DarioCpx) May 3, 2024