Friday, July 17, 2020

Mark Blyth interviews Stephenie Kelton - Do Deficits Matter (MMT Explained)

Last year Mark Blyth said that MMT can only work for the US because it held the reserve currency, and he even then it might negatively effect other economies, he added. But recently he has become a staunch advocate for MMT, so you wonder that if he can change his mind, then what about all the other economists who criticise MMT?

Stephanie Kelton believes conservatives may favour the Job Guarantee more when they find out that it will be local government that will manage the system. When you think it will be putting people to work, this has got to be a good selling point too.

This wouldn't work in my browser, so I had to use Soundcloud.

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Mark Blyth interviews Stephenie Kelton - Do Deficits Matter (MMT Explained)

6 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

Can't see why the fact of local government running JG is any sort of a clincher argument for JG. JG could perfectly well be funded AND RUN by some CENTRAL government organisation with branches in every state and city.

Peter Pan said...

Local government running a JG, while the national government continues to do nothing for the people, is a possibility. In that case, municipal or county currencies need to be created.

Kaivey said...

I tend to agree.

NeilW said...

"Can't see why the fact of local government running JG is any sort of a clincher argument for JG."

Variably implementation generally. The central entity buys the labour and gives it to the local government to deploy.

If that local government is a hippy-ville Brighton style green government they may discard most of the labour.

If it's traditional Labour party territory they would use it within the local council.

If it's Tory or Liberal they may farm it out to churches or social enterprises.

It boils down to the notion that "what are they going to do" requires an answer to the question "what would you like them to do that represents a fair exchange?". And that varies over a nation.



NeilW said...

"In that case, municipal or county currencies need to be created."

In that case you likely no longer have a country, and the country should be split up into new nations.

Peter Pan said...

If Annapolis County (where I reside) decides to implement a JG, I'll gladly vote to secede from the rest of Nova Scotia. It is possible however, that other counties may want to try it for themselves. I would expect the provincial government to be the last to follow.