Monday, July 27, 2020

Bill Mitchell — Inequality and poverty not just an indigenous problem

On Saturday (July 25, 2020), The Australian published another Op Ed that I wrote in collaboration with Noel Pearson. I understand that many people (mostly abroad) were unable to access the article (as a result of paywall restrictions on certain devices). I am unable to post the final article due to copyright restrictions but I can provide the draft article which was not too different from the final version. It also seems that the faux-progressives have somehow decided that our partnership (Noel and I) symbolises how Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the Job Guarantee is actually some sort of far right plot to rid the world of welfare support for the disadvantaged and enslave them in onerous Gulag work camps. It is quite amusing really but worrying at the same time. Our partnership is confusing people who cannot cope with nuance and complexity. The so-called Left have characterised Noel as being somehow on the Right, which leads them to conclude that I am selling out on my progressive credentials by working with him. Conversely, the Right, who think Noel is one of them, are accusing him of being used by a Communist (me). Hilarious. If only they knew!
I view a lot of MMT criticism that I don't link to here since it is pretty awful. It is apparent that people cannot see plainly what is right before their eyes but rather are looking through the lenses of the "glasses" thye are wearing, the "glasses" being their ideology along with their cognitive-affective biases. Pretty weird sometimes, as Bill points out above. But that is not just MMT, and it's a reason that politics is so divisive in the US at present, with the different sides living in different perceived realities.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Inequality and poverty not just an indigenous problem
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

3 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

It is apparent that people cannot see plainly what is right before their eyes ... Tom Hickey

It seems you're the one with vision problems in that you support INCREASED privileges for the banks (and by extension for the rich, the most so-called "credit worthy") and wage-slavery for their victims - MMT in a nutshell.

You should remember, Tom, that Progressives and FDR were likewise fooled by bankers in the 1930's; e.g. providing government guarantees for privately created bank deposits/liabilities for fiat instead of expanding the Postal Savings Service.

Now we're held hostage by a government privileged usury cartel and Progressives are largely to blame.

Matt Franko said...

“ Progressives and FDR were likewise fooled by bankers in the 1930's; ”

LOL! The Fed was increasing bank reserves all throughout the 1930s and bankrupting all the banks idiot...

Same thing they just did in 1Q with their dumb “banks lend the reserves!” sophomoric policy...

Didn’t stop until Treasury started increased issuance of Treasury bonds at start of warfare in the 1940s and reduced the Bank reserves...

Oh yeah those genius bankers really got one over on the nation back in the 1930s!

The 1930s is called “the Great Depression” idiot...

AXEC / E.K-H said...

The problem with MMT is NOT inflation but DISTRIBUTION. The claim that the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation is good for WeThePeople is false. Because of the Profit Law, i.e. Public Deficit = Private Profit, the public debt of WeThePeople is roughly equal to the financial assets of the Oligarchy. This is as mad a distribution as it can get.

By relentlessly pushing MMT, nobody worked harder for inequality and against the interests of WeThePeople than Bill Mitchell.

For more on Profit/Distribution/Inequality see cross-references
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2015/03/profit-cross-references.html

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke