Bill Mitchell — Europhile reform dreamers wake up – there will be no ‘far-reaching’ reforms

I have now escaped the near-Arctic chill and back to warmer climes for a little while. While I was in Finland though, the Finnish news media was agape over the – Joint Statement – released by 8 Finance Ministers from the smaller Northern EU Member States (March 6, 2018). The statement released by the finance ministers of Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden aired their views on how the Eurozone (EMU) might develop. Nobody should be under any delusion that significant reforms are going to come soon. These characters are locked into the austerity mindset and any claims that a new Macron-Merkel partnership will take the EMU into more progressive territory should be viewed as blind hope rather than bedded down in any realistic understanding of what is likely or possible....

As an aside, when I was in Barcelona (March 1-3), it was repeatedly claimed by the audiences of the events I spoke at that a unified European culture would eventually emerge, which justifies the progressive Europhile position to stick with the ‘reform’ process and reject breaking up either the Eurozone, the overall EU or both.
Time horizons of around 100 to 150 years were mentioned....

Oh, good,  the Deutsche Reich has only 100-150 years to run.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Europhile reform dreamers wake up – there will be no ‘far-reaching’ reforms
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Bill Mitchell — The Modigliani controversy – the break with Keynesian thinking

I have been continuing the research for my next book (hopefully to be finished by May 2016) on the way in which the neo-liberals convinced policy makers including those in progressive social democratic political parties that the globalisation of finance and capital flows meant that the currency-issuing state was no longer capable of maintaining full employment through appropriate use of fiscal policies. The tenet we are entertaining is that the state never went away, it was just co-opted by capital to serve its interests. This will be a two-part blog and centres on a critical period in economic history in the mid-1970s, which marked the break with the full employment system which had moderated the excesses of capitalism. This was the period when the neo-liberal period dawned, and which steadily, opened the way for these excesses to reemerge, in all their indecent indulgence and destruction. It is also the period in which a series of economic myths crystallised into the mainstream narrative we know today, which opposes government deficits and allows unemployment to remain elevated at excessive levels. It is really important to understand what went on then because we are living with the legacy of the falsehoods introduced during this period.…

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The Modigliani controversy – the break with Keynesian thinking
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia