Saturday Quiz – March 20, 2010 – answers and discussion

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.

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China is not the problem

There is currently an international cacophony being created by economists, politicians, political commentators and any-one else that thinks they have something to say which goes like this: China’s export orientation and its “manipulation” of the renminbi to stop it appreciating is damaging World demand and plunging the Western world into unsustainable debt levels and persistent unemployment. The simple retort is: the commentators have it all backwards and are ignoring the policy options that the Western world has but which policy makers will not fully utilise. But it is an interesting debate and the institutional attachment to the debate is not necessarily predictable as you will see.

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Hyperdeflation, followed by rampant inflation

The title of the blog is a little misleading but was too good not to use. I get to that five-year forecast (2010-2015) later in the blog but the first part is material that sets the scene. Yes, I am writing about deficits and debts … again! But new nuances come out in the public debate which need to be addressed. The conservative assault on government support for their economies at present is multi-dimensioned and is being pushed along by two main journalistic approaches. The manic Fox new-type approach which I realise is influential but is so patent and ridiculous that I don’t care to comment on it often. Then we have the approach adopted by journalists in so-called credible media outlets such as the UK Guardian. They dress their deficit terrorism up in arguments that the middle classes, who think they are far above Fox new rabble intellectually, will find convincing. But when you bring both approaches down to basics – rubbish = rubbish.

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Yummy at first then you get fat!

What do you do when you read strongly worded opinion pieces in national media outlets from people who hold themselves out to the public as experts in the area of interest and which reveal the writers are deliberately choosing to mislead their readers and/or haven’t a clue about the subject matter they are pontificating about? Answer: you write a blog and allow your frustrations to emanate into the ether! That’s what! Usually, mainstream economics commentators and macroeconomic textbooks hold out the analogy that the government budget is just like a household budget. So eventually the government has to pay the piper if they consume beyond its means and that means we all end up paying. Today, we had a new analogy enter the fray – the fiscal stimulus is like a box of chocolates. Yummy at first then you get fat! Lets proceed.

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Questions and answers 2

This is the second Q&A blog where I try to catch up on all the E-mails (and contact form enquiries) I receive from readers who want to know more about modern monetary theory (MMT) or challenge a view expressed here. It is also a chance to address some of the comments that have been posted in more detail to clarify matters that seem to be causing confusion. So if you send me a query by any of the means above and don’t immediately see a response look out for the regular blogs under this category (Q&A) because it is likely it will be addressed in some form here. While I would like to be able to respond to queries immediately I run out of time each day and I am sorry for that.

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Why history matters

In this recent blog – Who is in charge? – I outlined the case that all the so-called “financing” arrangements that government deploy which are held out to us as being required to allow them to spend are in fact voluntary and reflect deep-seated ideological anti-government positions. I wanted to make the point that it is governments not amorphous “bond markets” that ultimately in command of the destiny of their nations and that citizens are being grossly mislead by lies and half-truths into believing that governments have to introduce harsh austerity packages to appease the markets because if they do not the latter will “close them down”. I continue with that theme today and address some issues raised in the comments that accompanied that blog.

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Doomed from the start

Today I have been studying data from the EMU economies where the individual member states surrendered their currency sovereignty and comparing it to other nations which have sovereign currencies (Australia, Denmark, Japan, the UK and the US). This is part of a larger project I am involved in. While the glare of the spotlight is currently on Greece and how the EMU handles the issue, most commentators conveniently forget that this problem has been many years in the making and is both a product of initial design folly and subsequent behaviour by some member states.

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Who is in charge?

Today I was looking over some macro data from Ireland which is leading the charge among the peripheral EMU nations (the so-called PIIGS) to impoverish its citizens because: (a) the amorphous bond markets have told them too; and (b) they had previously surrendered their policy sovereignty. Their actions are all contingent on the vague belief that the private sector will fill the space left by the austerity campaign. The neo-liberals are full of these sorts of claims. More likely what will happen is a drawn out near-depression and rising social unrest and dislocation. But as long as the Irish do it to themselves then the Brussels-Frankfurt bullies will leave them to demolish their economy. It raises the question who is in charge – the investors or the government? The answer is that the government is always in charge but what they need to do to assert that authority varies depending on the currency arrangements they have in place.

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My Sunday media nightmare

Today started off as a usual Sunday – a long-ride on my bike interrupted by two punctures (why do they come in waves). Anyway, then some other things like a visit to the community garden where I have a plot. Then it was down to work and as I read news stories and academic articles I was continually confronted with the tide of hysteria surrounding the impending sovereign defaults (as we are led to believe). My principle conclusion was that these journalists etc have a pretty good job. They get paid for knowing nothing about the topics they purport to be experts about and instead just make stuff up and intersperse it with some mainstream economic ideology taken straight from Mankiw’s macroeconomic textbook. It would be an easy way to make a living. Get the text book out … turn to the chapter on debt this week (last week inflation) and start of with some “large” numbers which are “without precedent” and you are done. Easy pie! Problem is that it influences the readers who do not know these commentators are charlatans.

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Questions and answers 1

I get a lot of E-mails (and contact form enquiries) from readers who want to know more or challenge a view but who don’t wish to become commentators. I encourage the latter because it diversifies our “community” and allows other people to help out. The problem I usually have is that I run out of time to reply to all these E-mails. I apologise for that. I don’t consider the enquiries to be stupid or not deserving of a reply. It is just a time issue. When I recommitted to maintaining this blog after a lull (for software development) I added a major time impost to an already full workload. Anyway, today’s blog is a new idea (sort of like dah! why didn’t I think of it earlier) – I am using the blog to answer a host of questions I have received and share the answers with everyone. The big news out today is Australia’s inflation data – but I can talk about that tomorrow. So while I travel to Sydney and back by train today, here are some questions and answers. I think I will make this a regular exercise so as not to leave the many interesting E-mails in abeyance.

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Its a hard road

As one dead-end traps the mainstream deficit terrorists’ relentless “hyperinflation is coming”, “the deficits are large and unsustainable” campaign another road is opened. New ways are found of pushing the same boring message. I read several papers and article today that all try to come up with a new tack – a new way of scaring the bjesus out of us and steer our minds towards what they assert is misguided government policy. They actually just don’t like any government claim on real resources because they think there is less for them then. Even when they don’t want to create jobs for the unemployed they resent government employing these people because it would just be a “waste of resources”. Its got worse as I read on. I tell you keeping up with all this stuff is surely going to be “a hard road till I die”.

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The complacent students sit and listen to some of that

Today I have been working in the Australia’s national capital Canberra. I have been discussing the work I am doing to develop a new geography for Australia based around the concept of functional economic regions with the Australian Bureau of Statistics which is currently seeking to revise their own geography along similar lines. You can find out about this work if you are interested via the CoffEE Functional Regions homepage. It will provide you with quite a different perspective on my other research interests beyond macroeconomics. Anyway, on the plane I was reading some monetary analysis and recalling a blog from the weekend by our favourite (not!) macroeconomics textbook writer. I started humming Take the power back to myself as I considered the damage this sort of textbook is doing to the minds of our students and the future policy makers.

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The further down the food chain you go, the more the zealots take over

Today I am travelling to the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvian, both of which are mired in a very deep recession bordering on depression. What you see in these economies is a demonstration of right-wing neo-liberal ideology at its crudest … and the damage it causes … at its magnified worst. Both economies are an indictment of the economics profession and the multi-lateral agencies like the IMF and the European governments. It is hard to come to terms with national governments who could easily enjoy currency sovereignty – voluntarily choosing to do otherwise for ideological reasons and then using what policy space they have left to inflict harsh pro-cyclical cutbacks on the economies they are meant to be nurturing. It is surreal at best and sometime in the future there will be retrospective consensus that this era we are living in was dominated by cruel and tyrannical policy makers.

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What causes mass unemployment?

Today we consider the causes of mass unemployment of the sort that most nations are enduring at present. This also involves the consideration of the relationship between wages and employment. This is an area in economics that has been hotly contested across paradigm lines for years. Mainstream economic commentators still claim that the employment situation can be improved if wages are cut. They are wrong. Modern monetary theory (MMT) is clear – mass unemployment arises when the budget deficit is too low. To reduce unemployment you have to increase aggregate demand. If private spending growth declines then net public spending has to fill the gap. In engaging this debate, we also have to be careful about using experience in one sector to make generalisations about the overall macroeconomic outcomes that might accompany a policy change.

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The year ends badly and then …

The year and the decade are rapidly closing out (early evening Thursday AEST). It is been an incredible year to be an economist with some of the swings in aggregates not seen before in most of our lifetimes. The degree to which nation’s have gone backwards has been staggering. For a researcher like me it has opened up so many new lines of enquiry. I always worry that my major research angle – the study of unemployment – gives me a job as long as there are others without them. But someone has to keep the topic at the top of the agenda and that is what I have devoted my academic and public career to doing. I have also been staggered this year by the sheer audacity of the mainstream economists who went to ground when the crisis emerged because their theories were shamefully wrong – but who are now popping up again – in all their arrogance – leading the charge of the deficit terrorists and undermining the capacity of governments to fight the crisis effectively. They should have just stayed in their slime. Anyway, my final post for the year has some sad things to say … and then …

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One hell of a juxtaposition

Tonight we consider the tale of two countries with some other snippets of good taste included for interest. In the last few days the Japanese government has announced the largest fiscal stimulus in its modern era (since records have been kept) while Ireland announced its 2010 budget which has been characterised as the harshest in the republic’s history. Both countries are mired in recession with only the most modest signs of any recovery. So on the face of it this is one hell of a juxtaposition. What gives?

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When ideology blinds us to the solution

It is interesting how one’s ideology screens out options and alters the way we examine a problem. I was reminded of this when I read two articles in the Times the other day (December 23, 2009) – Thrifty families accused of prolonging the recession and – No evidence Britons can save the day which both focused on movements in the savings ratio. The claim is that with UK households now saving more to reduce their exposure to debt, the UK economy is facing a double dip recession. The ideological screening arises because they seem to think it is inevitable that rising savings will lead to a deepening recession. In doing so they fail to realise that the moves by the British government to “reign in the deficit” are the what will make this inevitable. If their world view was less tainted both articles would have focused on the spurious nature of the deficit terrorism rather than the desirable trend towards rising saving ratios in Britain (and elsewhere).

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Building bank reserves will not expand credit

In his latest New York Times article (December 10, 2009) – Bernanke’s Unfinished Mission – Paul Krugman reveals that he doesn’t really understand much about macroeconomics. Sometimes you read a columnist and try to find extra meaning that is not in the words to give them the benefit of the doubt. At times, Krugman like other columnists sounds positively reasonable and advances arguments that are consistent with modern monetary theory (MMT). But then there is always a give-away article that appears eventually that makes it clear – this analyst really doesn’t get it. In Krugman’s case, he doesn’t seem to have learned from his disastrous foray into Japan’s “lost decade” policy debate.

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The US government has run short of money

The government of the largest economy in the World has run short of money. At least that is what the US President was trying to tell his Jobs and Economic Growth Forum yesterday. Fancy that. This is a national government which issues its own sovereign currency trying to tell the world it is broke. This is a sovereign government that is responsible for capacity utilisation rates at 70 per cent and 15.7 million unemployed saying that is is running out of capacity to deal with the problem. My conclusion is that the only capacity they lack is sound economic advice. They should sack their existing advisors and hire some people who actually understand how the monetary system operates.

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CofFEE conference – Day 1 report

Today is the first day of the 11th Path to Full Employment Conference/16th National Unemployment Conference in Newcastle, hosted by my research centre. As host I am of-course tied up in the event but I thought it would be of interest to visitors to my blog to provide some feel for what has transpired today. I only focus on the plenary talks. The other presentations in the parallel sessions have all been very interesting.

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