Oh Scotland, don’t you dare! – Part 1

The 354-page report from the Scottish Growth Commission – Scotland – the new case for optimism: A strategy for inter-generational economic renaissance (released May 25, 2018) – could have been published by the IMF given its adherence to the flawed neoliberal macroeconomic framework that that institution imposes on everything. It is too generous to call the Growth Commission’s work ‘analysis’ – a series of unfounded assertions with logical extrapolation from that flawed basis is more accurate. If Scotland were to create an independent nation on the basis of the ‘blueprint’ outlined in the Growth Commission’s Report then it would soon be heading into a mediocre oblivion – a future where it would be unable to effectively counteract the fluctuations of non-government sector spending and a future where fiscal policy was forced to be pro-cyclical. Scotland would end up another failed austerity state. This is Part 1 of a two-part series where I examine the Report and its implications. In Part 2, I will examine the currency issues in more detail. I hope to be in Scotland in early October as part of my next speaking tour of Europe – more details later.

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Timor-Leste – challenges for the new government – Part 3

This is Part 3 (and final) of my mini-series analysing some of the challenges that the newly elected majority government in Timor-Leste faces. In Part 2, I discussed the progress of the Strategic Development Plan and the challenges ahead in terms of poverty, unemployment, and other indicators relating to the development process. In Part 2, I focused more on the currency debate – documenting how the IMF and World Bank had infused its ideological stance into the currency arrangements that Timor-Leste set out with as a new nation. I made the case for currency sovereignty which would require Timor-Leste to scrap the US dollar, convert the Petroleum Fund into its stock of foreign exchange reserves, and to run an independent monetary policy with flexible exchange rates, mediated with the capacity to use capital controls where appropriate. In this final discussion I consider specific policy options that are required to exploit what is known as the ‘demographic dividend’ where the age-structure of the nation generates a plunging dependency ratio. To exploit that dividend, which historically delivers massive development boosts to nations, the shifting demographics have to be accompanied by high levels of employment. That should be policy priority No.1.

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The Weekend Quiz – May 19-20, 2018 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’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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Timor-Leste – challenges for the new government – Part 2

This is Part 2 of my mini-series analysing some of the challenges that the newly elected majority government in Timor-Leste faces. Yesterday, I documented how the IMF and World Bank had infused its ideological stance into the currency arrangements that Timor-Leste set out with as a new nation. That infusion is still apparent in the major commentary on Timor-Leste’s future options – specifically that the dollarisation should continue and that fiscal austerity should be pursued (relative to the current fiscal stance) because the nation will run out of money. What they mean is that the Petroleum Fund will eventually run out of money. There is a major difference in those statements although under the current currency arrangements they are identical. The ‘run out of money’ story is only applicable as long as the new government resists adopting its own currency. I also showed how the development process has been stalled by the austerity bias. In Part 2, I explore the currency issue directly and make the case for currency sovereignty which would require Timor-Leste to scrap the US dollar, convert the Petroleum Fund into its stock of foreign exchange reserves, and to run an independent monetary policy with flexible exchange rates, mediated with the capacity to use capital controls where appropriate. In Part 3, which will come out next Monday, I will discuss specific policy options that are required to exploit what is known as the ‘demographic dividend’ where the age-structure of the nation generates a plunging dependency ratio. To exploit that dividend, which historically delivers massive development boosts to nations, the shifting demographics have to be accompanied by high levels of employment. That should be policy priority No.1. I will also complete some Petroleum Fund scenarios to complement the policy advice.

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Lower bond yields do not save the Japanese Government money

I was going to write about the situation in Timor-Leste after its national elections were held on Saturday. But I will hold that over for another day as I get some more information. So today, I think we can learn a lot from an issue raised in the Bloomberg article (May 14, 2018) – Kuroda’s Stimulus Saves Japan $45 Billion, Easing Debt Pressures – which discusses the QE program in Japan and introduces several of the basic errors that mainstream financial commentators make when discussing these issues. The article traverses all the usual suspects including the misconception that numbers in official accounts are ‘costs’ to government and that smaller numbers in official accounts mean the government can put larger numbers in other accounts than it might have been able to. These articles are as pervasive as they are erroneous. Hopefully, as the precepts of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) spread and are understood more journalists will endure scrutiny of the rubbish they write and the public commentary and debate will progress towards a more reasonable – realistic – appraisal of what is going on in the world of finance and money. This article is one of the worst I have read this year so far. And there have been some real terrors!

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Australian fiscal statement 2018-19 – an election stunt, limited economic coherence

The Australian Treasurer brought down the 2018-19 Fiscal Statement (aka Budget) on Tuesday evening with much fanfare. The one message that dominated the cant and hypocrisy was that there will probably be an early election, maybe later this year. The Government is scandal-ridden, is enduring destructive infighting over leadership and policy direction, and has made some monumentally disastrous decisions in the current term of office (for example, denying the need for a Royal Commission into the financial sector, which they were bulldozed into finally accepting, and, which is now revealing massive corruption in our banks and insurance companies). Being so far down in the opinion polls means one thing. They use the annual ‘fiscal’ show to make themselves look good and dollop out (albeit with a lag) some scraps (tax cuts) to the masses, while reserving the huge tax cuts for the top-end-of-town. And, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t even bother to listen to the Treasurer’s speech. In fact, I could write some text generating code which would generate a ‘Budget Speech’ that was remarkably similar to the Treasurer’s speech. So why waste 30 minutes in the evening listening to it. I would prefer to be sorting socks in my sock draw!

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The distinguished economists just embarrass themselves

People are allowed to change their opinions or assessments in the light of new evidence. Diametric changes of position are fine and one should not be pilloried for making such a shift in outlook. Quite the contrary. But when the passage of time reveals that a person just recites the same litany despite being continually at odds with the evidence, then that person’s view should be disregarded, notwithstanding the old saying that a defunct clock is correct twice in each 24 hours. The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest – The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2018 to 2028 (April 9, 2018) – and various commentators and media outlets have gone into conniptions over it. The economists that have responded – and they come with affiliations from both sides of US politics (although it is hard to differentiate separate ‘sides’ in the US anymore such is the demise of the Democrat Party) – have significantly embarrassed themselves. Their hysteria is not matched with the facts and they have been guilty of invoking these hysterical responses year-in, year-out for many years. A crack in a record, goes click, click, click, click and repeats ad infinitum. Sort of like the nonsensical arguments about US fiscal deficits that have appeared in the US press this last week.

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The bond vigilantes saddle up their Shetland ponies – apparently

Last week (February 8, 2018), we witnessed the US Senate spectacle with Rand Paul embarrassing himself with his lack of economic knowledge but also embarrassing both major parties – the Republicans for their gross hypocrisy and the Democrats for their gross idiocy. The – Congressional Record – of Paul’s speech (starting S817) is a classic. Also, last week, the stables were stirring apparently, as the ‘bond vigilantes’ were strapping on their saddles and getting ready to make the US government suffer for its so-called fiscal ‘ill discipline’. These characters apparently emerge out of the darkness of fiscal profligacy to defend our interests and force the government to run surpluses. Fantasy stuff all round. In fact, Rand Paul should resign and get a job he is more suited for (which would be?) and the bond vigilantes should make sure their Shetland ponies are not to wild for them. These bond traders play this elaborate game of bluff and pretend they have the power over the government. In fact, they are mendicants queuing up for their daily dollop of corporate welfare and the government could play them out of the game anytime it chose to. The problem is that the bluff works because governments are captive to the neoliberal nonsense that my professsion preaches.

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Oh poor Britain – overrun by chlorinated chickens, hapless without the EU

I have been doing some research on Brexit. I vowed to stay clear of the topic because of all the stupidity surrounding it from both sides, but most galling are the Labour Remainers who think the European Union is some sort of nirvana (with a few problems) and is on the road to redemption through some amorphous ‘reform’ process. Pigs might fly! I mentioned the recent publication by Open Britain (January 30, 2018) – Busting the Lexit Myths – in yesterday’s blog. This document seeks to state the case for British Labour’s “Campaign for the Single Market”. The ‘single market’ is held out as some sort of security blanket for all and sundry. Without it, Britain will apparently lapse into a state where the government will be unable to maintain services, where “genetically modified foods, chlorinated chicken, and access to procurement of protected sectors like healthcare” overwhelm the local economy, where environmental and working standards disappear and that hapless island floats off into a shocking dystopia. It is really the stuff of fantasy. But the image it evokes of the confidence in British democratic systems and its own capacity for volition is quite stunning. Without the EU, Britain becomes hapless. You laugh then cry. Pathetic.

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Germany – a most dangerous and ridiculous nation

Germany’s domination of the EMU is clear both in political and economic terms. The current political impasse within Germany will not change that. Once resolved the on-going government will continue in the same vein – running excessive fiscal surpluses and huge external surpluses. It can sustain those positions because it dominates European policy and can force the adjustment to these overall ‘unsustainable’ positions onto both its own citizens (lowering their material living standards), and, more obviously, onto citizens of other EMU nations, most noticeably Spain and Greece. If it couldn’t bully nations like Greece, Italy, Spain and even France, Germany’s dangerous domestic strategy would be less effective. If all EMU nations followed Germany’s lead – then there would be mass Depression throughout Europe. This dangerous and ridiculous nation is a blight. Only by exiting the Eurozone and floating their currencies against the currency that Germany uses can these beleaguered EMU nations gain some respite. When the Europhile Left come to terms with that obvious conclusion things might change within Europe.

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The Weekend Quiz – December 23-24, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’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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Lack of universal health care due to application of spurious ‘sound finance’

I have been reading several reports in the past week – ranging from studies using dodgy input-output tables to claim the regions that voted most enthusiastically for Brexit will suffer the most – part of the never ending ‘modelling’ of the alleged disaster – to reports by the historians tracking the impact of austerity on the rise of the Nazis in pre-war Germany. All interesting. I am particularly researching the way in which the Common Agricultural Policy impacted on Britain and why it will be good to be free of it. But one report struck me as fundamental to the way in which neoliberalism has led societies astray and damaged the most defenseless citizens of the world. On December 13, 2017, the World Bank and the World Health Organisation (WHO) published its latest – Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report. This is an audit report to keep track of the progress towards the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were agreed upon in September 2015. One of those goals is health and well-being and within that ambit comes, among other targets, universal health care provision. We learn that “at least half of the world’s population cannot obtain essential health services” and health care service deficiencies are chronic at the poorer end of the income and wealth distribution. The reason is not a lack of real resources to be deployed. Rather, these appalling results are persisting because governments apply neoliberal ‘sound finance’ principles to their spending choices (with the IMF bullying them to do so). So we find major cuts to health care service provision in nations because they claim they cannot raise enough revenue to pay for the provision. In currency-issuing nations, no matter how low the average income levels are, that sort of claim is always spurious.

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The Weekend Quiz – December 2-3, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’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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Automation and full employment – back to the 1960s

On August 19, 1964, the then US President Lyndon B. Johnson established the – National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress. He established the Commission in response to growing concern during the deep 1960-61 recession that the unemployment had been created by the pace of technological change. Ring a bell! He wanted to an inquiry to explore this issue and come up with recommendations on how to deal with the possibility that automation was wiping out jobs and the future would be bleak. Before the Commission had reported, the Federal government had reversed its fiscal austerity and the resulting stimulus had driven the unemployment back down to relatively low levels. The Commission noted that unemployment was largely the result of inadequate total spending and that the Government had the tools at its disposal to eliminate it. They considered that there would be workers (low-skill etc) who would suffer more displacement from technology than those with more skill etc, but that ultimately even those workers would be able to get jobs if the public deficit was large enough. In this regard, they eschewed pointless training programs that did not provide immediate access to jobs. Instead, they recommended (among other things) the introduction of a Job Guarantee (Public Service Employment) financed by the Federal government but administered at all levels of government. It would pay the Federal minimum wage and be available on demand. This is the preferred Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) approach and rejects solutions that rely on the provision of a basic income guarantee to resolve the problems created by unemployment.

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British mainstream media spreading dangerous MMT ideas

The British newspaper, The Independent seems to be getting in beds with Commies lately. The evidence I elicit is the recent article (November 4, 2017) – Actually the magic money tree does exist, according to modern monetary theory – by a journalist Youssef El-Gingihy. It gives oxygen to the views of an Australian economist, one William Mitchell who espouses what is known as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – yes, you got it in one – another crackpot economic approach that fails to recognise that most professional economists reject it, which means it must be wrong. Right! More than two thousand people have shared the article, which means the socialist cancer is being spread by these Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) fanatics. One commentator thought it was a “rearly stupid article”. Don’t worry about the spelling error. The opinion is what mattered and it was dead-centre true. Mitchell must be one of the most stupid economists ever. Like his MMT mates who seem to be tweeting and being retweeted in ever increasing frequencies these days, which just goes to show that people can be indoctrinated to believe anything. Some comments were made on the article, which just reflected what anybody who knows anything about economics would say – you know – government spending will ultimately cause “hyperinflation” – everybody knows that. Further, one insightful commentator noted that because Britain is not at war there is “no justification to rack up big debts” – everybody knows that. Mitchell obviously wants the government to rack up huge debts, although he doesn’t actually say that. But if the government does run deficits it will obviously intend “to soft-default on debts through inflation” which will then mean “the markets will smash the pound”. Everybody knows that too. For me, I couldn’t get any traction in the comments section – most commentators seemed to be supportive of this mad professor’s crazy ideas – so I decided to E-mail him. I didn’t get any satisfaction from that either. He is obviously a commie in disguise. He said something about Chartalism. I think that was just a typo in his reply – probably he was trying to say that he was a charlatan. What is the world coming to!

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The ‘infinite-horizon fiscal gap’ is just an infinity of nonsense – try measuring that!

The ‘infinite-horizon fiscal gap’ is just an infinity of nonsense. That is, if such a level of ridiculousness can be measured, which it cannot. So suffice to say a pretty large dose of nonsense. Certainly nothing to take seriously. Anyone who sprouts this nonsense declares themselves unqualified to discuss notions of sovereignty and the capacities of a currency-issuing state. But while some mainstream economists are firmly stuck in their Groupthink-riddled stupors with their ‘infinite-horizon fiscal gap’ calculations producing ever increasing (scaremungous) $ sums that the US government is allegedly unable to ever pay, the movers and shakers of the political scene, such as the Koch Brothers in the US, feel no compunction to stick with a consistent line attacking fiscal deficits. A few years ago they were predicting mayhem and insolvency just like the stupified academics. How things change when some dollars are up for grabs even if the fiscal deficit has to rise to transfer that largesse to the non-government sector. Then it is look the other way on the deficit and send us the cash. Sickening.

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Three recent interviews – transcripts and video

Today, I have translated two interviews I did while I was in Europe recently. The original interviews were in Spanish. The first interview was with Andrés Villena Oliver for CTXT and was published in the Spanish newspaper Público. It was conducted at Ecooo in Madrid on September 28, 2017. The the second interview was with journalist Marta Luengo Garcés from the progressive newspaper El Salto Diaro. It was conducted at the Principe Pio Hotel in Madrid on September 29, 2017. You can get a feel for the concerns of the progressive journalists in Spain by the type of questions they asked me. I have also included the video of an interview I did yesterday (October 16, 2017) with Steve Grumbine of the Real Progressives. That should keep readers more than busy until tomorrow.

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ECB is running out of debt to buy – more smoke and mirrors needed

There was a Bloomberg report yesterday (September 6, 2017) – Draghi’s Claim of QE Flexibility Is Attracting Doubters – that made me laugh. The sort of laugh that comes when you just realise there is parallel language spoken out there that makes no sense and reinforces stupidity with stupidity. Much like most of mainstream economics commentary. The journalist was trying to argue that times is up for the ECB’s Quantitative Easing strategy because they are running out of debt to buy. Whew! That sounds like a catastrophe. The point is that the elephant in the room is ignored. The ECB is already massively violating the Treaty of Lisbon constraints on funding government deficits. It is time they realised that without that ‘quasi fiscal support’ (given the ECB is effectively the only functioning federal fiscal authority by default in the Eurozone), the system will collapse under the weight of austerity. Leadership demands they take the next step and allow the ECB to openly fund deficits using Overt Monetary Financing (OMF). But the lack of leadership tells us they will not take this obvious step. The grinding nature of Eurozone economic history will continue as a result – and then the next crisis will hit.

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Fiscal policy is effective, safe to use, and markets know it

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has just hosted its annual Economic Policy Symposium at Jackson Hole in Wyoming where central banks, treasury officials, financial market types and (mainstream) economists from the academy and business gather to discuss economic policy. As you might expect, the agenda is set by the mainstream view of the world and there is little diversity in the discussion. A Groupthink reinforcing session. One paper that was interesting was from two US Berkeley academics – Fiscal Stimulus and Fiscal Sustainability – which the news reports claimed suggested that governments should be increasing fiscal expansion even though they may be carrying high levels of public debt. The conclusion reached by the paper is correct but the methodology is mainstream and so progressives should not get carried away with the idea that there is signs that some give is emerging, which will lead to more progressive outcomes. A progressive solution will only come when the neo-liberal dominance of my profession is terminated and an entirely new macroeconomics paradigm based on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is established. There is still a long way to go though.

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The chickens are coming home to roost for Europe’s so-called powerhouse

When I was in Portugal a few years ago (Porto mainly), I noticed taxi drivers at the rank queue who would get out of their cars when the front of the queue changed and push them to the next spot in the queue. It was like something one would see in a very poor nation without fuel. But then austerity had created poverty in Portugal and the taxi drivers were just trying to eke out a living as best they could and make as many savings as they could along the way to spread the meagre receipts they earned as far as possible. But then that was just Portugal, right! They have been living beyond their means for years and needed the reality check that austerity brought, right! They should follow Germany’s lead and tighten their belts and enjoy low unemployment and the strongest economy in the Eurozone, right! But, of course, the reality is different. Germany has become so obsessed with recording fiscal surpluses that its trucks can no longer transit important bridges and so the export model is being undermined. It is so obsessed with screwing its own people and overseeing an increasing bias to precarious work with low pay that the future retirements of their workforce is in jeopardy. The chickens are coming hometo roost in a big way for Europe’s so-called powerhouse. No other nation should follow its lead.

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