Its Wednesday and my blog light day. The Australian Federal government unveiled their grand fiscal statement (aka Budget) last night. I am pretty tied up today and need some time to read the papers and data accompanying the release. As a result I will reserve my commentary until tomorrow. But if one word would suffice then my conclusion is – pathetic. More words would tell you that there is nothing visionary about this statement or strategy. There is lots of cash lollies for people – well not much for the lower-paid and plenty for the top-end-of-town but no longer term investment strategy which would address the other crisis humanity is facing other than the health, unemployment and poverty crises – and I refer to the climate crisis. I also do not support the tax cuts which hand over big increases in disposable income at the top end of the income distribution and very little at the other end. The longer term consequences of that strategy will be to limit the non-inflationary size of government, which, of course, is the conservative strategy. But what will be left of government when things stabilise will not be very progressive. Anyway, I will consider the documents later today and comment tomorrow. Probably.

Here is Episode 10 in our weekly MMTed Q&A series. This is the last episode in Season 1. We are experimenting with new formats and will be back later in 2020 with some live shows (if the virus abates). In this episode, I continue my talks with special guest is Warren Mosler. We talked about the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) approach to trade, which confounds a lot of people but is really quite straightforward. And, as usual on a Wednesday, we have some great music.

Here is Episode 9 in our weekly MMTed Q&A series. In this episode, my special guest is Warren Mosler. We talked about the idea that taxpayers fund government spending and the related nuances. And when your done with that we mourn the loss of the best electric guitarist in history according to my assessment.