Thursday, November 21, 2024

How to Cut $2 Trillion in Federal Spending Without Breaking a Sweat Stephanie Kelton

As James Galbraith put it years ago, "It's the interest rate, stupid."

Nostalgia: Carlos "beowulf" Mucha liberally quoted. And no, not "the coin."

The Lens with Stephanie Kelton
How to Cut $2 Trillion in Federal Spending Without Breaking a Sweat
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

Monday, November 18, 2024

Tariffs As A Fiscal Tool? — Brian Romanchuk

Has Trump thought his tariff proposal through? Brian gives reasons to doubt that this move would be successful in replacing the income tax or substantially affecting it.

BTW, Brian has migrated from X to Bluesky along with many others in the fields of economics and finance. Links provided at the end of the post.

Bond Economics

Friday, November 15, 2024

Class

 

Whoa!… hold up!…  was Marx correct? πŸ€”



Thursday, November 14, 2024

Episode 8 (S2) of the Smith Family Manga is now available — Bill Mitchell

Today (November 15, 2024), MMTed releases Episode 8 in the Second Season of our Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money. Have a bit of fun with it while learning Modern Monetary Theory….
William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Episode 8 (S2) of the Smith Family Manga 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

Oh no...Eva Langoria leaving the U.S.!!!

Oh no, what will we do? "Privileged" (her words) Eva Langoria is leaving the U.S.!! What a loss.  Here's Eva, lamenting for all the rest of us who will be left behind.

“Most Americans” are “going to be stuck in this dystopian country, and my anxiety and sadness is for them."

Thank you, Eva, for your fake concern. We'll try to get by in this terrible country as best as possible. But before you go, can you please take all of your Hollywood asshole friends, too? America can't stand you and your privileged elitist sanctimonious jerks from Tinseltown. Get lost. Go!! 

Hopefully, this is not an empty threat by Eva, as we hear regularly from people like Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, and Robert De Niro. They should take the lying, terrorist-loving, woke, anti-American mainstream media with them.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Wishful Thinking

 

More wishful thinking from Democrat left:





Friday, November 8, 2024

Trump v Iran

 

Reports Iran conspired to assassinate Trump…



6 of these m-fers just deployed to Qatar plus boomers to the region…




Maybe Trump will demand the surrender of the Iranian regime…or finally incinerate that whole goat f-ing rats nest…

Volatility premiums increasing 2 months out…


Trump v Fed ?

 

This guy a MAGA Trump insider perhaps in line for AG (probably too much to hope he gets it πŸ™πŸ») but it’s revealing that he mentions the bankruptcy first…



Biden 2022 rate increases were unprecedented… so you can see what they did they put the rates way up to squeeze him, then they get commie kangaroos in NYC to impose half a billion dollars civil judgement in attempt to to bankrupt him…  flushing the US CRE market down the toilet bowl in the process causing mini banking crisis in March 2023 … hoping Trump somehow got caught up in the whirlpool…

So his first mission (he will never say that it is) will be to reverse all this ..  which would start with quick reversal of Biden rate rate increases to benefit his position and a lot of others like him who also have been being squeezed… which means policy rate down at least to 2% pronto.. will cover it politically by saying he’s getting mortgage rates down for young households which will be an added political benefit…

Going to be interesting to see if the Fed commie deep state Monetarists are going to be the first to fight him on this part of his agenda..,






Thursday, November 7, 2024

Functional finance — Lars P. Syll

What monetarists. deficit hawks, and debt phobes don't get. Quotes by Abba Lerner and John Maynard Keynes.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Functional finance
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

On Sraffa and Keynes — Lars P. Syll

Minsky quote that underlies not only Keynes but also MMT.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
On Sraffa and Keynes
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Escobar: The Roadblocks Ahead For The Sovereign Harmonious Multi-Nodal World — Pepe Escobar

We will need weeks, months, years to fully grasp the enormity of what took place in Kazan during the annual BRICS summit under the Russian presidency.

For the moment let’s cherish arguably the most appropriate definition of BRICS as a laboratory of the future: this lab, against nearly insurmountable odds, is actively engaged in creating a Sovereign Harmonious Multi-Nodal World.
My take is that there were two tracks leading up to the meeting of BRICS+ in Kazan. 

The first track was widely reported in the Alt-Media and was wildly optimistic about the outcome since it focused almost exclusively on the "key players" none of whom had any political clout. It was even speculated that a new monetary system based on a BRICS+ currency would be announced. This turned out to be pie-in-the-sky.

The second track that was taking place behind the scenes and was not reported on or factored in by most of the Alt-Media. This group emerged into view immediately prior to Kazan as a meeting of the heads of the central banks of the the BRICS+ nations. This was a tip off that "the grown-ups" would be managing the proceeding and outcomes, which is what happened. 

The boat did not rock as many had anticipated.  It has now become clear that BRICS+ intends to work within the existing system to reform it rather than to revise it drastically or to shape a new system or to radically "de-dollarize."

In other words, practicality won the day rather than confrontation. Change is likely to be gradual rather than dramatic. The task at hand is to develop alternative means of settlement for international accounts that avoids sanctions and that is already taking place through binary agreements to settle in the currencies of the respective partners.

Monday, November 4, 2024

Government job creation programs deliver significant (net) long-term benefits — Bill Mitchell

On April 5, 1933, US President Roosevelt made an executive decision to create the – Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – which was a component of the suite of government programs referred to as the – New Deal – that defined the Federal government’s solution to the mass unemployment that arose during the early years of the – Great Depression. These programs have been heavily criticised by the free market set as being unnecessary, wasteful and ineffective. Critics assert that no long-term benefits are forthcoming from such programs. However, those assertions are never backed by valid empirical evidence. A recent study by US academics has provided the first solid piece of evidence that the CCC delivered massive long-term benefits to the individuals who participated in it. And these benefits considerably outweigh the dollars outlaid by the government. I discuss that research today. The results also point to the effectiveness of a Job Guarantee program....
William Mitchell — Modern Monetary Theory
Government job creation programs deliver significant (net) long-term benefits
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

MMT — debunking the deficit — Lars P. Syll

Lars comments on a quote from Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth showing the loanable funds theory being inconsistent with stock-flow accounting.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
MMT — debunking the deficit
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Sunday, November 3, 2024

24 per cent annual interest on time deposits: St Petersburg Travel Notes, installment three — Gilbert Doctorow

Not much happening regarding MMT these days.

Herer is an anecdotal report on Russian banking. And, yes, you read that right. You get 24% not the bank.

Doctorow is an American residing in Brussels who spends a good deal of time in Russia. His wife is Russian and he is fluent in Russian. A "Russianist," he has a a PhD in history (Harvard) and is a retired business person. His reporting does not conform to the narrative.

Gilbert Doctorow—International relations, Russian affairs
24 per cent annual interest on time deposits: St Petersburg Travel Notes, installment three
Gilbert Doctorow

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Did The Latest BRICS Summit Achieve Anything Of Tangible Significance At All? — Andrew Korybko

The conclusion is that it’s a lot easier to talk about creating truly alternative institutions than actually doing so, which means that BRICS will likely just remain a talking club, or a “multitasking laboratory of global governance” as Kortunov diplomatically described it. That’s not to downplay the group’s role since it’s important for major and developing non-Western countries to discuss pressing issues of the evolving world order, especially economic-financial ones, but that’s not the same as what enthusiasts expected.
A dose of reality. The Alt-Media got a quite a bit ahead of reality with respect to their expectations of the initial outcome.
The Kazan Summit therefore wasn’t a failure, and in fact, it succeeded in its only realistic goal all along of gathering its members and partners together to discuss ways to voluntarily accelerate financial multipolarity processes such as through the increased use of national currencies. The outcome was always going to be more symbolic than tangible due to the group’s purely voluntary nature, though some observers had false expectations and thus feel bitter, but now they know what BRICS is really about.  
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter