Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Joe Firestone responds to Dylan Matthews on MMT


Read it at Daily Kos | Money and Public Purpose\

WaPo Covers MMT, But Does Its Usual Bad Job: Part One, Some Basics and Solvency

WaPo Covers MMT, But does Its Usual Bad Job: Part Two, Inflation/Hyperinflation

WaPo Covers MMT, But Does Its Usual Bad Job: Part Three, Banking, and Default vs. Hyperinflation

WaPo Covers MMT, But Does Its Usual Bad Job: Part Four, The Victory

by Joe (Letsgetitdone) Firestone

7 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Joe,

had trouble with comments at Kos, hope you pick this up here...

Thanks for this critique Joe.

You know after reading your markup there at Kos Joe I'm thinking that the Dylan Matthews article although helpful to MMT in terms of general publicity.... was a real piece of shit.

Seems to have violated many rules of objective journalism and got many of the facts wrong. Provided no balance. Provided no counter arguments to opponent claims.

It is a garbage article, which the Post shouldnt be publishing such amateur/garbage articles. they could have gotten an MMT academic to consult with them on the article it they wanted to really explain the MMT position.

Piss poor.

Thanks again Joe... Resp,

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, I'm not sure that the blame lies entirely or even mostly with Dylan or Ezra. The WaPo is a conservative Establishment rag, and it is surprising that they published it all. I suspect it was written the way it was to pass the editorial censorship. What you see is the WaPo version of "fair and balanced."

Tom Hickey said...

I just added Joe's part three to parts one and two of his Daily Kos critique of Dylan Matthews' WaPo article on MMT.

Letsgetitdone said...

Thanks for covering it here, Matt and Tom, and thanks for your comments. I agree that it is a very poor piece, and I wanted to document that in detail.


Part Four, the conclusion has now gone up. It is very critical all the way through bringing in Ezra and WaPo, but ends on a positive note, pointing out that the WaPo piece concedes the solvency issue to MMT, and focuses the conflict on the consequences of economic and fiscal policy for employment, inflation, and a host of other outcomes including inequality ad democracy.

I have a piece coming up quickly on Bernstein's response to the WaPo piece too.

Ryan Harris said...

No publicity is bad publicity. The WaPo analysis wasn't perfect but there are plenty of authoritative resources around the net for anyone interested to learn more.

Dylan Matthews was yet another Harvard alum and few of their grads ever leave the limited world of NeoLiberal ideas or take intellectual risks on ideas not yet widely accepted ---like MMT -- so IMO this IS progress.

Matt Franko said...

TB, point taken wrt publicity..

But now after a few days of buzz, I feel it is time to, like Joe is doing here, start dissecting the article for accuracy/correctness and engaging the opponents at a more detailed level...

Resp,

Tom Hickey said...

Added part four of Joe's Daily Kos posts to the original post in response to Dylan Matthews on MMT.