It's Wednesday and we have discussion on a few topics today. The first relates to…
Live stream tonight – May 1, 2020 – MMT and fiscal stimulus design
Tonight (May 1, 2020), I am presenting a live YouTube show outlining how an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) helps inform a fiscal intervention designed to minimise the damage from the coronavirus, but also to position a nation favourably for other long-term challenges such as those presented by climate change.
Live Stream – May 1, 2020 at 19:30 (EST Australia)
The times of the live stream in your locality are:
18:30 Tokyo, Kyoto, Dili
09:30 Dakar
10:30 London
11:30 Paris
12:30 Helsinki
05:30 New York
02:30 San Francisco (sorry)
More live streams and educational workshops will be coming soon from MMTed in the near future. Tonight’s presentation will test concept for some of the tools we will be implementing to make MMTed a reality. Many thanks for all those who have already offered financial support. We greatly appreciate your help.
If you are able to help on an ongoing basis that would be great. But we will also be appreciate of once-off and small donations as your
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Please help if you can.
Typo with the time of your webinar. It is 19:30 AEST not 17:30.
Hi Bill.
Probably a silly question, but will the video be available afterwards? I’ll be at work when the live stream is on.
Claire,
The emailed alert states “..It will also remain on YouTube for later viewing.”
Lense – ideology – policy
What infuriates me is when progressives use the MMT lens then lie about what they see.
If they are not honest about what they see. Politicise what they see even before they think about how to use it and then call themselves MMT’rs.
Is loony tunes. They only want to hijack MMT to answer the ” how do you pay for it ” question.
“They only want to hijack MMT to answer the ” how do you pay for it ” question.”
Trouble is they then blow it – because they forget that MMT explains that we pay for things in real terms. They are still caught up in the neoliberal fascination with money and numbers.
How do we pay for the Job Guarantee? There is a load of idle labour all over the nation we can use on it.
Now try that with roofers to put your solar panels up.
Yeah,
It goes something like this Neil,
I call it the Uri Geller – Richard Murphy – bend the MMT lens to your will viewpoint.
Ideology ( we don’t care what the MMT lens says we love the EU) – More ideology, that does not work within the EU fiscal framework – Followed by a failed policy that will fail before it has begun.
“People living in more deprived areas of England and Wales are more likely to die with coronavirus than those in more affluent places, new figures suggest.
Office for National Statistics analysis shows there were 55 deaths for every 100,000 people in the poorest parts of England, compared with 25 in the wealthiest areas.”
Tsk. The Beeb will get told off reporting class income analysis like that.
Hi Bill,
I’m originally from Argentina (fortunately, living in Australia since 2005). I’ve always tried to understand why Argentina’s economy never works (I can only blame corruption). What can I read to understand more?
Completely off-topic, but having just happened upon it I feel impelled to share this Harpers article by Andrew Cockburn:-
” The Malaysian Job
How Wall Street enabled a global financial scandal ”
(Google it if interested)
British readers may be intrigued by an oblique reference to a certain ex-Prime-Minister.
@Oscar Zarate,
The possibility of corruption apart, is it not the case that Argentina has frequently borrowed in USD, and has then struggled to repay those foreign currency debts?
Did it ever peg its currency to the USD?
It’s never a good idea for a country to peg its currrency to another, or to take out loans denominated in any currency that it does not itself create.
As Argentina does create its own currency, I don’t understand why it ever thought it needed to borrow in USD in the first place.
This video answered my questions. Thank you Bill. It was great. One small benefit of the pandemic- this ended up on the internet and we could all watch the presentation.
@Mr Shigemitsu
We may not be able to keep the possibility of corruption apart. Michael Hudson gave an interview about the situation in 2001 (titled Argentina Back on the Debt Train)
“The IMF staff saw that it was obvious that Argentina was unable to take on any more debt. Nonetheless, they lent Argentina enough money so that the wealthiest Argentines could have a high enough exchange rate for the Argentine peso to take their money out of the country and move into dollars. It was a huge subsidy for capital flight out of Argentina into dollar-denominated Argentine debt to the IMF and other bondholders. ”
So maybe not “Argentina” taking on the debt, but well-connected individuals doing what worked for them.
URL for Michael Hudson’s interview Argentina Back on the Debt Train
https://michael-hudson.com/2018/07/argentina-back-on-the-debt-train/
Mel,
i think the sentence ‘ It was a huge subsidy for capital flight out of Argentina into dollar-denominated Argentine debt to the IMF and other bondholders. ” ‘, would read better, had Micheal Hudson wrote: it was a huge subsidy for capital flight out of Argentina ‘by creating’ dollar-denominated Argentine debt to the IMF and other ‘foreign’ bondholders.
I think.
Also, as Argentinian bondholders can be part of the wealthiest Argentine as well, hence, the word ‘foreign’, is added.
By the way, Thailand is doing exactly what Bill and MMT prescribed (even though they may not know/understand this fully) by injecting 1 trillions bahts into people’s pocket during the lock down (divide it roughly by 30 will give you a dollar term, which is a lot, and the biggest in our history, in term of Relieve bills).
But I am not sure how much we need going forward. However, listening to Bill’s live on the Labor day, i think it should be as much as what the JG needs over here.
Best regards,
vorapot