One of the undercurrents at the recent UK MMT Conference in Leeds was the apparent unwillingness of MMT economists to acknowledge their mistake in dealing with international trade. In our new book – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure (published July 2024) – we devote a chapter to this issue. There are various strands to the criticisms we receive ranging from claims we are simply wrong at the most elemental level to others claiming trade has no part in the MMT framework. All miss the point and I am surprised people have tried to make a ‘career’ (or advance their egos) on this issue. As I have noted several times in the past, the issue is nuanced but the elementary facts are not. I am now working on a section for my new book (with Dr Louisa Connors) on ‘degrowth’ and system viability from an MMT perspective and so I am linking the trade aspects of MMT with this narrative to provide further clarification of how nuanced this area of discussion can be. Here is a little glimpse of that work....
William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
MMT and international trade – some further considerations in a degrowth contextBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
8 comments:
When Economists grow The Professional Beard (TM), they appear to lose all touch with reality. Here's Phil Pilkington spouting the same fixed exchange rate framing Bill is talking about.
The new U.K. Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is a total idiot. She thinks Britain has run out of British pounds. Will this insanity never end?
Not without a lot of work from us.
It's our job to end the insanity. Quite how we do that I don't know yet. But we've got to find a way of getting these clowns out of power.
My response on John Redwood blog
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2024/07/30/economic-inheritances/#comments
4 comments in total with the main one being a very long comment that I thought would never be published.
"Quite how we do that I don't know yet. But we've got to find a way of getting these clowns out of power."
Gatekeepers everywhere you look as the blob has learned from its mistakes over many centuries. Change cannot be permitted within the BORG. Resistance is futile.
As they become ever more authoritarian to ensure nothing changes. It is fast becoming a dangerous game to take on the blob. Soon You will be locked up just for thinking the wrong way.
The media and universities being the main gatekeepers. A media student could have studied how they rolled out Rachel Reeves narrative across all of the media. It was a propaganda unit par excellence. They have it down to a fine art. They herded the sheep perectly.
So how do you do it ?
You organise and get every MMT'r on the planet to stand outside the IFS with a copy of the deficit myth in hand. With massive banners showing pictures of the book. It has to be massive to get the media to cover it. Then you smash their windows in and set fire to the place.
No such thing as bad publicity. The idea is you get everybody watching wanting to read that book.
Then you move onto the guardian and Telegraph and BBC offices and do the same. Smash their windows in and burn the place down.
Sure some people will get locked up but that's the sacrifice you have to make to get change. As every generation before us knows well.
You find a way that every household reads that book then we have a 10% chance of changing things. Force and personal sacrifice is the other 90%.
They don't have enough jails or courts to lock everybody up. That is how the people of Skye got the tolls removed from the Skye bridge.
The whole island organised and decided they would all be arrested and locked up. They clogged up the courts and jails on the mainland for years. Until finally the blob gave up and got rid of the tolls.
We need a massive advertising campaign so that every household has a copy of that book. That's how I would organise it. As it isn't going to be won in a classroom surrounded by gate keepers. It is going to be won by households educating themselves outside of the government education camps.
Violence and setting fire to things always grabs the attention of the sheep. Just have to make sure you grab their attention long enough. The poll tax riots are another example of what it takes to change things.
Holding onto change is the difficult part. As the blob just wait you out as each generation dies out. As they prepare the next generation as children in their education camps to act differently. Why whoever gains power on real change has to become more authoritarian not less.
Or a more peaceful option is you get every MMT'r on the planet to chip in and pay for a copy of the book to be delivered to every household. Create a massive advertising campaign that way. Then organise mass peaceful protests outside the IFS, Guardian, BBC and the Telegraph. See how many people turn up. Either way, these people have to be targeted by protest so they understand they know, we know they are lying to us.
Royal mail will give you a price of how much it costs to deliver to every household in Leeds for example. MMT'rs just need to get organised worldwide so that to do that it costs every MMT'r on the planet 10p to achieve that. 10p each ensures every household in Leeds get a copy of the book.
It will make Stephanie super rich so then she can then cover a lot of the cost as we move into Birmingham, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester until every household has a copy. One county at a time.
It's our job to end the insanity. Quite how we do that I don't know yet. But we've got to find a way of getting these clowns out of power.
Evolution has conditioned us. People believe that life is hard. So life in a modern society is harder than it has to be.
MMT violates the narrative that life is hard. So for many people, MMT is immoral.
lol if you just give uneducated people munnie to sit around and jerk each other off doing climate nutter studies life is still going to be hard.,,
Paying people to do nothing makes their lives easier.
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