The unconventional plan would eliminate unemployment in Australia, says US economist Stephanie Kelton….
Stephanie Kelton will be one of three keynote speakers at Future to Fight For: Rethinking Our Economy in Sydney (17 November), Melbourne (20 November) and Brisbane (21 November).
SBS News
A radical plan to give every Australian a job who wants one is gaining momentum
Rosemary Bolger
10 comments:
I don't see a single mention of Bill Mitchell. Stephanie should have emphasized Bill Mitchell's role in MMT as well as his contributions to the Job Guarantee,
I thought to retweet this, but it is always "own goals" on the framing! "Radical Plan" = already a loss with Australian voters - the headline shoots the idea down before it can even be realistically considered. Imagine this: "Radical Plan - unaccountable Hedge Funds are going to take over businesses they know nothing about, raid the savings and pensions, fire everyone, declare bankruptcy, then ask the gov for a bailout, while awarding their executives 20$ Million Dollar salaries!".
Let's try that for a headline!
And "New common sense rules will employ willing workers to contribute to useful projects around the country. Get ready for clean parks and families with living wages. Good Times Ahead!"
We are ALWAYS losing on the framing. I am working on something on this. But it just can't go on like this, or good policy will never be carried out. That is one of the reasons I say it is worth the fight to get Overt Monetary Financing to be the norm, so media can't blather about debt. Let them talk about annuities if they want - the public will yawn to death and we can get real public policies enacted.
Framing. We are still losing, massively.
The words "radical plan" that is
Clint,
The fact of adopting overt monetary financing won't make as big a difference a you suggest: reason is that instead of the "media blathering on about debt", they'll blather on about excess money creation leading to excess inflation. And assuming the economy is at or near capacity, they could be right, though that depends on the exact nature of the JG system. I.e. if the pay was miserable and almost no materials or capital equipment was bought in (with the result that the work concerned was highly unproductive), then JG would not be too inflationary, or might not be inflationary at all.
@Clint Ballinger:
I agree with your point about framing. I myself have a problem with terms like “job guarantee.” If a government wants to create jobs, the government can do it. However we cripple such programs when we add a term like “guarantee.” The 1930s New Deal work programs would have derailed themselves if they had included the word “guarantee.”
When an employer hires someone, the employer agrees to pay a certain wage for certain work. The situation becomes untenable if the employer “guarantees” a job to the new hire. How would this "guarantee" function if the new hire never comes to work?
The “job” guarantee is an aspect of MMT that I have never liked, since the "guarantee" part seems unworkable and unnecessary. Also, it implies that people can’t be happy unless they toil, usually for the rich.
Meanwhile, in order to excite and motivate the herd, we use expressions like “radical new plan.” But, as you noted above, “radical” can be used in different ways.
Moreover “radical” frightens the peasants, since “radical” implies change. The peasants say they want change, but in reality they worry that change could cause them to fall even lower on the social ladder.
For example, Wall Street banks are financially raping the City of Los Angeles, but when city voters were offered a chance to escape Wall Street tyranny by creating a public bank, they voted it down (6 Nov 2018). The banking cartels warned the peasants that if they had a public bank, and financial freedom, the sky would fall and the earth would be destroyed. The peasants bought it, since most peasants fear change. They fear the new and the unknown. Indeed, the worse their suffering becomes, the more they fear change, even if change means relief from suffering.
So let’s be careful about the terms we use, and the framing we create.
they'll blather on about excess money creation leading to excess inflation. Ralph Musgrave
Yes, and let's not forget that the current banking model was designed/evolved for scarce, expensive fiat, i.e. for the Gold Standard, not for inexpensive (as it should be) fiat.
Thus the current banking model is likely to cause price inflation that deficit spending will be blamed for.
Then what good will the MMT folks have done other than set back true reform?
Ralph, their wont be inflation, so nothing to talk about 😊
Konrad, 100% agree. Elr is better. Must be a better way to frame. National service basically is the idea. It needs work
There
Ralph,.on your later comment, agreed. Inflation limits public spending but is significantly caused by credit money. It is insane to insure banks, but not nationalize them. Especially when we know.accounting matters. Accounting 101, if you are liable for it, it is on your balance sheet. We are liable.for private banks, but let a few hyper rich benefit. Insanity
Konrad:If a government wants to create jobs, the government can do it. However we cripple such programs when we add a term like “guarantee.” The 1930s New Deal work programs would have derailed themselves if they had included the word “guarantee.”
No, a guaranteed job is what Roosevelt & the New Dealers wanted and proposed. Although the majority of people surely supported it, especially in the face of the Great Depression, they didn't have the political power to enact it in the face of enormous and fanatical opposition from the wealthy and from politicians in both parties.
When an employer hires someone, the employer agrees to pay a certain wage for certain work. The situation becomes untenable if the employer “guarantees” a job to the new hire. How would this "guarantee" function if the new hire never comes to work?
That is not what the "guarantee" means here. If the new hire never comes to work, he has shown he is not interested in the job. So he doesn't get paid. No job. The situation is not untenable. What is guaranteed is that if someone is ready, willing and able to work, there is a decent job. The government always has a "help wanted" sign hanging out. That's all.
The “job” guarantee is an aspect of MMT that I have never liked, since the "guarantee" part seems unworkable and unnecessary.
No, it is the most necessary part of MMT. What is unworkable is the truly weird idea of running a society with unemployment, without a job guarantee. Now I'm the most fanatical supporter of the JG out there. But I wasn't when I started learning MMT and had similar thoughts.
Also, it implies that people can’t be happy unless they toil, usually for the rich.
It doesn't imply anything like that. It is a consequence of the idea that adults should be allowed to choose what they do, especially when it is beneficial to both society and themselves.
A JG would be people toiling for themselves, not the rich. That is why the rich have always hated the right to work above all. It takes their power of sabotaging lives, societies and economies away.
Opposing a Job Guarantee means that somebody else (the government, society) has the right to impose impossible tasks on individuals, to impose debts on them that they cannot pay and that they must incur to live in a real world monetary economy. Why? Doesn't this sound crazy?
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