Tuesday, March 12, 2019

MMT Links — 12 Mar 2019 – 1st UPDATE


Firing back at big guns taking pot shots at MMT.

The Hill
Setting the record straight on GND and Modern Monetary Theory
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, Bard College

Multiplier Effect
Big Guns Shooting Holes in the Sky
Jörg Bibow | Associate Professor of Economics at Skidmore College and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

New Economic Perspectives
MMT Takes Center Stage – and Orthodox Economists Freak
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

Mario Seccareccia, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa and Marc Lavoie. Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

UPDATE 1

New Economic Perspectives
MMT Responds to Brad DeLong’s Challenge
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, Bard College


Another fictional characterisation of MMT finishes in total confusion
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia


8 comments:

Konrad said...

More and more economists are worrying about the spread of MMT.

Bill Black: “This reveals how much orthodox economists fear the voters’ increasing embrace of the progressive core policy issues on the environment, health care, and restoring the rule of law to the markets.”

Yes. Some of the peasants are starting to wake up a little, and their owners are terrified. Therefore the oligarchs will install Kamala Harris, who (like Obama) will become more and more progressive until she is installed in the White House, at which point Harris (like Obama) will do an about-face.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell admits that he knows nothing about MMT except that it’s “just wrong.” Powell wants primary control to remain with the bankers, not with the US government. He wants an America ruled by ever-growing debt. Powell is in charge of bank monetary policy, whereas MMT mainly concerns US government fiscal policy.

European Central Bank chief economist Peter Praet agrees with Powell, calling MMT “dangerous” (to Troika tyranny). “

Larry Fink, CEO of global investment company Black Rock, calls MMT “garbage.” Fink claims that U.S. government deficits will “drive interest rates much higher.” (The liars have been saying this for decades.)

All these clowns claim that Japan proves them right, since Japan is an economic basket case. In reality, serial deficits have not triggered inflation in Japan, nor a flight from bond markets. And real incomes in Japan have kept pace with America’s (and exceeded Europe’s) since 2008.

Liars on all sides.

Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and Olivier Blanchard (former chief IMF economist) favor deficit spending, and they dismiss the panic about the “national debt,” yet they say MMT is wrong because ZIMBABWE!

Despite all these the a**holes and idiots, MMT continues to spread. A Bloomberg article mentions some critics, but nowhere does the article say that MMT is wrong.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-11/mmt-has-been-around-for-decades-here-s-why-it-just-caught-fire

Tom Hickey’s post has a link to the The Hill blog, which is normally pro-neoliberal, but they let Randy Wray write a guest editorial. Mr. Wray contradicts himself as usual, saying that MMT doesn’t advocate change, and then pushing for his unworkable and unnecessary “job guarantee,” which entails change.

Yes, MMT is a growing problem. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocates for MMT, and she has millions of social media followers on social media. (The liars call her a “socialist” and a “communist.”)

Konrad said...

Facebook and YouTube are purging content that exposes the truth about Big Pharma’s toxic vaccines.

Soon they may have to start purging content about MMT as well.

Konrad said...

Yes the money powers are worried about MMT, and they are circling the wagons.

Jeffrey Gundlach is the founder of DoubleLine Capital LP, an investment firm. He was formerly the head of the $9.3 billion TCW Total Return Bond Fund (until he was fired).

He is a graduate of Dartmouth College where he graduated summa cum laude in math and philosophy. He attended Yale University for a Ph.D. in theoretical mathematics before dropping out. In 2012, he was included in the 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets Magazine.

Gundlach says that MMT is, “complete nonsense that’s being used to justify a massive socialist program.” He says it is “completely fallacious” that because the U.S. borrows in its own currency, it can print dollars to cover its obligations, and can’t go broke.

“This argument is ridiculous. It sounds good for a first-grader. What happens when the economy turns down?"

He blames Trump for the (non-existent) U.S. government “debt crisis.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/gundlach-takes-swipe-at-trump-for-shocking-u-s-debt-growth

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Hype does not help: MMT is toast
Comment on Bill Mitchell on ‘The conga line of MMT critics ― marching into oblivion’

After 200+ years of failure, economists still present themselves as scientists and experts. Fact is, though, that economics is NOT part of science but an integral part of the political Circus Maximus. Accordingly, by mentioning MMT in the context of her Green New Deal initiative, the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s triggered an avalanche of political/economical comments.

As Bill Mitchell observes: “The rising popularity of MMT is bringing out a lot of people from the woodwork who have ignored our work until now but who, for one reason or another, feel they have to have a stake in the game or look stupid.”

It is indeed pretty obvious that a lot of mainstream critique of MMT is just stupid.#1 This is no surprise because, by definition, one must be rather stupid to be a card-carrying mainstreamer, which means still failing to realize that standard economics is proto-scientific garbage. Therefore, Bill Mitchell is right: “And, they mostly end up looking foolish given the quality of their criticisms.”

To win an argument against a mainstreamer is easy but does by no stretch of the imagination imply that MMT itself is scientifically acceptable. What MMT has actually achieved is this: “The whole MMT journey to date has been to caution readers about the actual nature of constraints on government spending rather than the false constraints taught in economics courses around the world and wheeled out continually by self-serving politicians and lobbyists. By showing there are no intrinsic financial constraints on such spending, MMT, in no way, is advocating a carte blanche.”

This, though, is a rather trivial point. MMT has clarified a lot of silly misunderstanding and the unqualified critique of mainstreamers. MMT is clearly superior to mainstream economics because it is macrofounded. However, MMT has not answered to the scientific refutation, i.e. the proof of inconsistency#2 and its far-reaching implication.#3

• MMT’s macroeconomic foundations are unacceptable, i.e. MMT’s foundational sectoral balances equation is mathematically false, more specifically (I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M)=0 is false and (I−S)+(G−T)+(X−M)−(Q−Yd)=0 is true. This is a testable proposition.

• Because the axiomatic foundations are false, one can safely forget the rest. MMT is fake science.

• By not addressing refutation but systematically blocking it, MMTers violate scientific standards.

• On the one hand, Bill Mitchell claims: “MMT is not about political theory or praxis.” On the other hand, MMTers present themselves as Progressives and criticize the genuine left-wing parties and movements for having swallowed Neoliberalism.#4

• As a matter of fact, MMT is political agenda pushing in a scientific bluff package.

• Because of the macroeconomic Profit Law, i.e. Public Deficit = Private Profit, the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation is NOT for the benefit of WeThePeople but of the Oligarchy.#5 MMT is just another political fraud.

In the final analysis, MMTers are either stupid or corrupt ― just like mainstream economists. This turns every discussion between the two political sects into an absurd proto-scientific performance.#6

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Paul’s and Stephanie’s economic delirium talk
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/03/pauls-and-stephanies-economic-delirium.html

#2 The final implosion of MMT
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-final-implosion-of-mmt.html

#3 MMT for beginners
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/mmt-for-beginners.html

#4 MMT Progressives: stupid or corrupt or both?
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/08/mmt-progressives-stupid-or-corrupt-or.html

#5 Very busy these days: Wall Street’s agents
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2018/10/very-busy-these-days-wall-streets-agents.html

#6 The clock runs down on economics
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-clock-runs-down-on-economics.html

Noah Way said...

Don't feed the troll. There is no profit (law) in it.

Brian Romanchuk said...

Need to add in this atrocious survey: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/modern-monetary-theory

Noah Way said...

Is that a mental retardation forum?

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Links on Mario Seccareccia/Marc Lavoie’s ‘Sir John and Maynard Would Have Rejected the IS-LM Framework for Conducting Macroeconomic Analysis’

Keynes messed up macroeconomics. IS-LM is proto-scientific garbage for 80+ years. For details see

How Keynes got macro wrong and Allais got it right
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2016/09/how-keynes-got-macro-wrong-and-allais.html

Dear idiots, time to get saving and investment straight
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/03/dear-idiots-time-to-get-saving-and.html

Mr. Keynes, Prof. Krugman, IS-LM, and the End of Economics as We Know It
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2392856

Getting out of IS-LM = Getting out of despair
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2016/06/getting-out-of-is-lm-getting-out-of.html

Where modern macroeconomics went wrong
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/09/where-modern-macroeconomics-went-wrong.html

John Hicks, fake scientist
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2017/09/john-hicks-fake-scientist.html

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke