Review of The Case for a Job Guarantee by Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Polity Press (2020) — Sheila D. Collins

Pavlina Tcherneva, a Professor of Economics at Bard College and a Research Scholar at the Levy Institute, has written a concisely, argued case for a federal job guarantee within the context of a Green New Deal. Citing its origins in FDR’s 1944 Economic Bill of Rights and the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Rights, and the, at least nominal, commitment to the idea of full employment that prevailed through every administration until it was quashed with the election of Ronald Reagan, Tcherneva points out that it is a moral imperative, more needed than ever before. Although this book was written before A.I.’s threat to jobs became visible, Tcherneva’s call to action could not be more prescient.

The National Jobs for All Network
Review of The Case for a Job Guarantee by Pavlina R. Tcherneva, Polity Press (2020)
Sheila D. Collins, professor emeritus of political science at William Paterson University

Modern Monetary Theory Explained — Steve Burns

For the record. Not the best presentation of MMT, but it takes a positive approach. It is more or less correct, even though there are some major mistakes. So some progress on balance.

Although MMT has kind of faded into the background lately, on the blogs at least, the message still seems to be filtering out there.

New Trader U — Empowering Your Financial Journey
Modern Monetary Theory Explained
Steve Burns

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 8 is now available — Bill Mitchell

Episode 8 in our new Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with it and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 8 is now available

Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

US Rates

 

Biden people still 3.5% above their “inflation!” target….

Data last week indicated US inflation over the last six months likely returned to the Fed’s 2% target on an annualized basis. Figures out Friday are poised to make the achievement official https://t.co/CAVTfVK2EA

— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) December 21, 2023

And circling the toilet bowl:

CNBC: "Americans are giving President Biden TERRIBLE approval numbers — no matter how you look at it."

Overall: 35%
Economy: 33%
Foreign Policy: 29% pic.twitter.com/9rwiHA93C1

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 19, 2023

Monetarism….. 🤔

The parallel universe in Japan continues and is delivering superior outcomes, while the rest look on clueless — Bill Mitchell

The question that the mainstream economists should be paraded out in front of the public and forced to answer is how can Japan do this and experience economic growth (albeit moderate) while the rest of the world is contracting due to misconceived monetary and fiscal tightening and is recording inflation rates above the Japanese rate?

The New Keynesian mob never directly answer questions like that because they cannot.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The parallel universe in Japan continues and is delivering superior outcomes, while the rest look on clueless
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Is It Over Yet? — Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson

"It" is neoliberalism.

Michael Hudson: "Well, you’ve just made the point that neoliberalism wants to make itself invisible. It’s like the devil. If there a devil, the devil wants to say he doesn’t exist. Neoliberalism says inequality doesn’t exist, exploitation doesn’t exist, and everything is quite fair."

Michael Hudson

Is It Over Yet?
Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson

Demographics, the economy and the environment: An MMT approach — Randall Wray and Yeva Nersisyan

Special Issue
How can we construct an economics consistent with the biophysical limits to economic growth?

The whole issue looks interesting. 

Real World Economics Review #106
Demographics, the economy and the environment: An MMT approach

Randall Wray and Yeva Nersisyan

Explain this

 

Hey Art Degree people explain this:

Explain that… 🤔

Here’s fucking another one:

Explain this dumb fuck Art Degree people… 🤔

Here here’s another one with go- go dancers… Art Degree m-fers what is going on here?

What?  Lead belly song from AT LEAST  Jim Crow?  What is going on Art Degree morons? what?

Another one can’t make it up:

What is going on Art Degree morons?

F=ma I can explain that let me know …  can you morons explain what going on here?

🤔

Central banks and climate change — Bill Mitchell

Today, I discuss a recent paper from the Bank of Japan’s Research and Studies series that focused on how much attention central banks around the world give to climate change and sustainability and how they interpret those challenges within their policy frameworks. The interesting result is that when there is an explicit mandate given to the central bank to consider these issues, the policy responses are framed quite differently and are oriented towards solutions, whereas otherwise, the narratives are about how climate change will impact on inflation. In the latter case, the central banks do not see their role as being part of the solution. Rather, they threaten harsher monetary policy action to deal with inflation. I also consider the most recent US inflation data. Finally, some live music from my time in Kyoto this year....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Central banks and climate change
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

New Argentina libertarian cutting government

 

This should be revealing… 🍿

BREAKING: President of Argentina, Milei, signs his first executive order, which reduces the Argentine government from 21 ministries to 9 pic.twitter.com/tRVshSCcPI

— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) December 11, 2023

US labour market – no sign of a major slowdown underway — Bill Mitchell

Last Friday (December 8 , 2023), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – November 2023 – which showed payroll employment rising by 199,000 which is a good sign. The unemployment rate also fell as employment growth outstripped the growth in the labour force – down to 3.7 per cent (from 3.9 per cent). The participation rate rose by 0.1 point, indicating optimism among workers. I see no sign of a major slowdown emerging. Real wages have also started rising – modestly.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
US labour market – no sign of a major slowdown underway
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Science v Art

Massie (BSEE MIT, allegedly) vs. Kerry (BA PoliSci, Yale)…

House freakdom caucus member Massie doesn’t understand the contemporary organization of the academe… 

Amazing how people don’t understand this simple bifurcation… 🤔

MUST-WATCH: Rep. Thomas Massie masterfully exposes John Kerry's #ClimateScam propaganda—upon which Net Zero is built—for the sheer undiluted nonsense that it is, in just two minutes.

"I think it's somewhat appropriate that somebody with a pseudoscience degree is here pushing… pic.twitter.com/fZ4u7JtcEK

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) December 8, 2023

Progress coming in Biology

 

Looks like the department of Biology is going to finally shit can the Art Degree entirely… that would leave Economics as last moron standing…

Seems like a consensus is forming amongst many smart people!

This is Jensen Huang, CEO of $NVDA

Basically WATCH OUT for the impending biotech BOOM 💥 pic.twitter.com/QrN7heeyiQ

— Gene Investing w/Anthony 🧬 (@GeneInvesting) December 6, 2023

Biden: Fed should be discouraged from raising interest rates

 

Implies at least a hold for election year… for now…

Hey, I thought Biden always said he respected the Fed’s independence. What gives?
“Biden said the Federal Reserve should be discouraged from raising interest rates, in rare comments from the president on central bank policy making” https://t.co/9SnBThvJWU via @bpolitics

— Judy Shelton (@judyshel) December 9, 2023

Scientists revisit Solomon Asch’s classic conformity experiments—and are stunned by the results — Eric W. Dolan

This article is not about MMT as such or even economics, but rather social psychology. It may explain to some degree both opposition to MMT in the face of evidence and also the appeal of monetarism in the face not only of evidence but also fiancial losses sustained from trading on monetarist assumptions. It is also of interest to contrarianism.

TL/DNR version:

The study’s findings were striking in their similarity to [Soloman] Asch’s original results. In the non-incentivized group, the average error rate in the line judgment task was 33%, closely mirroring Asch’s findings. However, in the incentivized group, the error rate dropped to 25%. This suggests that while financial rewards can reduce the impact of group pressure, they do not eliminate it.

“When we started the study, we could not imagine to be able to replicate the original findings as close as it turned out,” Franzen and Mader told PsyPost. “We thought Asch’s findings were overstated. We also believed that providing incentives for correct answers would wipe out the conformity effect. Both did not happen. The replication turned out to be very close to the original results and providing monetary incentives did not eliminate the effect of social pressure.”

The conclusion is also of interest to contrarianism.

Regarding what people should take away from the findings, the researchers remarked: “Here we like to cite Mark Twain, ‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.'” 

PsyPost
Scientists revisit Solomon Asch’s classic conformity experiments — and are stunned by the results
Eric W. Dolan

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 7 is now available — Bill Mitchell

Episode 7 in our new Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with it and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 7 is now available
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

British House of Lords inquiry into the Bank of England’s performance is a confusing array of contrary notions — Bill Mitchell

On November 27, 2023, the Economic Affairs Committee of the British House of Lords completed their inquiry into the question – Bank of England: how is independence working? – by releasing their 1st Report after taking evidence for several months – Making an independent Bank of England work better. The report is interesting because it contains a confusing array of contrary notions. On the one hand, the witnesses to the Inquiry claimed it was “Groupthink” in operation that prevented the Bank from raising rates earlier and that it was obvious the inflationary pressures were traditional excess spending driven by excessive monetary supply growth (classic Monetarism). That assessment is contested by the alternative, which I adhere to, that the inflationary pressures were supply driven and not amenable to interest rate shifts. And the Groupthink arises because these economists consider interest rate changes would solve the inflation irrespective of the contributing factors. While the Report is sympathetic to the mainstream view as above, it then launches into a critique of the mainstream forecasting approaches. A confusing array of notions....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
British House of Lords inquiry into the Bank of England’s performance is a confusing array of contrary notions
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

The Smith Family manga continues–Episode 6 is now available — Bill Mitchell

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 6 is now available….

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 6 is now available
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Hedge Fund short sellers sustained losses of approximately $43 billion

 😂😂😂

BREAKING 🚨: Short Sellers

Hedge Fund short sellers sustained losses of approximately $43 billion over the past few days pic.twitter.com/k2FXpsY0cZ

— Barchart (@Barchart) November 22, 2023

What Art Degree Monetarist wouldn’t be short into this:

You’d have to be…

Finding the Money: A Review — Brad Sandler

For the record. Short.

Real Progressives
Finding the Money: A Review
Brad Sandler

Chinese scholar calls on Beijing to raise deficit ratio to 5% — Jia Genliang

Beijing: China needs to decisively ramp up fiscal spending so it can support an economy damaged by Western restrictions on trade, according to a Chinese scholar studying an unconventional school of economic thought.

Jia Genliang – the co-author of the new book Modern Monetary Theory in China and a professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing – said China should lift its headline deficit ratio to above 5% of gross domestic product on average for the next decade.…

Jia is one of the most prominent Chinese proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), whose principle is that countries which borrow in their own currencies don’t face a real debt limit because they can print money to pay for it. That theory has attracted attention in China over the past few years as authorities relied more on fiscal stimulus and infrastructure investment to help a slowing economy.

The Star
Chinese scholar calls on Beijing to raise deficit ratio to 5%
Jia Genliang , professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing and co-author of the new book Modern Monetary Theory in China

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 5 is now available — Bill Mitchell

Episode 5 in our new weekly Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with it and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 5 is now available
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Branko] Milanovic Gets Feisty — Peter Radford

I have just finished reading the excellent new book by Branko Milanovic. It’s called “Visions of Inequality” and is a tour through the history of economics since the days of Quesnay. More specifically it takes a look at how a handful of prominent economists have treated the topic of inequality. Most of you will have covered this territory before, but examining how people such as Quesnay, Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Pareto and Kuznets discussed the problem of distribution is not only an excellent refresher on their individual thought, but is also a tour through the evolution of economics itself.…

In his very long seventh chapter, where he lays bare the lean years for the study of distribution, he goes on offense. He prefers to call the economics developed during those mid to late twentieth century decades “Cold War” economics because it was ideologically tainted by the preferences of the American ruling class. It also suffered a catastrophic breakdown of method. The two go hand in hand. In order to eliminate power — and thus by definition things such as class — economics reduced its boundaries and focused only on matters that did not disturb its patrons.…

Power matters. The study of inequality allows us to reconnect economics with reality….

The Radford Free Press
Milanovic Gets Feisty
Peter Radford

Modern monetary theory opens range of economic possibilities - Independent Australia — Stephen Hail

NEARLY 30 YEARS AGO, a New York fund manager named Warren Mosler noticed a discrepancy between what he saw day-to-day in his interactions with the Federal Reserve and the way almost all academic economists write about money. The way they write, you would think currency-issuing governments need to tax before they can spend — Mosler noticed it is the other way around.

Getting this wrong is not trivial. It biases policy narratives. It misleads politicians into thinking that there is something inherently good or sustainable about budget surpluses. It misleads them into worrying about finding the money to meet their commitments when that is the wrong question to ask.

Independent Australia
Modern monetary theory opens range of economic possibilities

Stephen Hail, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Adelaide

US inflation rate falling fast — Bill Mitchell

It’s Wednesday, and today I discuss the latest US inflation data, which shows a significant annual decline in the inflation rate with housing still prominent. But for reasons I discuss, we can expect the housing inflation to fall in the coming months. I also discuss how on-going fiscal ignorance allows the Australian government to avoid investing in much-needed fast rail infrastructure which would solve many problems that are now reducing societal well-being. And then some of the best guitar playing you will ever hear.…

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
US inflation rate falling fast
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Fiscal austerity does not on average reduce public debt ratios — Bill Mitchell

The resurgence of economic orthodoxy is a great example of how declining schools of thought can maintain dominance in the narrative for extended periods of time if the vested interests are powerful enough. In the case of the economics profession, mainstream New Keynesian theory persists because it serves the interests of capital. Recently, the IMF urged the Australian government to engage in ‘fiscal consolidation’ in order to support further interest rate hikes by the RBA aimed at reducing inflation quickly. In general, the IMF is urging nations to engage in fiscal austerity in order to bring their public debt ratios down. The problem is that even their own research shows that these fiscal adjustments on average do not succeed. And, usually, they leave a damaged society where the lower income and disadvantaged cohorts are forced to endure the bulk of the negative effects....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Fiscal austerity does not on average reduce public debt ratios
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

The Bank of Japan is light years ahead in sophistication relative to the West — Bill Mitchell

Given yesterday’s detailed monetary policy analysis, I am using today to present an array of news items and some brief analytical thoughts on central bank monetary policy. The latter is based on a very interesting speech that the governor of the Bank of Japan gave in Nagoya earlier this week. The juxtaposition with the way the Western central banks are behaving at present is stunning. There is also some self promotion and some announcements. Then we get to listen to Ron Carter. A good day really.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
The Bank of Japan is light years ahead in sophistication relative to the West
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, AustraliaThe Bank of Japan is light years ahead in sophistication relative to the West

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 4 is now available — Bill Mitchell

Episode 4 in our new weekly Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with it and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 4 is now available
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

MMT and the Deficits That Matter — Bethesda 1971

For the record, a MTT promo piece on the "left." 

Daily Kos
MMT and the Deficits That Matter
Bethesda 1971

Yes, we can afford democracy — and it should be up to voters to decide what a government should do — Dirk Ehnts

It follows from what has been said that a “shortage” of money with the state is not a technical shortage. Thus, it is never the lack of “money” that causes the state to be unable to spend, but always the lack of resources that causes the state to be unable to get what it wants. Money moves resources. If there are no resources, nothing is moved. However, if resources are the monopolist of money — the government with its central bank — can move it even when the political will is there. This applies to wars, but also to social programmes. The state can always afford to pay money to the poor or create employment for the unemployed. It is always a question of political will....

Monetary Policy Institute Blog #106

Yes, we can afford democracy — and it should be up to voters to decide what a government should do
Dirk Ehnts, Torrens University, Australia, adjunct lecturer

U.S. hiring slowed to 150,000 jobs in October. The unemployment rate rose to 3.9%

 

Whoa!  October employment report… 

What about all the MMT free munnie interest income (to people who are already bazillionaires) from the higher rates somehow creating a Democrat regime economic nirvana?  Perhaps not? 🤔

This and the initial 1.2% Q4 from the Atlanta Fed has this thesis not looking too good so far I’d say…

U.S. hiring slowed to 150,000 jobs in October. The unemployment rate rose to 3.9% https://t.co/7dLb8rYpLg

— Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) November 3, 2023

Uganda's leadership role in the Global South — Fadhel Kaboub

Greetings from the Pearl of Africa!

Today, I had a very productive visit to Kampala, Uganda, the Pearl of Africa, with my dear friend Julius Mucunguzi (we were colleagues in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). I had two long deep-dive conversations with senior government officials, Minister of State for Industry, the Hon David Bahati, and Uganda's Permanent Representative at the United Nations, Ambassador Aadonia Ayebare.…

The effects of colonialism in Africa and how to break out of the persistent pattern. Formerly colonized countries are stuck in the economic/financial trap of producing low value goods for domstic consumption and export and importing high value goods, which necessitates borrowing in foreign currency (typically USD,).thereby de facto forfeiting monetary sovereignty even if they have their own central bank and issue their own currency. The issue is how to break out of this cycle resulting from path dependency.

Global South Perspectives — Reflections & Analysis by Fadhel Kaboub
Uganda's leadership role in the Global South
Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of economics at Denison University (on leave) and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He currently serves as the Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development at the Organisation of Educational Cooperation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.He also held a number of research affiliations with the Levy Economics Institute, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the Economic Research Forum (Cairo), Power Shift Africa (Nairobi), and the Center for Strategic Studies on the Maghreb (Tunis). Fadhel is Tunisian-American MMMT economist. Ph.D. in Economics & Social Science Consortium, 2006, University of Missouri - Kansas City. M.A. in Economics, May 2001, University of Missouri - Kansas City. B.S. in Economics, June 1999, with Distinction

The Smith Family manga continues—Episode 3 is now available — Bill Mitchell

Episode 3 in our new weekly Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with it and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 3 is now available
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Monetary Foundations of Education w/ Larry Johnson — Scott Ferguson

This month, we speak with Larry Johnson, associate professor in the Social Foundations of Education Program at the University of South Florida, Saint Petersburg. In his pedagogy, Johnson focuses on the complex relationship between education, culture, and society with the goal of exploring policies and practices from historical and contemporary perspectives that address structural inequality, and transforming educational institutions into sites for social justice. Johnson is notably a long-time proponent of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and variously mobilizes MMT’s insights when training our teachers-to-be....

MR Online

Monetary Foundations of Education w/ Larry Johnson
Scott Ferguson interviews Larry Johnson, associate professor in the Social Foundations of Education Program at the University of South Florida, Saint Petersburg

Just Money — MMTed–The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money

Artist Spotlight

Episode One image: "If the taxpayers fund the government spending and they get the money from businesses who get it from the taxpayers when they buy things, then were do the taxpayers get it from?

Episode One

The Centre of Full Employment and Equity’s MMTed project has recently launched a new manga comic book series entitled “The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money”. A collaboration between Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) pioneer and Economics Professor William Mitchell and Japanese manga artist and designer Mihana (@mihana07: https://twitter.com/mihana07), the series explains the fundamentals of MMT in a straightforward, nontechnical way through the experience of the middle-class Smith family. Professor Mitchell works on the scripts and website code and layout, while Mihana works on the graphics and layouts of cartoon. Mihana’s artistry here comes into its own. Their characters operate on the ground of everyday life with spell-binding animation and esprit. As they interact, they transform arcane economic questions into accessible issues relevant to all of us....

Just Money Featured Artists
MMTed – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money

Atlanta Fed

 

Oops!  Down to 1.2% projected for Q4…. Let’s see if the MMT people repost this one … (Tip: don’t hold your breath waiting doesn’t fit the Democrat narrative).

On November 1, the initial #GDPNow model nowcast of real GDP growth in Q4 2023 is 1.2%. https://t.co/OnYxN0CQUF #ATLFedResearch

Download our EconomyNow app or go to our website for the latest GDPNow nowcast. https://t.co/ISzNblWfFW pic.twitter.com/u9CweBwBaD

— Atlanta Fed (@AtlantaFed) November 1, 2023

Hard to see how a few $100B of additional free interest munnie paid  to people who probably have zero propensity to spend it is somehow going to create this wonderful economy after same said rate increases destroy over half a $1T of bank capital…  🤔

Atlanta Fed was fairly prescient in Q3 and was bumping up their 3Q GDP Nowcast most of 3Q coming out pretty close when all was said and done for Q3 …… going to have to see if this happens again in Q4 … but they are now starting from a pretty shitty +1.2% 

Scotonomics — Why the UK Government's fiscal deficit is our surplus

One of the founding concepts of Modern Monetary Theory is sectoral balances. And its power lies in its simplicity. Every economy can be broken down into three sectors: The government sector, the private sector (which includes me and you) and the foreign sector. Assuming a balanced budget, then government spending increases our net-wealth. A government deficit is our surplus.

The National (Scotland)

Scotonomics: Why the UK Government's fiscal deficit is our surplus

No, QE Is Not Costless — Brian Romanchuk

I ran across a couple lame attempts at blaming the U.S. Treasury for not extending the duration of issuance during the pandemic low in yields. This is entirely typical for market commentary — going after fiscal policymakers and ignoring the major culprit, which is the central bank. To the extent that the United States has put itself into an awkward macro stabilisation situation with respect to interest rate expenditures, it is the result of the brain trust at the Federal Reserve.

One could try arguing that if the Treasury lengthened issuance maturities and the Fed buys those bonds back, the Treasury has locked in their funding cost and that is all that matters. The problem is that approach ignores that the Fed is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Treasury1, and so when the Fed blows itself up on hare-brained levered rates positions, the Fed losses will work its way into the fiscal accounts via reduced dividends. Financial accounting consolidates wholly-owned entities for a reason....

Note that some critiques of MMT, including Post Keynesian, fault MMT for consolidating the Treasury and Fed accounts.

Bond Economics

No, QE Is Not Costless
Brian Romanchuk

Bank of Japan shifts ground – just a little but there is no sign of a major adjustment any time soon — Bill Mitchell

It’s Wednesday and I use this space to write about any number of issues or items that have attracted my interest and which I consider do not require a detailed analysis. The issues discussed may be totally unrelated. Today, I provide my response to yesterday’s decision by the Bank of Japan to vary its Yield Curve Control (YCC) policy, which some commentators are frothing about. The change was very minor and is not a sign that the expansionary position of the Bank is shifting significantly. I also discuss the culture of denial in the US State Department and then rock out to come classic swamp....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

Bank of Japan shifts ground – just a little but there is no sign of a major adjustment any time soon
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

“Inflation” Now

Cleveland Fed now at 0.07% for October:

Projects to less than half their alleged “inflation” target… 

Meanwhile these psychos want to still appear “hawkish”… 🤔

US national accounts data – no sign that interest rates are working the way economists think they work — Bill Mitchell

On October 26, 2023, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis published the latest US National Accounts figures – Gross Domestic Product, Third Quarter 2023 (Advance Estimate) – which showed that “Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2023”. The June-quarter 2023 growth rate was 2.1 per cent. There was broad-based growth in all the expenditure components, including those that would be most sensitive to interest rate rises. My prior, of course, is that the interest rates would not significantly reduce growth in the short run, whereas mainstream New Keynesian theory considers interest rate rises to be an effective tool in moderating total spending, and, in turn, reducing inflation. The reality does not support the mainstream proposition. Consecutive national accounts releases from the US, however, have shown that aggregate expenditure is resilient in the face of the interest rate increases....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

US national accounts data – no sign that interest rates are working the way economists think they work
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

About This Plane... — Andrei Martyanov

Russia continues with her program of updating IL-96 line, as an intermediate wide-body solution, to IL-96-400M. This is the first aircraft of this limited series doing its take-off regime runs yesterday.

Its four engines are advanced PS-90A3--a further development of venerable high-bypass ratio PS-90A. This aircraft is fully Russian made, from systems to avionics.

 The Russian commercial aircraft industry is self-sufficient and unaffected by sanctions.

And here we are, in the new geopolitical and economic reality and here is the trick--there is ONLY one country which can and does provide, completely out of own resources, the alternative to Western commercial aerospace giants and you already guessed it--Russia.

Maybe not just a gas station with nukes. 

Reminiscence of the Future

About This Plane...
Andrei Martyanov

See also

Russian industry.

Why PBS Is Full Of...

Inflation Theories — Brian Romanchuk

I have been editing sections of my manuscript, and nothing out of that writing output is publishable here (since it is just a rehash of an earlier article). However, I am adding a new section on inflation theories that I will need to think about. This article summarises what I think I will cover.

My manuscript is somewhat unusual in that I am mainly discussing the “known properties” of inflation, without offering a theory of inflation. The more usual situation is that people have extremely strong views on what explains inflation (and more often than not, these views contradict “known properties” of inflation). I decided to not cover inflation theories on the basis that it somewhat difficult to get good introductory information due to the huge mass of disinformation. By avoiding theory, the manuscript statements are relatively safe to make, and so my manuscript itself hopefully stays out of the “disinformation” category.

Note that I when I refer to “inflation theory” I mean “a means to predict future inflation rates” and not things like “how to calculate inflation?” or “what are the side effects of inflation?” Furthermore, when I refer to “inflation” I have the annual rate of change of CPI (or equivalent) in mind....

Bond Economics
Inflation Theories
Brian Romanchuk

The Smith Family manga continues–Episode 2 is now available — Bill Mitchell

Yes, you have been waiting all week to see how the Smith Family was faring as they struggle to work out where the government currency comes from. Well, Episode 2 in our new weekly Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money – is now available. Have a bit of fun with it and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The Smith Family manga continues – Episode 2 is now available
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Theories of Economic Crises — Alessandro Roncaglia

Yves here. This post and its companion piece on neoliberal ideology illustrate the hold that economic belief systems have on policy. One big one that does not get enough mention is that neoliberal theories posit that economies have a native propensity towards equilibrium….oh, and at full employment! This charming story serves to justify capitalist systems as virtuous and self regulating. The reason this clearly false view has been successfully and aggressively promoted is not just that it suits corporate interests. It also has long served US opposition to Communism by depicting what was once called the free enterprise system as producing better outcomes than public ownership of assets. Of course, the reality that the US and even more social democratic economies are mixed systems, but the propagandists like to obscure pesky details like that.

Naked Capitalism
Theories of Economic Crises
Alessandro Roncaglia, Emeritus Professor of Economics at La Sapienza University in Rome, a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome

Video conversation—Seeking Full Employment Without Falling Prey to Neoliberal Traps — Bill Mitchel

I recorded aon September 27, 2023, a fairly long interview with Lynn Fries, who is an American Journalist producing video content at Global Political Economy or – GPEnewsdocs – which is based in Geneva.

The conversations – Seeking Full Employment Without Falling Prey to Neoliberal Traps – contains access and a full transcript of the conversation.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Video conversation – Seeking Full Employment Without Falling Prey to Neoliberal Traps

Bill Mitchell |  Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Finding the Money: Winning Awards and Coming to a Theatre Near You — Stephanie Kelton

Latest update.

The Lens
Finding the Money: Winning Awards and Coming to a Theatre Near You
Stephanie Kelton | Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, formerly Democrats' chief economist on the staff of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and an economic adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders

Citi closes at lowest price in 3.5 years

Boy the “neoliberal conspiracy!” continues apace… these crafty neoliberals really getting over on the poors… good thing the government is just “an agent of capital!”….  

🤔

BREAKING: Citigroup $C closes at lowest price in 3.5 years pic.twitter.com/ssEEsdeT7r

— Barchart (@Barchart) October 23, 2023

Neoliberalism has not been about applying Chicago-style economic theory — Bill Mitchel

Scottish-born economist – Angus Deaton – recently published his new book – An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality – in which he provides a swathing critique of the state of the economics profession, particularly in the way that it impacts on policy making and societal well-being. He is a microeconomist who made a name for himself studying consumer demand, which means he has not contributed anything significant to the field of macroeconomics, where I hang out. The title refers to his migration to the US from Britain in the 1980s and his reflections on what he found and how the economics academy has changed over this 45 years in the profession. His point is that the economics profession has lost its purpose and should return to a focus on advancing well-being. He is particularly critical of Chicago-style economics – or ‘free market’ thinking. The problem though is that the neoliberal era has not been about applying Chicago-style economic theory. The elites just say they are doing that when in fact all they are doing is utilising the immense government capacity to shift the intervention dial in their favour. The government has not given way to the free market – it has just been reconfigured to become an agent of capital....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

Neoliberalism has not been about applying Chicago-style economic theory

Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Gold

 

LOL sharp stick in the eye to the gold people! 

Would you rather have a free one-ounce gold coin, or $20 bucks? 🤦🏻‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/efvWzv54fz

— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) October 19, 2023

Price Anchor

 

Here’s your Art Degree figure of speech “price anchor!”  .  Link here.

Multipolarity: China, Russia, Israel, India, and the difficult birth of a new world — Michael Hudson, Radhika Desai and Pepe Escobar

17th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our time. Video and transcript.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Multipolarity: China, Russia, Israel, India, and the difficult birth of a new world
Michael Hudson, Radhika Desai and Pepe Escobar

Russia, China Unite Against US Empire — Dmitri Simes, Jr. interviews Michael Hudson

Transcript. Originally broadcast at New Rules on Rumble.

Naked Capitalism
Russia, China Unite Against US Empire

Dmitri Simes, Jr. interviews Michael Hudson

Pepe Escobar — Russia, China Map Out New Economic Order in Beijing

Putin, Xi and the guests at the Belt and Road Forum made it quite clear this is essentially about new commodity supply chains; new and improved Maritime Silk Roads; and bypassing Western-controlled choke points – as the (attached) map shows. It’s all leading to an interconnected maze featuring BRI, BRICS, EAEU and SCO.

The Russia-China-led BRICS 11 – and beyond (Putin gave a hint that Indonesia will become one of the new members in 2024) is already turning all Mackinder-drenched fantasies upside down, on the way to uniting Eurasia and configuring Afro-Eurasia as an extended, peaceful, predominant Heartland.

Sputnik

Pepe Escobar: Russia, China Map Out New Economic Order in Beijing

"Paying For Two Wars" — Brian Romanchuk

 Politics rules.

This leaves the left with two options: either accept fiscal orthodoxy and try to win elections on the argument that the other side is being hypocritical, or hop into the Modern Monetary Theory camp and argue that the only real constraint is the tolerance of inflation. Of course, the establishment centre-left is generally going with the first option, and is discovering that electorates do not really care that much about hypocrisy.

Bond Economics
"Paying For Two Wars"
Brian Romanchuk

MMTed goes manga—The Smith Family — Bill Mitchell

"The medium is the message." (Marshall McLuhon) See also The Medium is the Massage.

Taking Warren Mosler's business card analogy a step up in the communications and public education game in an era of "infowar" as an ongoing battle for hearts and minds.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
MMTed goes manga – The Smith Family
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Chicken prices hit record highs under Biden administration as US inflation keep beef, pork out of reach

 

Biden people are just going to have to keep telling their CB to increase the overnight risk free rate to reverse this…

Chicken prices hit record highs under Biden administration as US inflation keep beef, pork out of reachhttps://t.co/YjPRc4Lt76

— stanley stack (@stack_stan37447) October 19, 2023

Truflation

 

This index continues to reduce YoY… Biden Fed still very “hawkish!”…

Today's CPI Data by Truflation.

🇺🇸 2.21%
🇬🇧 7.41%

More: https://t.co/xclS0apCd0 pic.twitter.com/d0iS0kJNXL

— Truflation (@truflation) October 18, 2023

Scotonomics — Moving past straw-man version of Modern Monetary Theory

Good summary.

The National
Scotonomics: Moving past straw-man version of Modern Monetary Theory

Scotonomics

Launching the CofFEE Financial Resilience Barometer Version 1.0 — Bill Mitchell

It’s Wednesday and while there is a lot to write about, I am prioritising the release today of our latest research at the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE). The release of what we are calling the – CofFEE Financial Resilience Barometer – Version 1.0 – is part of a research collaboration I have with Professor Scott Baum at Griffith University. We have Australian Research Council funding for the next three years to explore regional resilience in the face of economic shocks, particularly after the massive disruptions from the Covid pandemic. Today we release the first output of that research. I also consider other matters today and the usual Wednesday music segment comes with a song from a leading Palestinian singer.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Launching the CofFEE Financial Resilience Barometer – Version 1.0
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

MMT the Movie — Lars P. Sy

Finding the Money follows economist Stephanie Kelton on an exploration of Modern Monetary Theory.

Also appearing in the movie are Pavlina R. Tcherneva, L. Randall Wray, Mathew Forstater and Fadhel Kaboub.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
MMT the Movie
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

The de-risking narrative – another in the long line of neoliberal ruses — Bill Mitchel

There have been several interrelated strands in research and practice associated with the dominance of neoliberalism over the last decades. The problem has been that these approaches have been as much enthusiastically promoted by social democratic or progressive forces as they have conservatives. Indeed, conservative political forces have gone down the ‘Trumpian’ far right sink hole and the social democratic parties have moved into the political space vacated – that is, further right than centre. Over the years we have been confronted with social entrepreneurship, new regionalism, corporate social responsibility and self regulation, volunteerism, light touch regulation and more – as part of a so-called ‘Third Way’ where class divisions are dead and the ‘market’ is supreme. More recently, so-called progressive politicians have been touting the ‘de-risking’ narrative as a way of fixing the mess left by the other Third Way approaches. Accordingly, the role for government is to de-risk the vagaries and flux of capitalism, so the entrepreneurs can make profits with surety and if there are issues the government will bail them out. It is a disastrous denial of government responsibility and will fail just as surely as all the rest of the ruses have combined to create the mess societies are in around the globe....

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

The de-risking narrative – another in the long line of neoliberal rusesThe de-risking narrative – another in the long line of neoliberal ruses
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

The geopolitics of Al-Aqsa Flood — Pepe Escobar

Global focus just shifted from Ukraine to Palestine. This new arena of confrontation will ignite further competition between the Atlanticist and Eurasian blocs. These fights are increasingly zero-sum ones; as in Ukraine, only one pole can emerge strengthened and victorious.

More on the intersection of geopolitics and geoeconomics. Unfortunately, the direction is toward military-technical solutions.

The Cradle

The geopolitics of Al-Aqsa Flood

Pepe Escobar

Xu Gao: China's historical, unitary framework implies central govt responsibility for local govt debt — Jia Yuxuan, Peiyu Li, and Zichen Wang

There's no moral hazard: Chief Economist of Bank of China International (China) breaks down China's local govt debt into three dimensions: data, the "China model", and central-local govt relationship.

Long and detailed article on how China's government finance works.

In reality, the key determinant of government debt sustainability does not lie with the size of the debt but rather factors like inflation and international trade balances. As long as inflation remains subdued and international trade remains robust, domestic demand will not outstrip supply capacity, ensuring sustainability of domestic government debt. Presently, China faces deflationary pressures and consistently maintains a current account surplus, so the sustainability of China's government debt does not pose as a problem.

However, within the context of an overall healthy government debt level, the significant disparity between central government debt (low) and local government debt (high) in China merits attention. Based on data from the IMF's Global Debt Database (GDD), the 2022 average share of central government debt in total government debt worldwide stands at 89%, with a median of 96%. This means that in most countries, government debt is primarily composed of central government debt. In contrast, the share of central government debt to total government debt in China ranges from 19% to 27%, by different calculation methods — significantly lower than the global norm. Even if local government bonds issued by the central government were categorized as part of central government debt, this ratio would only increase to a range of 46% to 65%, still below the international average.

Compared to national bonds issued by the central government (including local government bonds issued by the central government), local government debts in China are incurred through myriad channels, suffer from a lack of transparency, and carry relatively high financing costs. Consequently, while the overall volume of China's government debt may not be problematic, there is indeed significant debt risk in the local governments of certain regions. Starting in 2020, interest rates on local government investment bonds in some regions have witnessed sharp increases, leading to widened yield spreads and indicating the local government debt risks in these areas....

The East Is Read

Xu Gao: China's historical, unitary framework implies central govt responsibility for local govt debt
Jia Yuxuan, Peiyu Li, and Zichen Wang

Keynes and the Marxists — Nathan Tankus

For those interested in Keynes and "Keynesianism," and Marx and "Marxism." Nathan Tankus displays  his characteristically impressive grasp of the subject he is analyzing.

Jacobin
Keynes and the Marxists
Nathan Tankus, MMT economist

The story behind Fiat Socialism — Carlos García Hernández

Carlos García Hernández explains how he came up with the idea for his concept of fiat socialism that led to writing book based on MMT.

Fiat Socialism was recently published and it is also available for subscribers to read as an ebook at Scribd.

The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies
The story behind Fiat Socialism
Carlos García Hernández, author of Fiat Socialism: Achieving the goals of socialism through modern monetary theory. Carlos lives in Spain.

See also

The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies
Fiat Socialism

Carlos García Hernández

Also

Brave New Europe
Carlos Garcia Hernández – Spain’s New Coalition: Neo-liberalism with a Heart

Summers Says ‘Energizer Bunny’ Economy Signals Fed Hikes Failing

 

“Energizer Bunny economy!”  Another figure of speech…   This is what you get from these people… every time…

Michael Hudson — A BRICS+ Bank: How Would It Really Function?

The issue is an alternative payments system and not an alternative currency.

Naked Capitalism
Michael Hudson: A BRICS+ Bank: How Would It Really Function?
With introduction by Yves Smith

Debt-pushing as financial inclusion — Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Like most U.S. appointees to head the [World] Bank, Banga had no experience or earlier interest in development finance. Now, he is obliged to pursue U.S. interests and agendas. He has already announced he will rely on the private sector for funds and ideas....

Neo-feudalism. 

MR Online
Debt-pushing as financial inclusion
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Originally published: IPS News on October 4, 2023

Yu Yongding calls on Beijing to stimulate growth via fiscal expansion, believes 6% growth achievable — Yixiu Wei, Shangjun Yang, and Zichen Wang

The former adviser to China's central bank laments policy was influenced by supply-siders and the Maastricht criteria.

Pekingology
Yu Yongding calls on Beijing to stimulate growth via fiscal expansion, believes 6% growth achievable
Yixiu Wei, Shangjun Yang, and Zichen Wang

IMF paper on Africa exemplifies why the mainstream approach is problematic — Bill Mitchell

During the – 1997 Asian financial crisis – when the IMF intervened and imposed harsh structural adjustment packages on the impacted countries (cuts in spending and interest rate hikes), we learned that IMF officials would swan in from Washington to, for example, Seoul, for a weekend, hole up in expensive hotels and by the end of the weekend profess to know everything about the country and what was good for it. Austerity followed. This is the way the IMF work. They apply mainstream New Keynesian macro theory on a one-size fits all basis ignoring history, culture, institutional specificity and all the rest of the nuances and complications that should be taken into account when appraising a situation in some nation. So for them, spending a day or so in some expensive hotel was the perfect place for them to ‘know the country’ – good food, good wine, air conditioning – what more is required. The problem is that besides the specifics that always need to be considered, the overriding theory is not fit for purpose, which is why the application of the IMF-model with the SAPs has been a uniform disaster for nations. The IMF though continues to operate in this vein. I read a report yesterday about sub-Saharan Africa written by a series of IMF officials most of whom seem to be French citizens who have gone to the best universities, who advocate harsh fiscal policy shifts in the poorest nations. I am sure none of their jobs or wages are at stake.…

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

IMF paper on Africa exemplifies why the mainstream approach is problematic
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bard — Finding the Money: New Documentary on the Paradigm-Shifting Modern Monetary Theory Features Levy Scholar Stephanie Kelton and Bard Economists

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

How to pay for saving the world: Modern Monetary Theory for a degrowth transition — Christopher Olk, Colleen Schneider, Jason Hickel

Highlights

• Degrowth and Modern Monetary Theory form a strategic symbiosis for addressing social and ecological crises 
• Public spending on social and ecological objectives is not constrained by tax revenues or GDP 
• MMT needs to incorporate ecological limits to production and productive capacity
• Targeted fiscal and monetary policies can ensure macroeconomic and price stability during a degrowth transition 
• Policy priorities include a job guarantee, credit regulation, price controls, tax reforms, and universal public services
• An MMT-informed degrowth transition requires more democratic control over monetary policy and financial system governance

Abstract

Degrowth lacks a theory of how the state can finance ambitious social-ecological policies and public provisioning systems while maintaining macroeconomic stability during a reduction of economic activity. Addressing this question, we present a synthesis of degrowth scholarship and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) rooted in their shared understanding of money as a public good and their common opposition to artificial scarcity. We present two arguments. First, we draw on MMT to argue that states with sufficient monetary sovereignty face no obstacle to funding the policies necessary for a just and sustainable degrowth transition. Increased public spending neither requires nor implies GDP growth. Second, we draw on degrowth research to bring MMT in line with ecological reality. MMT posits that fiscal spending is limited only by inflation, and thus the productive capacity of the economy. We argue that efforts to deal with this constraint must also pay attention to social and ecological limits. Based on this synthesis we propose a set of monetary and fiscal policies suitable for a stable degrowth transition, including a stronger regulation of private finance, tax reforms, price controls, public provisioning systems and an emancipatory job guarantee. This approach can support broad democratic mobilization for a degrowth transition.

Science Direct

Ecological Economics
How to pay for saving the world: Modern Monetary Theory for a degrowth transition
Christopher Olk, Colleen Schneider, Jason Hickel

ht/ Naked Capitalism

 

Are the talk shows on Russian state television just yes-men to power? Are the Duma parties other than the governing party United Russia just poodles that never bark, much less bite? Gilbert Doctorow

This post segués into being mostly about the Russian economy and specifically, the neoliberal versus "other" factions. The Putin government is mostly neoliberal economically. Gilbert Doctorow sees that as on the way out, which would be a good thing from the MMT point of view. The central bank head, Elivira Nabiullina, is the chief neoliberal and a diehard monetarist.

Gilbert Doctorow — International relations, Russian affairs
Are the talk shows on Russian state television just yes-men to power? Are the Duma parties other than the governing party United Russia just poodles that never bark, much less bite?
Gilbert Doctorow

An Order of Men — Peter Radford

Peter Radofrd plumbs what is really going on in economics?

The Radford Free Press
An Order of Men
Peter Radford

See also

Open Democracy

Conspiracy theories aside, there is something fishy about the Great Reset

Ivan Wecke

Naked Capitalism

No Energy Transition Unless Tech Can Make It Cost Competitive: BlackRock

Julianne Geiger, Oilprice.com

Russia in Global Affairs

Global Encirclement and Prospects of Socialism in the 21st Century

Annamaria Artner, Institute of World Economics, Budapest, Hungary

Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Senior Research Fellow

Why The Government Has Infinite Money — Second Thought (video 18.35)

MMT-based. 

Why The Government Has Infinite Money
Second Thought

h/t Peter Pan in the comments

 

"Never Seen Anything Like It:" The Biggest Month in Antitrust in 50 Years — Matt Stoller

The Google trial, an Amazon complaint, an attack on a private equity roll-up, a giant meat price-fixing suit, going after pharma cheating, and populist GOP antitrust nominations. Astonishing.…

The irony of this remarkable month of antitrust activity is that it’s both astonishing, far more bigger than anything anyone expected, yet it’s also only a tiny fraction of what is necessary to reverse the damage monopolists have done to our society. But it is a real start. 

Good read. Matt Stoller has been working hard reporting on this front and is now quite familiar with the territory.

BIG
"Never Seen Anything Like It:" The Biggest Month in Antitrust in 50 Years
Matt Stoller

Kick Start Or Kick Over–Can The Us Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? — John Helmer

Details of the world's lithium reserves and the lithium market. US/Russia competition is not the central focus.

Dances with Bears
Kick Start Or Kick Over — Can The Us Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War?
John Helmer

Moon of Alabama — China's 'Shared Future'

China's new policy paper on a multipolar world.

Moon of Alabama
China's 'Shared Future'

US wealth distribution – fiscal policy increases private net worth but the poor miss out — Bill Mitchell

I read an interesting report this morning, which resonated with some other work I had been looking into earlier in the week. The Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) released a report yesterday (September 27, 2023) – Inequality in Australia 2023: Overview – which shows that “The gap between those with the most and those with the least has blown out over the past two decades, with the average wealth of the highest 20% growing at four times the rate of the lowest”. It is one of the manifestations of the neoliberal era and is ultimately unsustainable. Earlier in the week, I spent some time analysing the latest data from the US Federal Reserve on the distribution of wealth among US households. The US data goes a long way to explaining why the recent interest rate hikes have been inflationary in themselves.

As an aside, one of the characteristics of neoliberalism that is not often recognised is the way in which it has created schizoid welfare institutions – where key organisations that deliver or advocate for improved safety nets or poverty relief adopt internally inconsistent positions without, seemingly, knowing it.…

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory

US wealth distribution – fiscal policy increases private net worth but the poor miss out
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

See also

Economics from the Top Down — new ideas in economics and the social sciences
How the Rich Get Richer

Blair Fix, a PhD-trained political economist based in Canada, author of the book Rethinking Economic Growth Theory from the Biophysical Perspective, and self-described "economic heretic"

War of Economic Corridors: the India-Mideast-Europe ploy — Pepe Escobar

 The India-Middle East-Europe transportation corridor may be the talk of the town, but it will likely go the way of the last three Asia-to-Europe connectivity projects touted by the west - to the dustbin. Here's why.…

The Cradle
War of Economic Corridors: the India-Mideast-Europe ploy

Pepe Escobar

Challenges to the strong golden rule: MMT and bond market paranoia — Simon Wren-Lewis

SWL is still caught in the monetarist fallacy. 

MMT has two arguments against the golden rule, which I will call reasonable and unreasonable. The unreasonable argument is that interest rate increases do not reduce aggregate demand and inflation, and therefore fiscal policy has to play the macro stabilisation role at all times. It is an unreasonable claim because it contradicts the large amount of evidence that higher interest rates do reduce aggregate demand and inflation, evidence that you will find in the academic economic literature.

Those who watch Mike Norman's YouTube channel, which is MMT-based financial analysis, will find evidence presented that contradicts this.

Mainly Macro
Challenges to the strong golden rule: MMT and bond market paranoia
Simon Wren-Lewis | Emeritus Professor of Economics, Oxford University

Trump is Fighting an American Class War – and Winning — Joel Kotkin

 The most important political event this week will not be the upcoming GOP debate but Donald Trump’s expected visit with striking UAW workers as the walkout expands to other states. In that one appearance, Trump demonstrates one of the most critical parts of political change, the emergence of the populist right.…

Once hostile to unions, Republicans like Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio, Ohio’s JD Vance and Missouri’s Josh Hawley have all pledged support to the strikers. Union-affiliated Democrats may find this “laughable,” but perhaps not so amusing on election day. Certainly, Biden is doing his best to expand his working-class base. 

The rest of the article is about how workers have been disadvantaged by Democratic economic policy. This began in the Clinton administration when Bill Clinton followed Dick Morris's advice to "triangulate," which meant essentially shifting the focus of the Democratic Party away from the New Deal, with its support for labor, following political losses as a result of the Gingrich revolution in the GOP.  Now the GOP is aiming at pick up the labor vote.

In other words, the demographics of the US are shifting politically in a way that challenges old stereotypes.

Newgeography.com
Trump is Fighting an American Class War – and Winning
Joel Kotkin

Remembering Jim Crotty — JW Mason

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Jim’s pedagogy and scholarship, almost alone among economists we have known, was his ability to synthesise these two thinkers in ways that gave equal weight to both, that placed them in conversation rather than in tension. Crotty’s Marx anticipates Minsky, while his Keynes is a political radical – a socialist – in ways that few others have recognized.

Perhaps his most profound contribution to both traditions was the brilliant 1985 article “The Centrality of Money, Credit, and Financial Intermediation in Marx’s Crisis Theory” (Crotty 1985). There, he developed the idea that the Marxian vision of capitalist crises could only be understood in terms of the development of the credit and the financial system – that it was only via financial commitments that a fall in the profit rate could lead to an abrupt crisis rather than just a slower pace of accumulation. His reconstruction of a vision of the credit system that may either dampen or amplify disruptions to the underlying process of production suggests that Marx anticipated the ideas about financial fragility later developed in the Post Keynesian tradition. With a critical difference: While Minsky has finance calling the tune, in the Marx-Crotty version the ultimate source of instability is in the real world of labor and capital.

J. W. Mason's Blog

Remembering Jim Crotty
JW Mason | Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York and a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute

At Least It's Not As Bad As 1994 — Brian Romanchuk

The current Treasury bear market has been impressive, and unfortunately for the bond bulls, there is no valuation reason for it to stop. For example, the 5-year Treasury is still trading well below the overnight rate. If we look back to the 1994 bond bear market, the 5-year traded about 250 basis points above cash — versus about 100 basis points below now.

The explanation for this disparity can be pinned on the Fed reaction function....

Bond Economics

At Least It's Not As Bad As 1994

Brian Romanchuk

Trump up 10% over Brandon

 

If this thing holds Trumps going to immediately slash rates in half on day 1 in January 2025… lock it…

Meanwhile all the Art degree morons are all going around saying “ the Fed is independent! … the Fed is independent!…. the Fed is independent!”  

It will end badly if we rely on the speculators and gamblers for a climate change solution — Bill Mitchell

I am now in a very hot and humid Kyoto having left Australia yesterday in weather that was in some places 20 or more degrees Celsius above the norm for early Spring. The heat here and back home at this time of year is rather scary given what it portends. I also do not have much time today given I have been contending with various ‘moving in’ requirements. But I read an article on the plane last night which I think marks a divide between what ‘green’ progressives think and what I think is needed. I was talking to a friend the other day who remarked he was enduring what he termed ‘ecological anxiety’. In the week that followed, bushfires across Australia have started burning some months earlier than has been the typical pattern over a long period. There are massive ‘weather’ events now all around the globe and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the sceptics to dismiss these conjunctions as random or ‘we just haven’t had data long enough’ type ruses. Some ‘green progressives believe the solution lies in governments inducing the financial speculators to shift funds into ‘green’ investments so that profitability can be safeguarded. They also believe that governments will get more money to invest this way (through providing inflation-indexed sovereign bonds). Talk about a vision for increased corporate welfare. My starting point is that we should do everything possible to keep the speculators out of our policy moves to decarbonise. It will end badly if we rely on the gamblers for the solution.

William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
It will end badly if we rely on the speculators and gamblers for a climate change solution
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

MMT Money Story - Print and Shred Edition — NeilW

Print and Shred is how the system works. All modern monetary systems work this way, no matter how much they try and hide the fact.

The MMT money story explains where the ‘why not print more money’ idea falls over. The government only prints more money to buy more stuff..…

New Wayland

MMT Money Story - Print and Shred Edition
NeilW

Trump bemoans high interest rates and indicates he might pressure Fed to lower

 

CNBC here…

Again politics.. You knew this was coming.. can’t wait to now watch all the political biased leftist MMT people flip and join with the monetarist morons and start to advocate for higher interest rates in response.. wait for it…

“Interest rates are very high. They’re too high. People can’t buy homes. They can’t do anything. I mean, they can’t borrow money,” Trump told MTP host Kristen Welker

Using the platform formerly known as Twitter, Trump often berated Fed officials, once calling them “boneheads,” and compared Powell to “a golfer who can’t putt.” Those remarks came while the Fed was raising interest rates in 2018 and 2019.

 

“We do know that I put a lot of pressure on him,” Trump told Welker. “It was outside pressure, because nobody knows whether or not you can really do that, but I did, because I thought his interest rates were too high. And he ultimately dropped his interest rates.”

Politics

 

Agree with Ehnts here but if you listen to 99% of the MMT commie Art degree or no degree left the current most regressive economic outcome I’ve ever experienced in my adult life is allegedly the result of improper technocracy by the monetarist morons in the academe…

LOL can’t be both!  Which one is it? 🤔

In Vladivostok, the Russian Far East rises — Pepe Escobar

Russia's pivot to the Far East, and away from the West.

The Cradle
In Vladivostok, the Russian Far East rises
Pepe Escobar

Oldest employed Americans have left the workforce never to return

Here for you left wing commie Art Degree MMT dumb fucks:

 S&P Global Market Intelligence 

Oldest employed Americans have left the workforce never to return

The oldest workers in the US labor force, edged out during the pandemic by retirements and health concerns, are unlikely to ever return, potentially ending a decades-long trend amongst working seniors in America and contributing to the ongoing imbalance in the jobs market.

Doesn’t have anything to do with whether your fellow Art degree morons think money is real and we can run out of it as usual… Senior cohort of productive workers being somehow disincentivized to work compared to previous..

MMT “brain trust” (I use that term loosely) somehow blaming their current figure of speech “inflation!” on government’s policy risk free interest rates…

Their as bad as their fellow Art degree monetarists…

Capitalist wants government to drive up unemployment by 40-50 per cent and inflict more ‘pain in the economy’ on workers — Bill Mitchell

Two items this Wednesday before the music segment. First, we saw the stark ideology of the elites on full display in Sydney yesterday with a property developer demanding the government increase unemployment by 40-50 per cent to show the workers that the employer is boss and redistribute more national income back to profits. For anyone who doubts the relevance of a framework based on underlying class conflict between labour and capital, then this outburst should eliminate those doubts. On the same day, a leading research group in the welfare sector released an update in their series tracing poverty in Australia. It demonstrated a rising incidence of poverty (nearly 20 per cent of the population) and 1 in 6 children living in impoverished conditions. And the profit takers want more of that to enrich (engorge) themselves even further. A shocking indictment of what has gone wrong with this nation....

While this may seem shocking to some, it is just the way the system works based on its foundational assumptions. Capitalism favors capital (ownership) over labor (people) and land (environment). The purpose of capitalism is the accumulation of capital, the argument being that growing capital increases growth and growth "trickles down" and "lifts all boats. The environment is assumed to be an infinite resource for growth. 

So nothing surprising about this attitude. It's the way the system is structured. According to economic liberalism, optimal growth results from agents pursuing their own interests maximally, which is assumed to be rational economic behavior. 

Economic liberalism favors markets free of government intrusion, whereas neoliberalism promotes growth by governments favoring capital as an economic factor

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William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Capitalist wants government to drive up unemployment by 40-50 per cent and inflict more ‘pain in the economy’ on workers
Bill Mitchell |rofessor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

See also

The details and commentary from another Aussie.

“We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around. We need to see unemployment rise, unemployment has to jump 40–50 percent.”

CaitlinJohnstone.com

Wealthy Capitalist Accidentally Makes Great Argument For Revolution

Caitlin Johnstone 

Russia And China Channeling Hamilton — Mark Wauk

Read the remarks of Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and Editor at Russia in Global Affairs, about how Russia and China are now following the Hamiltonian plan of the American System or National System, later developed by economist Friedrick List. In other words, these countries are not doing what the nascent US did when breaking away from the British Empire, which was not only political and military but also economic and financial. And the ROW is watching.

Diessen also sees Central Bank of Russia head Elvira Nabiullina as a key player in implementing this plan rather than as the neoliberal she is usually viewed as.

Meaning in History
Russia And China Channeling Hamilton
Mark Wauk, retired FBI agent

See also

 Wallerstein’s first breakthrough came during his experiences in Africa during the process of “decolonization,” where he became aware that young militants in Africa possessed a conceptual framework that was entirely at odds with that of Europeans resident in Africa, a framework in which the African militants defined their reality as a “colonial situation.”  This awareness led Wallerstein to appreciate that a correct understanding must be based in a grasping of the colonial relation between Europe and Africa, which required moving beyond the assumption that society is the correct unit of analysis and moving toward the establishment of the world-system as the correct unit of analysis.…

Knowledge, ideology, and real socialism in our times

The World-Systems Perspective [of Immanuel Wallerstein]- An alternative, incomplete in its formulation and implementation

Charles McKelvey, Professor Emeritus at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, author of The Perspectives of The Colonized (Palgrave)

See also

De Gaulle said: “France’s objective is to build Europe [...] The whole point is that Europe should want to exist as its own self, independently from the U.S.[NATO is] quite simply putting Europe’s defense, nuclear and conventional, in the hands of the U.S. Europe is useless if it doesn’t control its own defense and therefore its own policy. NATO is a subterfuge. It’s a machine to disguise the stranglehold of America over Europe. Thanks to NATO, Europe is placed under the dependence of the U.S. without seeming to be.”

Twitter

A helpful reminder of what De Gaulle used to say about NATO and American hegemony over Europe.

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand