Monday, May 24, 2021

Bill Mitchell — Don’t say its over until its over – MMT is not close to dominating the narrative

Don’t say its over until its over. There has been progress in the macroeconomics narrative since the GFC, which accelerated during the pandemic. Governments have certainly expanded fiscal deficits and taken on more debt and the usual hysteria, which many of those same governments helped to ferment in the public debate, has fallen away. Obviously, for political reasons, a government that has previously been terrorising the population about the dangers of deficits and rising debt as a cover for ideologically-driven austerity programs, has no incentive in continuing those narratives while they have been dragged into maintaining capitalism on life support. The question has been whether these narratives will return once the health emergency starts to fade a little. There is clear evidence emerging that the lessons that the pandemic has taught us are not being absorbed by the economics commentariat, who dominate the public space with their opinions. Two clear examples of this came out this week (already) in the Australian press, which replicates the sort of commentary I am increasingly seeing around the globe. Deeply sad.
What I am noticing is that much that is written about MMT or mentioning MMT is based on caricature rather than accurate description. The consequence is that "MMT" is coming to means something different from actual MMT. Much of this is deliberate disinformation coming from ideologues, while some is due to ignorance, including some of those favorably disposed to MMT as an explanatory framework based on institutional analysis of money, finance, and economics, and their structural and functional interrelation in an economy. Generally, the commentary exhibits shallow understanding about MMT. Very little is grounded in the literature, which is now abundant and widely available, much of it free to download, e.g., at Levy Institute.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Don’t say its over until its over – MMT is not close to dominating the narrative
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

21 comments:

NeilW said...

The caricature is the message.

Ultimately the story is how the mainstream maintains the narrative, and that will continue until we get a better story.

If we've learned anything over the last year or so, it's that the story is more important than the reality.

Peter Pan said...

Framing is everything. MMT has been framed.

Matt Franko said...

If we’ve learned anything over the last few months it’s that Monetarism is alive and well in 2021... it’s all you hear these days...

Matt Franko said...

“ Generally, the commentary exhibits shallow understanding about MMT.”

There is no rule in your methodology that says you have to understand the other side... I don’t know where you keep getting this...

They take their position and you take your position and you guys have it out ... like we have been seeing... this is the way it works.. it’s normal dialogic method... eventually it leads to some sort of synthesis...

Matt Franko said...

Tom where in your Socrates stuff is there a dialog where the one guy says A and the others guy says B then the A guy just says “oh...ok ...”

???? Doesn’t exist...

Matt Franko said...

Technologists might be attempting to bypass all of this idiocy with their coins.... stable coins and utility coins, etc...

Instead of trying to go into the academe and blow out the moron Art degree people from high positions of influence in economic policy head on they may be going around it.... or attempting to go around it.... creating alternative system(s)... not ideal imo...

Matt Franko said...

Like nuclear weapons as alternative to conventional warfare...

NeilW said...

"Technologists might be attempting to bypass all of this idiocy with their coins"

That's just their version of the output from an Art degree. Coins are just derivatives of fiat currencies that have to be exchanged - just like bonds and repos.

And Van Goghs.

Matt Franko said...

Neil the US banks did a survey a few years ago that Mike reported on they said they would need about 600b of reserves system wide for all settlement ... tether is already at 62b so over 10% there...and that is just the one stable coin.,

These stable coins get to 600b and forget the FRS... you just use the USD stable coins for settlement..

You do a USD stable coin backed by 100% USTs currently yielding 2% and just keep the coupons... base the coin value on the redemption price of the USTs (not available for sale) and keep any coupons for "expenses"... 600b at 2% current UST rates is 12b per year just to operate the block chains and file a few regulatory reports... not too shabby...

Could out compete the dumb Fed and Art degree glorified house fraus Pocahontas and Mad Maxine who keep trying to bankrupt their own members with their dumb reserves...




Matt Franko said...

Here tether is issuing like $1b per day:

https://twitter.com/usdcoinprinter/status/1396983129445908483?s=21

550 days to good bye Fedwire and SWIFT...

NeilW said...

That's just the Royal Bank of Scotland GBP note issue using Gilts instead of Giants, with the notes on blockchain rather than in specie.

The Gibraltar pound operates in the same way, as does Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

The problem isn't the backing. The problem is the inherent limit on the transaction speed when using distributed consensus.

Tether sits on the BTC network which has a speed of 7 transactions per second. Central Bank RTGS can do thousands of transactions per second.

Settlement competition is good, but the centralised systems will simply reduce their price and kill on transaction speed alone.



Matt Franko said...

They are not going to settle for that type of performance Neil...they will increase the transaction rates.... and then you don’t have Art degree morons regulating you who constantly are trying to bankrupt you.... or use the settlement system as a political tool or access to it as an object of coercion...

This is textbook technocracy 101...

Matt Franko said...

Always go around or just right through the morons....

Matt Franko said...

Here:

https://mondovisione.com/media-and-resources/news/tether-usdt-launches-as-first-stablecoin-on-solana-an-ultra-high-speed-layer/

“ Tether, the blockchain-enabled platform that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, and Solana, the world’s first web-scale blockchain, today announced a new initiative that will integrate Tether (USDt) into the Solana network.
According to Solana, it will be possible to exchange USDt at speeds greater than 50,000 transactions per second—often for less than $0.00001 per transaction—marking a major advance in the quest for high-speed decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. ”

It’s all over but the crying....

Matt Franko said...

Neil I’m not making this up... we are doing some small business with not to name names but who I will call let’s say “one of the nations largest retailers” and they are paying us with zip lock bags of cash for the exact invoice amount... I’m not making this up.. this is how bad the animus is between these players... they won’t even let their own people use a credit card for purchases... it is that bad...

EVERYBODY is working on their own coins...

Matt Franko said...

Coin for private jets:

https://www.startengine.com/jettoken


Etc...

sths said...

You're saying that these stable coins will replace the banking payment system? Why will the government allow that? What's to stop these annonomus defi networks to pull exit scams. You can't do that in a centralized system because it's basically semi public anyway plus you know who the players are. If it's all annonomus how will the government control it? And if they can't control it why allow it?

Matt Franko said...

Pocahontas oblivious to all of this she is still trying to kick the “banksters!” asses... uneducated glorified house frau... and left wing morons lap it up...

Matt Franko said...

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/197f52e4-127f-3396-93c8-9eb1a59ab9f1/big-bank-ceos-to-be-grilled.html

Pocahontas can’t even spell tether...

Matt Franko said...

“ What's to stop these annonomus defi networks to pull exit scams.”

That’s why you could just use 100% USTs held by regulated registered transfer agents... all you have to be is honest and you could collect all the coupons for yourself... minus expenses... make a fortune...

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