It's Wednesday and there are a few topics that caught my attention this week as…
Wednesday becomes an almost blog free day!
AS I noted yesterday, I am no longer going to publish a detailed blog each Wednesday. I will cover the major Wednesday data releases (for example, Australian National Accounts) when they come out or if I have a surfeit of research material that I want to put out (like a multi-part blog series that needs daily exposure for continuity). I am going to spend the time that I would have used to write the Wednesday blog on developing the MMT University from concept into reality as well as other writing projects I want to advance. This is what I am listening to as I work today ….
This song – Bird On The Wing – is from the 1987 album (Track 6) – Tomorrow – by Hugh Masekela.
I first bought this album when it came out and played it a lot. It was recorded while Masekela was in exile from the apartheid regime.
The album has songs about the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and lots of rhythms from the townships (Soweto) interlaced with straight jazz patterns.
This song is my favourite on the album from a number of close favourites. The use of the volume control pedal at the intro captures you from the start.
Masakela is a pretty solid player and a pretty solid guy if you trace his background.
As as the Album name suggests – my regular blog will return tomorrow.
The blog publication in 2018 pattern will be:
1. Monday and Tuesday – regular blog.
2. Wednesday’s – snippets to nothing.
3. Thursday – regular blog.
4. Friday – Weekend quiz.
5. Weekend – Quiz answers and analysis.
Recent books:
1. Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale – (Edward Elgar, August 2015).
2. Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (Pluto Books, September 2017).
Next events:
I will be in Europe in February and early March and a big event is being planned in Barcelona. There will also be events in Finland. Other cities are possible but discussions are still in train. More details will be available soon.
I will also be appearing at an event for the International Bookshop in Melbourne (Australia) on February 16, 2018. It will be a later afternoon/early evening presentation around the options that our book Reclaiming the State presents to progressive movements and political parties.
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2018 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
Why am I not surprised at this change, Bill?
Your astonishing fecundity is a legend with Warren and other supporters.
I am still slowly working my way through “Reclaiming the State” and that will take quite some time. And that is just one of your works.
You did say to me “not in your lifetime” would MMT be accepted, but I believe now you are too pessimistic.
I believe we will be able to cause politicians a great deal of trouble by saddling them with denying their vow to uphold the constitution. They fail every time they put forward the household analogy as an argument for policy. This is very destructive of benefits for the majority of the citizenry. No one knows that better than you.
‘Your astonishing fecundity is a legend with Warren and other supporters.’
Indeed- I wish a had one tenth of Prof. Mitchell’s cognitive/intellectual abilities! In a recent Real Progressives interview, Warren Mosler joked that ‘Bill writes faster than he can read -maybe he stays up all night to write his blogs!’ Well-I found it funny!
The question of whether we see MMT being accepted soon is interesting. At his talk in Brighton Bill answered a question relating to this saying it might take another 20 years for all the mainstream economists to leave academia and allow something new to come in.
Whatever the length of time involved Bill’s contribution is immense .
Bill,
What is your view about the common weal project in Scotland wanting to work with MMT economists ?
http://allofusfirst.org/
I sent you several emails about it but never got a reply ?
Thanks
Yes, I am often shocked at how much Dr. Mitchell writes. It is on top of his day job too.
He also provides all this awesome content for free.
I have been working on Reclaiming the State as well, but I had to go through Hudson’s books first before I jumped onto another one =).
It really is the case that the situation we have is the complete opposite of the post war period: weak labor struggles, monetarism/voodoo economics, and the irrational demonization of all form of state intervention even those that are most basic. All that culminating into this giant hopeless boulder of neoliberalism that rolls over the poor and vulnerable around the world.
MMT is really beginning to take off now, no longer regarded as a fringe debating institute, but recognised by leading specialists as an authoritative voice compared to the mainstream Neo-Liberal pack.
An old expression that says “the truth will out”, comes with time, built on solid evidence based facts. That time has now arrived and social media rather than the corrupt mass media is delivering now on a daily basis.
In 2018 it is highly significant to remember that just as the 1st world war ended in 1918, people were promised that Britain would build a country fit for heroes to live in, then delivered the 1929 wall street crash and unemployment with poverty that has now returned to this day; for the same reasons.
MMT has played a large part in highlighting what those people in that era never knew or understood, and we must never forget, we can build a better world, people are the real economy and creators of wealth, not the idle rich who speculate to accumulate.