NPR — Planet Money — Episode 866: Modern Monetary Theory

Some ideas seem too good to be true. Like this one. It comes from a 13-year-old listener named Amy. She says she knows the government has trouble finding enough money to pay for stuff like schools and hospitals. And she wondered if it has considered just printing more money. She asked us: Can the government do that? Just make more money to pay for stuff?

Fiscal hawks say, 'no way!' We'd have crazy inflation! But there's a group of economists that says, 'yes, we can create way more money, without disaster. And pay for lots of stuff we want.' They are the proponents of what's called Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT. Their ideas are getting out there, they have the memes to prove it.

Today, we try to understand a school of thought that is flipping economic theory on its head. If you buy it, the whole idea of government spending, taxes, the nature of money changes, and, according to the theory, all we have to do is just open our eyes. It's a bit like staring at those optical illusions: First you see the faces, then, suddenly it's the goblet.

Shifting the frame.

NPR — Planet Money
Episode 866: Modern Monetary Theory

Sandy Helm and Alex Goldmark

Eric Zuesse — Russia Bombed Syria to Flood Europe With Refugees - National Public Radio

Yep - and this from one of America's most trusted news sources!

The “Morning Edition” program of the U.S. National Public Radio network — which is America’s most-trusted American source of news as measured by “the ratio of people who trust a news outlet to those who distrust it” — included on May 20th a segment, “Russia's Involvement In Syria Worsens Migration Crisis, Zannier Says”, in which the interviewer, Renee Montagne, opened her interview of Lamberto Zannier, the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), by saying:

“There is actually a theory out there to do with the migration crisis in Europe, that Russia may have purposely been bombing Syria with an air campaign in order to send more Syrian migrants into Europe, to destabilize Europe. Now, I’m wondering whether you think that’s far-fetched, but, at the same time, it sort of fits the picture of a Cold War?”

He answered:

“Yeah, certainly Russia dealing in Syria had a number of goals, … but then of course, the impact of the bombings on civilian infrastructure, hospitals etcetera, has created an additional wave of refugees. … It is very difficult to tell whether this was intended or not, but certainly it would fit the picture in a way.”

Propaganda spin. Don't lie blatantly, where you can get caught out, just use implication and innuendo.

Nothing about Erdogan blackmailing Europe, either.

Interestingly also, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of which Zannier is the Secretary General is monitoring the casefire in eastern Ukraine.

Russia Insider
Russia Bombed Syria to Flood Europe With Refugees - National Public Radio

Eric Zuesse