Another "No Shit" Post.
Andrei Martyanov, former USSR naval officer and expert on Russian military and naval issues
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/06/another-no-shit-post.html
The National Interest
Building a Lasting Settlement for Ukraine
Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D. in Russian history at Columbia, 25-year career in international business focused on the USSR/Russia, and author of two-volume Memoirs of a Russianist; and Nicolai N. Petro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, served as Special Assistant for Policy in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs at the U.S. Department of State during the collapse of the Soviet Union. U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Ukraine in 2013-2014, and the author of the forthcoming The Tragedy of Ukraine.
Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D. in Russian history at Columbia, 25-year career in international business focused on the USSR/Russia, and author of two-volume Memoirs of a Russianist; and Nicolai N. Petro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, served as Special Assistant for Policy in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs at the U.S. Department of State during the collapse of the Soviet Union. U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Ukraine in 2013-2014, and the author of the forthcoming The Tragedy of Ukraine.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/building-lasting-settlement-ukraine-202920
Antiwar
Did Obama Know ‘Russian Hacking’ Was a Fraud?
Ray McGovern, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and retired 27-year career CIA whose tasks included preparing and briefing The President’s Daily Brief and leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Saudis Sign Military Cooperation Agreement With Russia (MBS pokes Uncle Sam in the eye)
Did Obama Know ‘Russian Hacking’ Was a Fraud?
Ray McGovern, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and retired 27-year career CIA whose tasks included preparing and briefing The President’s Daily Brief and leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch
Covert Action Magazine
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/06/10/how-monsters-who-had-beaten-jews-to-death-with-hammers-in-1944-became-americas-favorite-freedom-fighters-in-1945-with-a-little-help-from-their-friends-at-cia/
Saudis Sign Military Cooperation Agreement With Russia (MBS pokes Uncle Sam in the eye)
Mike McRae
https://www.sciencealert.com/japan-s-dropping-a-kaiju-sized-turbine-into-the-ocean-to-fish-for-limitless-energy
1. If a bear prints money in the woods, and no price setters are around to notice, does it cause inflation ?
ReplyDelete2. If you give a $ billion to Elon Musk and a $ billion to the Mississippi public schools free lunch programme, will they have the same impact on the price of milk?
3. If a gangster gets a $ billion bank loan to build a casino, is it less real resource intensive than the government building that casino ?
The answer to all 3 questions are unsurprisingly no.
Theories that ascribe all inflationary pressures to monetary phenomena may be seductive in their simplicity , but all they are peddling at the end of the day is the false hope of misplaced certainty.
There are either supply side constraints or there are no supply side constraints. With the high prices demand is being rationed or it is being rationed.
QT or government spending ? If you believe QT increases bank landing.
Both can be inflationary in this environment as all different types of spending can be inflationary even tax cuts.
What's more effective?
The power of the purse. A war economy, sending the keystrokes into battle where they are needed and that is where the bottle necks are in the system.
Bank lending is weak in comparison. Way too slow and always looking for a profit. Leaves the battlefield if a profit can't be found.
It is a battle between the price setters and the rest who can't set prices.
ReplyDeleteBecause all of the power has been handed to the price setters over the last 50 years there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Why those who handed over all the power in the first place thinks the only solution is to destroy the economy and make workers unemployed.
Plus the only way to prick the asset bubbles in the stock market and other markets.
Rather than set the rate to zero that allows you to see where the inflation is coming from and using the power of the purse to ease the bottle necks.
When the unions had too much power in the 70's the ruling class destroyed them. Now that price setters have too much power what will happen afterwards?
Given Royal titles and business awards and placed on government advisory groups. Rolled out as experts and frame the narratives in a few years time and morphed into a face of trust.
When the rent seekers saw those lovely, juicey, beautiful, huge budget deficits.
ReplyDeleteFirst thing that crossed their minds was - That's mine.
They stole it under the blanket of inflation.
Exact same process happened right after the Brexit vote. The price setters increased their prices under the blanket of the falling £.
Nobody can stop them manipulating prices and they'll do it under any blanket they can find.
The way the system has been set up the only thing that stops the manipulation are disposable incomes.
ReplyDeleteThat's where the government steps in and tops them up via an increase in the minimum wage, tax cuts, benefits.
Rinse and Repeat.
Sunday Funnies c/o Robert Malone - Substack
ReplyDeletehttps://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/sunday-funnies-169?s=r
Lumber went to $1600 now it’s $550…
ReplyDelete"Lumber went to $1600 now it’s $550…"
ReplyDeleteMortgage applications down 40%. The portion of disposable income relative to house prices is higher than the housing bubble.
This is the part of the Netflix series where interest rate risk starts evolving into credit risk.
What are the chances they will be back at 0% rates within 2 years ?
The republicans when they get the keys for the nut house. Will use this oppertunity to push through changes in how much discretion the Fed has over interest rates ?
Push through their ideology of money neutrality ?
Who is going to save the US one party nation state for the umpteenth time ?
ReplyDeletehttps://d3fy651gv2fhd3.cloudfront.net/charts/china-manufacturing-pmi@2x.png?s=chinamanpmi&lbl=0&v=202206010317V20220312&url2=/united-states/stock-market
Those Damn godless commies
:)
GOP will fire the ESG climate nutters that Biden put in the regulatory political appointee positions…
ReplyDeleteIncrease domestic production of oil and gas then the Art Degree people will see their figure of speech “inflation!” reduce and we’ll be headed back to normal..,
Society of Spectacle - The Chris Hedges Report - Substack
ReplyDeletehttps://chrishedges.substack.com/p/society-of-spectacle?s=r
This is what commodity traders think
ReplyDeletehttps://mobile.twitter.com/chigrl/status/1536097837402013698?cxt=HHwWhIC-qYa2qNEqAAAA
MMT very rapidly losing the Twitter debate.
Everyone else is wading in
ReplyDeletehttps://mobile.twitter.com/wbmosler/status/1535782999874506752?cxt=HHwWgMDU-YugmdAqAAAA
I must admit I do like one of the replies..
" You should have made the theory more prescriptive and not just descriptive"
I always hated the MMT lens idea. Hated it from the get go and let Bill know it.
Looks like MMT is losing the social media debate bigly. So we have probably seen peak MMT.
" We tried MMT just look at the inflation it caused but we learned a little bit but time to move on "
As they absorb MMT into the Blob. Job done no real change business as usual.
It’s still an anti thesis to the monetarist thesis…
ReplyDeleteMontetarism takes a lot less brain work to agree with…
So it’s still winning the dialogue …
How the inflation albatross sank MMT. A novel by Moby Dick.
ReplyDelete"Looks like MMT is losing the social media debate bigly."
ReplyDeleteWe've seen peak Modern Donkey Theory - MMT with the awkward bits de-emphasised to fit in with the sensibilities of the US Democratic Party.
That was the mistake, not the lens. Pandering to people who think they can spend like there is no tomorrow.
Looks like MMT is losing the social media debate bigly
ReplyDeleteMakes my point about first they ignore you, then ridicule you, then fight you, and then you win.
A whole lot of people are talking about MMT now and "MMT" is becoming a meme, with opponents trying to control the meme to make MMT looks bad.
Becoming a hot topic related to a hot button issue (inflation) is actually progress.
Of course, opponents are going to appear to "win" the debate when they frame the debate to their advantage. This presents the opportunity to present the rebuttal.
This is an instance of the next step in closing the last mile.
While I agree with Neil's point about politicization, it's inevitable in the US where everything is politicized. This is just the nature of discourse here. Even conventional economists, who advertise themselves as scientists, line up politically and are identified as such. Remember that Warren's first popular audience was the Tea Party.
It's a cultural thing. Memes are cultural artifacts and many memes are political or politically charged.
BTW, it is not necessary for the US to be the leader in bringing MMT into use as a policy tool. In fact, I suspect that other countries will lead the way and the US will follow down the line because it is just recognizing reality.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the monetary arrangements change, so will MMT in that it will describe the new arrangements accurately and show what they imply.
Why I wanted Putin to play hard ball and break up the Eurozone.
ReplyDeleteGeopolitics decides how things are run.
If countries remain colonies of superpowers nothing will change. They have the theory they all adore to colonies countries. They are not going to be in a hurry to change it.
The one topic that may have captured attention among ordinary people was the job guarantee.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of fiscal policy space, MMT will remain invisible to 99% of the population. They can't be bothered to learn the details. They are somewhat aware that government spending is controlled by special interests. Thus, the priorities are what they are. Zilch to do with economics.
Too few people care about inflation for it to be a meme. MMT prescriptions will be branded as inflationary and that will be the final nail in the coffin. The people will accept the narrative from the experts, as presented by the MSM in its unbiased glory.
Here's your exit meme:
Five bucks for a gallon of gas? Thank-you Brandon, thank-you MMT.
So obviously, Dems are on their way out.
Partisanship is at record levels, and is being stoked towards civil war.
The US Empire is in its death throes, and taking allies down with it.
And last but not least, environmental crises aren't waiting for MMT scholars to get their act together.
Time to turn the page, gentlemen.
p.s. At least Mike and his team have translated the knowledge into a source of income. Lets count that as a win.
Why I wanted Putin to play hard ball and break up the Eurozone.
ReplyDeleteHe may still do so.
The EU and NATO are already fracturing, which was the Russian intention, whereas Russian opinion in rock solid behind the government (not just Putin), contrary to what the West expected.
ReplyDeleteThis was predictable since the foundations of the EU, EZ, and NATO are built on sand. It assumes European unity where this is more a hope than a reality, especially since the EU and NATO have been expanding without considering the potential consequences. Apparently strength is becoming real weakness.