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Thursday, July 9, 2020

Bill Mitchell - The Job Guarantee. MMT Episode 6

So, mainstream economists were all for more efficiency, eg, getting the trains running on time, but it put millions out of work and so the country become inefficient instead.

With more unemployed, the government collects less taxes which means it needs to increase taxes on everyone else.

More social programs are needed too, plus police & prisons when many of the destitute turn to drugs and crime. And more healthcare needed as poverty increases illness and stress.

Is there a better way?


Bill Mitchell - The Job Guarantee. MMT Episode 6



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6 comments:

  1. Peter PanJuly 9, 2020 at 1:18 PM

    This is what you get when you ignore externalities and embrace bad priorities.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andrew AndersonJuly 9, 2020 at 2:37 PM

    Actually, the problem isn't efficiency but an economic system that does not justly share productivity gains.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matt FrankoJuly 9, 2020 at 9:42 PM

    Yeah we need more prisons for sure....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ralph MusgraveJuly 10, 2020 at 1:15 AM

    Bill says "If a person thinks the Job Guarantee is an unnecessary add-on to MMT, then they haven’t understood the basics of MMT. It is as simple as that."

    Conflation of two separate issues there: 1, the question as to whether JG is necessary, and 2, whether it is an "add on", i.e. essentially separate from the monetary aspects of MMT.

    Warren Mosler said the two are separate, and I agree: i.e. it is perfectly possible to have JG without the rest of MMT and vice versa. E.g. they had a form of JG in the 1930s (the WPA) without the rest of MMT.

    ReplyDelete
  5. NeilWJuly 10, 2020 at 8:18 AM

    "Warren Mosler said the two are separate"

    He didn't did he. The transition job is a central part of Warren's analysis. It's what sets the one price that everything else prices against. It provides income for people and a credible threat to private sector price hikers by setting that price.

    It's only MMT with a Job Guarantee

    ReplyDelete
  6. NeilWJuly 10, 2020 at 8:22 AM

    "This ELR proposal is a logical extension of Keynesian and Post- Keynesian thought. Endogenous money is already deeply rooted, and the idea that an incomes policy need only be practiced by the government with its ELR wage should not pose any philosophical barriers. Nor should classical economists and their offspring be entirely against such an ELR program. If they are correct, there would eventually be an equilibrium condition with the ELR pool dwindling to 0."

    http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/full-employment-and-price-stability/

    From 1997.

    ReplyDelete