Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
The conservative forces including those ‘Tories’ that are within the British Labour Party (aka New Labourites) continue to gather their forces to counter the growing threat posed by Jeremy Corbyn to their secure world as neo-liberal, Tory-lite hopefuls. They are part of a phalanx of critics, including mainstream economists who seek to diminish his credibility. At the extreme end of this bunch are the evil ones who have accused Corbyn of being antisemitic and a friend to Islamic terrorists. I am reliably informed that the same tactics have been deployed against Bernie Sanders in the US. It tells us that desperation has replaced any sense of decency or reason. It also tells us that the Tory-lites are finally seeing the evidence that their day in the sun has gone and they are being cast into irrelevance. Not before time, I should add. But all is not clear on the Corbyn front either. Today, I want to discuss what appears to be a major economic policy proposal – the so-called People’s Quantitative Easing (or PQE). There are elements of a good idea in this proposal but the QE reference and the resulting language is all wrong, in that it betrays as lack of understanding of the difference between a monetary
policy operation and a fiscal policy intervention. The concept should be re-framed so that a consistent narrative can be provided and that a good policy proposal gains the wings it needs. PQE is a wealth generating policy which is in contradistinction to QE which just shuffles wealth portfolios.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Its my Friday lay day blog where I pretend to take it easy. Today I have a nice story to contrast with the shocking news we have been following over the last month or so from Europe. The economics news has been dominated by the madness and badness of the EU in recent weeks and how the miserably depressed Greece has been brought to heel by the EU bullies and will have to inflict even more austerity on its suffering people. Unemployment already above 26 per cent will rise further and more of its youth will head to other shores in search of opportunities. It is a process that is hollowing out the capacity of a nation. They do things differently in South Korea. The Korean government appears to actually care about its people. It provides a lesson for all nations who have become infected by the Recession Cult of Austerity (RCA).
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’s quiz. The information provided should help you understand the reasoning behind the answers. 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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’s quiz. The information provided should help you understand the reasoning behind the answers. 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.
In a way this blog is being written to stop the relentless onslaught of E-mails coming, which seek to promote so-called positive money. I am regularly told that I need to forget Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and instead see the benefits of this alleged revelationary approach to running the economy. Other E-mailers are less complimentary but just as insistent. Then there are the numerous E-mails recently with the following document attached – Monetary Reform: A Better Monetary System for Iceland – which I am repeatedly told is the progressive solution to bank fraud and, just about all the other ills of the monetary system. The Iceland Report was commissioned by the Icelandic Prime Minister and is being held out as the solution to economic and financial instability because it would wipe out the credit-creating capacity of banks. It has been endorsed by the British conservative Adair Turner, who formerly was the chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority and who recently advocated so-called overt monetary financing (OMF) as a way to resolve the Eurozone crisis. I agree with OMF but disagree with his view that it is the credit-creation capacity of banks that caused the crisis. The crisis was caused by banks becoming non-banks and engaging in non-bank behaviour rather than their intrinsic capacity to create loans out of thin air. A properly regulated banking system does not need to abandon credit-creation. Further, I am aware that in holding this view, I and other Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) proponents are accused of being lackeys to the crooked financial cabals that hold governments to ransom and brought the world economy to its knees. Let me state my position clearly: I am against private banking per se but consider a properly regulated and managed public banking system with credit-creation capacities would be entirely reliable and would advance public purpose. I also consider a tightly regulated private banking system with credit-creation capacities would also still be workable but less desirable.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Its sad when politicians lie just to get political points as they face declining popularity. We saw last week that the Australian Prime Minister started attacking indigenous Australians for living in areas that they have occupied, one way or another, for somewhere up to 80,000 years. He claimed these settlements were “lifestyle” choices and people could no longer expect government support if they wanted to indulge in such choices. 80,000 years for a culture that has a deep connection with the ‘land’ is quite story compared to the Anglo settlement in Australia of 226 years for a culture that connects via iPhones! The PM was playing into the hands of the racist Australians who think the indigenous population here are skivers and drunks and should get no state support. They ignore that this cohort is one of the most disadvantaged peoples of the World. In the last few days, the PM has been lying about the state of government finances and pledging to that “the government will have the budget back in balance within five years”. There was no mention of what this might imply for the real economy. I am surprised that the conservatives haven’t learned from the previous Labor Government who made continual promises of surpluses but failed each time – largely because they didn’t understand that they cannot control the fiscal outcomes no matter how hard they try. And when they do try and run against the spending desires of the non-government sector, they just cause havoc and damage and fail to achieve their goals anyway. Stupid is not the word for these sorts of promises.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’s quiz. The information provided should help you understand the reasoning behind the answers. 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.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
I get several E-mails (regularly) from so-called Georgists who want to know how the Single Tax proposal of Henry George, outlined in his 1879 book Progress and Poverty, fits in with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). I have resisted writing about this topic, in part, because the adherents of this view are vehement, like the gold bugs, and by not considering their proposals in any detail, I can avoid receiving a raft of insulting E-mails. But, more seriously, I see limited application. In general, the Georgists I have come across and the literature produced by those sympathetic to the Single Tax idea, is problematic because there is a presumption that national governments need tax revenue to fund their spending. Clearly, this is an assertion that MMT rejects at the most elemental level. But there is some scope for considering their proposal once one abandons the link between the tax revenue (which they call rent) and government spending capacity. The question that arises, once we free ourselves from that neo-liberal link, is whether a land tax has a place in a government policy portfolio with seeks to advance full employment, price stability and equity. The answer to that question is perhaps. I am writing about this today and tomorrow (with an earlier related post – Tracing the origins of the fetish against deficits in Australia) as part of my research into the life of Clyde Cameron, given I am presenting the fourth Clyde Cameron Memorial lecture tomorrow night in Newcastle. I hope this three-part blog suite is of interest. In some parts, the text is incomplete.
Here are the answers with discussion for yesterday’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.
Knighthoods are handed out as part of the anachronistic Commonwealth honours system. They are an ultimate symbol of cultural snobbery in the UK and cultural cringe in the former British colonies, such as Australia. The Australian government effectively abandoned the system in 1983 because it insulted our sense of independence even though the Monarch of England remains our head of state (why?). It was formally abandoned by agreement with the British government in October 1992. But the creepy conservative government that took over again in September 2013 decided to reinstate the system of imperial honours, specifically to resume the award of Knight and Dame in March 2014. This demonstrated how out of touch the conservatives were. The criticism reached fever pitch a few weeks ago – on Australia Day (January 26, 2015) when it was announced that Prince Phillip (the Queen of England’s husband) would receive a Knighthood, the nation’s highest honour, from the Australian government. Why? Because our Prime Minister is unbelievably stupid but that is another debate beyond of the topic of today’s blog. This UK Guardian article – How giving Prince Philip a knighthood left Australia’s PM fighting for survival – will fill you in on that decision if you are interested. Now a so-called media watchdog, the Australian media site Crikey thinks the Federal Treasurer should be awarded a Knighthood if he can further undermine economic growth and deliberately cause unemployment and underemployment to rise further, not that they said it like that.