Pages

Pages

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Bill Mitchell — The last thing policy makers should be thinking about right now is creating a recession

There was an informative article in the UK Guardian over the week (January 13, 2022) – Australia’s supply chain issues likely to continue despite drop in Covid cases – which documented the many ways in which the pandemic has led to difficulties in getting goods supplied to retail outlets or their destination (in the case of overseas mail deliveries). The majority of recent articles about the economy and policy options have erred on the side of the need for interest rate hikes and fiscal policy cutbacks, which assume the rising inflation rates around the world are the demand-side events. But it is obvious to anyone other than private bank economists who are lobbying for interest rate rises to increase the profits for their banks, or, mainstream economists, who oppose central bank bond-buying and fiscal deficits, that the cause of the problems at present is not being driven by an explosion of nominal spending – neither from the non-government sector or through fiscal policy. Here is some more evidence to support that conclusion.…

"Q" (supply) rather than "M" (demand) in monetarist terms. Even they should be able to figure this out. But monetarism is a one-trick pony.

Bill gives us the blow-by-blow of how goods supply is taking a hit.

One important factor that goes unmentioned is the role of stimulus in supporting debt repayment. Without the stimulus it is likely that a lot more economic turmoil would have resulted from non-performing loans. This is especially significant in economies that are heavily dependent on debt-financing, like the highly financialized US is.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The last thing policy makers should be thinking about right now is creating a recession
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=49216

Still time to enroll in the current MMT course.

3 comments:

  1. Fed is under orders from Biden to do whatever they need to do to stop “inflation”….

    “inflation “ is VERY politically unpopular…

    Democrats think getting rid of inflation is more important than unemployment this election year…

    ReplyDelete
  2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-16/biden-s-job-on-inflation-found-lacking-by-majority-in-cbs-poll

    “Few think Biden and fellow Democrats are focused on the right things, overall, either,” CBS said in a summary of the poll. “When we ask people what could change their opinion about Biden, the answers center on inflation, not legislation.”

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Get rid of Biden, get rid of inflation."

    Works for me.

    ReplyDelete