From Ralph Musgrave:
Warren Mosler will be in the UK in mid April and I'm organising a
small gathering where he'll be the star attraction. Details as follows.
It's a small gathering: about 20 people. The purpose is
partly so that anyone who wants can come along and have a chat with
Warren. He'll also do a short speech.
Venue: Milton Keynes Conference Centre (Strudwick Drive) Discovery
Suite 2. It's 13th April, 5-8pm. Ticket price (£27.57) includes tea
at around 5pm and a light supper around 7-8pm.
Tickets can be purchased here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/audience-with-warren-mosler-tickets-23899462937
I supppose this means i am going to have to be polite to Ralph now!
ReplyDeleteMilton Keynes? What kind of joke is that? Of all the places, why choose Milton Keynes? It's not as if Warren Mosler has always wanted to see the delights of Milton Keynes.
ReplyDeleteAndy, I'm pretty offensive sometimes, so I can't complain if I get kicked in the whatsits in return...:-)
ReplyDeleteJohn, Reason for Maynard Friedman - I mean Milton Keynes - is that Warren is in the Northamptonshire area earlier that day (I imagine placing orders for Cosworth engines for his gas guzzling racing cars or something like that). Plus he needs to get back to Stansted (where he is staying) later that evening ready for an early flight to Italy next day. And Milton Keynes is sort of between the two.
However I take your point. Next time I'll ask the Queen if we can borrow Buckingham Palace for the day.
MK suits me anyway, easier than going up to Sheffield to see Randy, or more to the point getting home after as had to go to work the next morning (mission that was!)
ReplyDeleteWhere on earth did you get the 7 pence from Ralph? Odd cost to say the least!
Andy/ Ralph I can't make it.
ReplyDeleteCan you speak to him about the idea of coming to the Fringe in Edinburgh next year with Bill and Wray to promote their books.
I'm willing to organise it in a big venue if they are up for it.
I'm also have the contacts in the media to promote it.
See what he says ?
Ralph,
ReplyDeleteIsn't the name a myth? Anyway, as a hardcore republican I'd refuse to enter that tasteless monstrosity. The more architecturally delightful Palace of Westminster (or Cromwell House, as I like to call it) would be more agreeable. Warren could have testified before the Treasury Committee and kick some sense into these damn fools and silly asses, especially that idiot Austrian Steve Baker MP.
Although it was brave of Baker to stand before an empty chamber at the House of Commons and ask an empty chamber whether it was a good idea for the money supply to be controlled by commercial banks. Nobody in the empty chamber said anything because it was empty, thus proving how scared MPs are of the issue.
What now, the Amazing Randy is going to be in Sheffield? Oh for crying out loud, this is just more of the anti-south discrimination we've had to put up with for decades!
Mike if those 3 are up for it to come to the Fringe next year you should try and come to Edinburgh as well.
ReplyDeleteIf they agree I already have ideas how to market it around Scottish Independence.
Will do Foot.
ReplyDeleteJohn sorry no you missed Randy that was back in September 14 at Sheffield.
Great, good for UK and Mosler.
ReplyDeleteScott Adams (Dilbert creator) is running a blog where he analyses Donald Trump, he was talking about government debt being a problem in today's blog post. I pushed a little MMT in comments there with a link to 7DIF, he asked me if printing money was a solution to debt problem. He seems like a smart guy, I think he'll figure it out.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/141605245101/whos-afraid-of-donald-trump
Well done, Kristjan (Thomas). Scott Adams seems to be economically clueless, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteYes well done.
ReplyDeleteIt continually amazes me how smart people can fail to get that a currency issuer would ever need to get its own currency from others less it chooses to become obligated in a currency that it doesn't issue. If that is not obvious, I don't know what is.
Looks like Scott Adams is another financial moron even though he is a very smart guy in many other respects. Seems to be endemic.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteRe the 7p, the reason (or lack of it) was that I needed £25 to cover costs, and the ticketing system charges about 10% over and above: bringing the total up to about £27.50.
Footsoldier,
If you’ve got contacts in the media, can you persuade them to publicise the 13th April do? At the moment, it looks like I’ll be short of customers.
John,
ReplyDeleteRe your idea that commercial banks should control the money supply, the evidence is that that’s not a brilliant idea: they were creating and lending out money like there’s no tomorrow prior to 2007/8, then the whole thing crashed, giving us 8 years of excess unemployment (though had governments been as clued up as MMTers they'd have got us out of the recession much quicker, of course).
Moreover, private money printing is subsidized by taxpayers, as I show at the link below. So called “commercial” banks are supposed to stand on their own two feet, just like garages, restaurants and so on.
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/70162/1/MPRA_paper_70162.pdf
At the moment, it looks like I’ll be short of customers.
ReplyDeleteWTF
Ralph: "Re your idea that commercial banks should control the money supply, the evidence is that that’s not a brilliant idea: they were creating and lending out money like there’s no tomorrow prior to 2007/8, then the whole thing crashed, giving us 8 years of excess unemployment."
ReplyDeleteBut nowhere in anything I wrote did I claim said that they should control the money supply! The banks are criminal enterprises who are clearly out of control.
I bought your book, but it demands more knowledge than I possess. However, I will certainly come to it in due course. The problem remains, as far as I can ascertain, that there is no such thing as "debt free money". As it stands, I am in agreement with Neil and the Amazing Randy (I'm going to have to think up a nickname for Neil) that all money is debt, by definition; and that anything else is a semantic game to get round the essential nature of money. But that is an argument for another time, after I've read you, more of the Positive Money stuff, Kotlikoff (who doesn't seem a particularly honest economist) and those who drew up the Chicago Plan.
I would say, six months or so in to MMT that I am, that the most useful way to run a banking system is the one originated here in England, then renounced, and then adopted in Germany: a banking system near monopolised by not for profit local banks and credit unions, with a hugely expanded Post Office banking system, and a CB that does not allow criminals to bank with it. That should get rid of about 99% of all financial problems, stop the worst asset price inflations, and allow people to stop living in debt peonage, to use Michael Hudson and Steve Keen's nice description.
As long as there is capitalism there is going to be banking. Ending banking would end capitalism, and there is no appetite for that for the simple reason that there is no obvious replacement that doesn't involve big tradeoffs, too.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge is to reduce friction and tradeoffs that affect the interest of the public. The problem with capitalism as economic liberalism equated with political liberalism is that the tradeoffs run against the public and the frictions mostly privilege "capital formation" aka wealth accumulation. Much of that friction is based on state capture though influence.
Public and private constitutes a system of checks and balances if organized and operated for the purpose. Giving greater power to government risks as much as endowing the private sector with excessive power without reins on the power of ownership.
There are a number of ways this can be structured to work more effectively for public purpose and also more efficiently by employing available resources.
Assuming that markets will do this automatically is naïve when institutional arrangement are determinative.
The institutional arrangements need to be redesign with a view to integrating social , political and economic liberalism, which is antithetical to neoliberal as the conflation of economic liberalism with politics and social liberalism.
But this requires knowledge and vision socially, politically and economically. Both knowledge and vision are in short supply.
Tom: "As long as there is capitalism there is going to be banking. Ending banking would end capitalism..."
ReplyDeleteEnding banking as we know it today and replacing it with a more socially useful banking (not for profit local banks and credit unions) would in fact be better for capitalism! The system we have in place today is just going to keep imploding, make life more and more unbearable and eventually collapse and take down capitalism with it or initiate revolution.
Capitalism is based on risk taking and banking and finance are involved in creating and distributing risk. As Michael Hudson says, they are not directly involved in production. Credit is about drawing income forward based on expectations and collateral as a back up.
ReplyDeleteSo-called "debt-free: money is really calling for risk free money. The incentive structure of capitalism is based on risk-reward. Reward functions as the carrot and risk is the stick. Risk disciplines investment.
I love the discussion. I wish I could get to Milton Keynes for the gathering, but that's too far from Detroit (c:
ReplyDeleteMaybe Stephanie Kelton's influence on Bernie Sanders will break through so that at some point he is willing to openly support MMT.
I love John's simple statement that "all money is debt". That's a huge clarification. Once you realize that, everything falls into place. Scott Adams can realize that government debt is money and start supporting Sanders instead of Trump, for example.
Detroit Dan: "I love John's simple statement that "all money is debt". That's a huge clarification."
ReplyDeleteI'd like to take credit, but I can't. It's the Amazing Randy's, I believe. It is such a brilliantly explanatory yet pithy statement. Just four words! It's like a law of thermodynamics. So much explanatory power and simplicity. And like the laws of thermodynamics, a whole new world awaits you because there is so much hidden depth in the beguiling and superficial simplicity.
PS. I like your hat.
Right, I had seen Randall Wray's recent column, The Value of Redemption. When did you start calling him, "Amazing Randy". Sounds like a magician or daredevil. (c:
ReplyDeleteDetroit Dan, I started doing it a month or two ago, after again watching a superb BBC documentary on the magician, sceptic and infinitely great "Amazing Randi": http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04ndsb3/storyville-20142015-8-exposed-magicians-psychics-and-frauds
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, Randall Wray is a magician, daredevil, everything in between and more. Reading Wray and the other MMTers is very much like watching James Randi debunking all the nonsense that far too many people believe. The problem now is to think of suitable superhero names for Bill Mitchell, Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton, etc!