Introduction – The Last Colonial Currency: A History of the CFA Franc – Part 2

I have been commissioned to write the Introduction (Preface) to the upcoming book – The Last Colonial Currency: A History of the CFA Franc – by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla, which is an English version of the original 2018 book, L’arme invisible de la Françafrique. It will soon be published by Pluto Press (UK) – as soon as I finish this introduction. The book is incredibly important because it shows the role that currency arrangements play in perpetuating colonial oppression and supporting the extractive mechanisms that the wealthy have used for centuries to further their ambitions. It also resonates with more recent neoliberal trends where these extractive mechanisms, formerly between the colonialist (metropolis) and the occupied peripheral or satellite nation, have morphed into intra-national urban-regional divides. I am very appreciative for the chance to write this introduction for these great authors. This is Part 2 of a three part series, which I will edit down to my preface for the book.

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Introduction – The Last Colonial Currency: A History of the CFA Franc – Part 1

I have been commissioned to write the Introduction (Preface) to the upcoming book – The Last Colonial Currency: A History of the CFA Franc – by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla, which is an English version of the original 2018 book, L’arme invisible de la Françafrique. It will soon be published by Pluto Press (UK) – as soon as I finish this introduction. The book is incredibly important because it shows the role that currency arrangements play in perpetuating colonial oppression and supporting the extractive mechanisms that the wealthy have used for centuries to further their ambitions. It also resonates with more recent neoliberal trends where these extractive mechanisms, formerly between the colonialist (metropolis) and the occupied peripheral or satellite nation, have morphed into intra-national urban-regional divides. I am very appreciative for the chance to write this introduction for these great authors. This is Part 1. Part 2 follows tomorrow. And then you can all rush out and purchase the book.

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The Weekend Quiz – January 4-5, 2020 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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The Weekend Quiz – January 4-5, 2020

Welcome to The Weekend Quiz. The quiz tests whether you have been paying attention or not to the blog posts that I post. See how you go with the following questions. Your results are only known to you and no records are retained.

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A conversation between MMT founders

A different blog post today. On November 29, 2019, I sat down with my friend Warren Mosler in Newcastle, Australia while he was on his more or less annual visit to see us. We decided to film a conversation we had about the origins of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), how we came to it, the current state of MMT and future trends, including being part of the narrative surrounding the Green Transition. You will hear our concern about how the work we put in place at the outset is now being used in popular debates as well as other anecdotes. We consider the recent YouTube debate that Warren participated in in Italy and clear up the misunderstandings that followed that episode. We provide our own perspective on the way the GND debate is unfolding. I hope you find the 38 minute video that follows interesting.

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Two films to watch which won’t make you happy …

Best wishes to all for 2020. It is a public holiday today in Australia and I have to catch a plane to travel North. And it is Wednesday anyway and I am training myself off writing blog posts for that day. Earlier this week, I saw the Ken Loach’s latest movie – Sorry We Missed You – which I can attest is a very harrowing experience of life in Britain under neoliberalism. I was going to say under the Tories, but then life under the previous Labour government was also made harder for those in the regional areas, particularly as fiscal rectitude became the norm. You will find the movie hard going that is for sure. I also saw the newly released movie – Where’s My Roy Cohn – which is also a rather difficult movie to watch, given the way it resonates with the way the modern political classes behave in most nations.

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A response to Greg Mankiw – Part 3

Before Xmas, I published a two-part reply to Gregory Mankiw’s paper on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – A Skeptic’s Guide to Modern Monetary Theory (December 12, 2019). I was trying to get the response finished before the break and Part 2 had already become too long. So I decided to leave one issue that I didn’t get to address for a shorter third response once service resumed. I think this part of the response is necessary to set right on the public record. It exemplifies how critics need to work harder to actually understand what MMT is about. And while they try to claim that MMT is opaque and difficult to get to terms with, thereby sheeting the blame for their misguided renditions of our work back onto us, the issue I discuss today is very easy to come to terms with. It is front and centre and there have been many scholarly and other articles written about it. I refer, of course, to the Job Guarantee as MMTs response to the mainstream Phillips curve. The failure to appreciate where this sits in the MMT framework is not confined to mainstream economists. But this group know all about the Phillips curve literature and the place it holds in their macroeconomics. So there is no excuse not to understand it within a buffer stock framework and how MMT responds.

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How to discuss MMT without discussing it – BIS style

On October 13, 2019, the Bank of International Settlements published a paper – Exiting low inflation traps by “consensus”: nominal wages and price stability – (which was based on a speech one of the authors was to make in late November at a conference in Colombia). The reason I cite this paper is because it talks about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – in pejorative terms, without really knowing what MMT is. But the most interesting aspect of it was the admission that the mainstream theory that they use to set up the ‘straw person’ they tear down cannot explain real world events. The BIS unwittingly admits that the mainstream macroeconomics really is adrift and the analytical frameworks that arise from it (DSGE etc) are incapable of explaining real world developments. So I thought that was worth documenting.

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The Weekend Quiz – December 28-29, 2019 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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