Finding the Money, a new film by Maren Poitras, follows economist Stephanie Kelton, research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, on an exploration of Modern Monetary Theory—the heterodox economic policy model that reframes our understanding of government funding, spending, and national debt. “An alternative story of money will revolutionize our conception of what we as a society believe we can afford and can achieve,” says the filmmaker. Bard economists featured in the film include economics professors and Levy scholars Pavlina R. Tcherneva and L. Randall Wray, and Levy research associates Mathew Forstater and Fadhel Kaboub. This past weekend, Finding the Money had its world premiere at the 2023 Woodstock Film Festival with Kelton, Wray, Tcherneva, and Forstater all in attendance.Bard
Finding the Money: New Documentary on the Paradigm-Shifting Modern Monetary Theory Features Levy Scholar Stephanie Kelton and Bard Economists
Meanwhile, Matt Gaetz is running around telling everyone the country is $33T in debt and broke. MMT scholars have made zero inroads into policy.
ReplyDeleteAnd 99.9% of people believe the Gaetz thesis..,
ReplyDeleteAnd AOC, who is MMT aware, says nary a tweet.
ReplyDelete"Matt Gaetz is running around telling everyone the country is $33T in debt and broke. MMT scholars have made zero inroads into policy."
ReplyDeleteEveryone in Washington knows that this is a lie. It is a political weapon that conservatives use against the Uniparty mob.
If the situation was reversed, and conservatives ruled Washington, then the woke Uniparty would use the same lie to claim that there is “no money” for whatever conservatives wanted.
Such lies are necessary to offset mob hysteria. For example, the mania is so fierce for giving endless billions to “Ukraine” that only the “US government is broke” lie has any chance of tampering the mania.
Conservatives likewise use lies as political weapons, e.g. the “China threat.”
Politics consists of a mass of weaponized lies or narratives -- e.g. we must support Ukraine’s dictator in order to “promote democracy.”
We must exterminate people in order to promote “human rights.”
We must destroy small and medium-sized farmers (and thereby boost the power and profits of agricultural monopolies) in order to fight “climate change.”
Countries enslaved by creditor oligarchs are “democracies,” while actual democracies are “autocracies.”
Healthy types of fat are “deadly.” Sugar and toxic seed oils are “healthy.”
The “gold standard” was also a lie. A gimmick. It too was a weapon that politicians used when they wanted to falsely claim that there was “no money” for something. Politicians dropped the “gold standard” lie any time they wanted to create oceans of money -- e.g. during the world wars.
Many philosophers have doubted that politicians can ever be fully truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. Plato in his Republic saw that the public is a herd of sheep. The peasants are a fickle mob, shifting this way and that like a school of fish. Plato advocated for the use of the “noble lie” -- i.e. a myth propagated by an elite to manage the mob and maintain social harmony. Of course, all societies consist of weaponized lies, and whoever uses the lies for personal gain considers the lies to be “noble.”
The fact is that few people want truth. Most people want fairy tales. They want narratives that make them feel righteous, and reduce their anxiety.
The real problem is when lies threaten everyone on all sides. For example the UK government has raised the pension age twice in the last five years, using the lie that the UK government is “broke.” Now a bureaucrat named David Frost (aka Baron Frost, aka Lord Frost) wants to raise the pension age again, this time to 75 in a bid to “reduce public spending.”
This is absurd. Most of us can’t work past 65, and certainly not past 70.
Some lies are necessary, because the public is a mob. Other lies are too destructive to let stand. Eventually all societies are destroyed by their own lies.
The gap becomes so wide between their narratives and their realities that society becomes unsustainable. Since most people would literally rather die that stop believing their fairy tales, the game ends. Society collapses.
BAM! Matt Gaetz Ends McCarthy! - The Jimmy Dore Show
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/fFFEM0wEIV0
re. what The Squad could've done during 'force the vote' back in 2020
“Matt Gaetz ends McCarthy.”
ReplyDeleteThe entire Republican establishment, including everyone on Faux News, is enraged by the ousting of McCarthy. They are screaming at each other in frustration.
Shame on Matt Gaetz for having a backbone and integrity, and for doing exactly what he said he would do if McCarthy tried to burn America.
Establishment Republicans are furious. They are telling MAGA Republicans that when the MAGAs run for re-election, they will get no money from the Republican National Committee. MAGA Republicans don’t care, since the RNC already denies them all monies, and already does everything possible to sabotage them.
The Republican Governance Group is a corrupt caucus of the corrupt establishment Republicans. They are talking about expelling Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) because she voted to oust McCarthy. Mace doesn’t care. She knew they hated her anyway, and she’s not even MAGA.
The Republican establishment is also furious with their buddies, the Democrats, who had promised to provide enough votes to save McCarthy. This was why McCarthy thought he was untouchable. When it came down to the crunch, the Democrats burned him. Ha, ha, ha!
Therefore McCarthy sought revenge against the Democrats. His ally, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) became the acting temporary Speaker. While Nancy Pelosi was in California, McHenry changed the locks on the doors of Pelosi’s special office in the US Capitol building, and the office of her deputy, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Their belongings were put into boxes. Those two Democrats were booted out of the US Capitol building, and now they must move into one of the buildings where the rest of the Representatives have their offices (either Canon Bldg. or Longworth Bldg or Rayburn Bldg.)
It gets better…
Corrupt establishment Republicans have long been allied with Corrupt Democrats, but now there is a feud between them. The corrupt Uniparty has fractured. The “Problem Solvers Caucus” has 63 members, of which 31 are establishment RINO Republicans. They are threatening to leave the caucus and dissolve it because of Democrats’ betrayal of McCarthy.
It gets better still…
Establishment Republicans want to expel Matt Gaetz from Congress. They are using the House Ethics Committee to try and “MeToo” Gaetz, or destroy him any way they can -- but they need a two-thirds House vote, which means they will need most Democrats to vote to expel Gaetz. Establishment Republicans can no longer rely on Democrats, who may agree to attack Gaetz, and then do an about-face like they did with McCarthy. Ha, ha, ha!
What about “primary-ing” Gaetz -- i.e. supporting a challenger when Gaetz goes for re-election? No, that won’t work. Gaetz is too popular in his district.
Gaetz had considered all of this before he made his move. He has proven to be a master politician, which is why the Republican establishment hates him. Even worse, Gaetz has moral integrity. He is not corrupt. He does not hate the citizenry. This is unforgiveable!
Trump himself does not fully understand what’s happening in all this. He’s never been very bright. Maybe he’s distracted by the endless indictments.
Meanwhile Democrats in blue states like New York are so furious with the migrant invasion that Biden’s handlers are finally starting to close the border. Or at least they are pretending to.
WHAT ALL THIS MEANS is that average Americans on all sides are fed up with business-as-usual, and with the permanent political class, and with the Uniparty, which consists of establishment Republicans and all Democrats.
At the moment there is a lull in the storm, but the Continuing Resolution will expire on 17 Nov 2023, at which point we will be right back to Square One with the funding fight.
Grab your popcorn and mark your calendar, because the fur is going to fly.
Jimmy Dore points out something that I didn’t realize. Ultra-corrupt establishment Republicans wouldn’t let Gaetz speak, so the Democrats gave Gaetz time to speak, just to mess with the Republicans for fun.
ReplyDeleteAs a result, Gaetz played the entire Washington swamp. He out-maneuvered both establishment Republicans and Democrats. Gaetz has stirred up the hive and fractured the Uniparty. He is standing against the entire mob of corrupt zombie politicians on both sides of the aisle. He has thrown a boulder into the Washington cesspool. All it took was the right person with guts.
Gaetz has done what average Americans have spent decades wishing for. This is all why the media outlets hate him, and all the "experts" and pundits vilify him. Faux News hates Gaetz most of all.
“Matt Gaetz is inspiring.” ~ Jimmy Dore
Dore is almost MAGA.
“The Ukraine war is just a money laundering operation.” ~ Jimmy Dore
Dore gets it. All these things are money-laundering rackets.
The J6 Industrial Complex.
The Migrant Industrial Complex.
The Military Industrial Complex.
The Homeless Industrial Complex.
The Pandemic Industrial Complex.
The Climate Change Industrial Complex.
The “Human Rights” Industrial Complex.
The “Anti-Semitism” Industrial Complex.
The LGBTQ(P) Supremacy Industrial Complex.
Speaking of establishment parties, RFK Jr. calls the Uniparty irredeemably corrupt.
ReplyDeletePolls show that genuine conservatives have a far more favorable opinion of Kennedy than do Democrats.
The DNC is sabotaging RFK Jr. any way it can. It has changed the primary calendar, limited ballot access in Iowa, and refused to hold a Democrat primary debate.
Kennedy is about to announce that he will run as an Independent, or as a Libertarian.
You have heard that Democrats don’t want second Biden term. Those are average Democrat voters. Meanwhile establishment Democrats want Biden again, because they don’t want any changes throughout Washington. Establishment Republicans don’t want any changes either. The plan is to rig the election so that Biden magically "wins" from his basement, just like he miraculously "won" in 2020.
MAGA Republicans want changes. So does RFK Jr.
Trump could make RFK Jr. his running mate – but then the Uniparty (which includes the FBI) would arrange for Trump to have a “grassy knoll” moment.
Konrad the optimist. Lets hope you're right. Simultaneous developments might be the ticket to destabilizing Congress's cozy arrangement.
ReplyDeleteIf RFK does a Ross Perot to Pedocrats they won’t be able to create enough fraud to overcome Trump …
ReplyDeleteMight have to create 20M fraudulent ballots…
“Konrad the optimist.”
ReplyDeleteFor me it’s nice to see the Uniparty scream in frustration. They’re incredibly smug, they always get their way, and they despise the public.
It’s nice to see the Uniparty fractured between Democrats and establishment Republicans, who are normally allied with each other against America.
Many people think this is a lot of fuss about nothing. They are wrong, but I don’t blame people for being confused. The Uniparty includes the corporate media outlets, which do everything possible to cloud the issues and hide the truth. They pretend that this is a personal spat between Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy, when in fact it concerns the endless corruption that is Washington DC.
For example, every fiscal year the Congress is supposed to debate 12 major spending bills before passing those bills. This never happens. Instead, the Speaker prevents debate on any of the 12 bills, and then at the last minute the corrupt Speaker bundles everything into a gigantic 2,500-page-long “omnibus spending bill.” Everyone inserts pork into this bill. That is, politicians insert orders for the US government to create endless billions of dollars for whatever each politician wants.
Then, in the final days of the fiscal year, the corrupt Speaker orders everyone to vote for the giant “omnibus spending bill” without reading it. Here it is: 2,500 pages. Don’t read it; just sign it.
Next the bill goes to the Senate, whose members insert more pork. Again, Senate leaders order everyone to sign it without reading it. (Right now Senate leaders are Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, and Patty Murray, all Democrats.)
Then it goes to the president who again signs it without reading it.
This process is incredibly corrupt, and it is business-as-usual. It’s what the Uniparty calls “good government.”
In Jan 2023 McCarthy promised to end this corruption if Matt Gaetz and the MAGA caucus let McCarthy become Speaker. McCarthy promised to schedule each independent funding bill for debate. He lied. As the fiscal year wore on, MAGA Republicans kept asking McCarthy when he would fulfill his promise. He never did. They repeatedly warned him, and finally they removed him.
And this was only one of the problems they had with McCarthy. He thought the Democrat wing of the Uniparty would save him like they had promised to do. However they betrayed him. They all voted to remove him. He thought the Republican wing of the Uniparty would save him, and that the Freedom Caucus would be too cowardly to remove him. Here McCarthy was correct, but eight conservative Republicans had enough guts to join the Democrats and get rid of him.
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ReplyDeleteWHAT ALL THIS MEANS is that the game has changed. For decades the permanent political class served no one but themselves and their rich donors. The Washington swamp abused the American public while being totally insulated from the public. Now the peasants are at the gates, pounding on the doors louder and louder, and Washington parasites are blaming each other. They will try to imprison Matt Gaetz as a “terrorist,” but first they must somehow re-unify.
Washington Uniparty politicians are herd animals who follow whoever they think is in power. If Gaetz and the MAGA Republicans keep pushing, then the Washington mob will begin to align with them. Not out of courage, but out of cowardice.
The same thing is happening in Democrat-run cities. For decades they were insulated from the effects of unlimited immigration. Now it has backed up into their homes. It is oozing from their walls, and is drowning their lives. This isn’t funny anymore. Urban creeps are screaming at Biden’s handlers to reduce the flood.
Another bright spot is the karma that more and more liberals are experiencing. They are feeling the consequences of their evil. They pushed for no-cash-bale, defund-the-police, and so on, and now they are getting robbed and murdered by their beloved “victims.” Chicago, Baltimore, New York – it’s glorious. Meanwhile store chains are abandoning these same cesspools because of rampant theft, itself caused by the refusal to prosecute any criminals (unless they are white). It’s so awful it’s beautiful.
Back in Congress, many people encouraged Trump to run for the Speaker’s chair. (Anyone can run. A candidate doesn't have to be an elected official.) Trump decided against it, because the vote will be complicated and tricky. If Trump were to run and lose, he would sacrifice some political capital with his base. Therefore Trump and Matt Gaetz are endorsing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for Speaker, while corrupt establishment Republicans want Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.). Democrats will have no say in the vote. So it's between Republicans.