There is no inflationary outbreak evident – the economy is slowing

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the Consumer Price Index, Australia data for the December 2010 quarter today and it showed that inflation continues to fall. The ABC News reported that – CPI figure comes in below expectations. Who’s expectations you might ask? Yes, the bank economists and other main-streamers who have a one track obsession that whenever there is some sign of growth there must be inflation. Wrong again. It was clear that inflation is moderating notwithstanding the spikes that will come in the next months as a result of the flood disasters. But when will the inflation-obsessives give up on the idea that the budget deficits cause inflation. The reality is that the Australian economy is slowing down and there is still a significant amount of spare capacity available for real output expansion should aggregate demand rise. Some sectors are growing strongly (mining) but that unlikely to create significant cost pressures elsewhere in the economy given the amount of labour slack. Last month I gave the bank economists a tip. Consult the ideological chart and then predict the opposite. They would have predicted the data movements more accurately if they had have taken my advice. There is no inflationary outbreak evident – the economy is slowing.

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Saturday Quiz – January 22, 2011 – 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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Saturday Quiz – January 15, 2011 – 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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Saturday Quiz – January 8, 2011 – 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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Modern monetary theory and inflation – Part 2

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) released their monthly index of food prices yesterday (January 5, 2011) which showed that the index reached a record high in December 2010 “surpassing the levels of 2008 when the cost of food sparked riots around the world, and prompting warnings of prices being in “danger territory”” (Source). There are several reasons why food prices will move even higher – the catastrophic floods in Northern Queensland being among them. The rising food prices are once again leading to calls for interest rates to rise in order to minimise the inflationary consequences. That motivated me to write Part 2 of my series on inflation – in this case supply-side motivated inflations. In Part 1 of the series – Modern monetary theory and inflation – Part 1 – I concentrated on demand-side origins.

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Saturday Quiz – January 1, 2011 – 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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Saturday Quiz – December 25, 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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Saturday Quiz – December 18, 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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Saturday Quiz – December 11, 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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The public sector and free information are essential for collective well-being

I have been in Sydney today for Day 1 of the Australian Society of Heterodox Economists’ (SHE) Conference. I always go down as a solidaristic gesture but I admit to not being fully engaged in some of the topics given there is an underlying hostility among many heterodox economist to getting the macroeconomics right before you delve into various microeconomics topics. I do not find it appealing to analysing demographic cohorts distinguished by sexuality, gender, race as if they are “independent” and can be understood without recourse to acknowledging their relationship to capital and without understanding the macroeconomic constraints that bear upon their decision-making environment. But during the day I was thinking about why societies voluntarily go along with state imposed restrictions on their freedoms which clearly entrench the disadvantage of individual members within these societies. I was thinking of this within the context of the choice nations have to exit the euro and the pressure being put on such nations to remain within the zone even though the status quo is devastating private well-being. I was also thinking about the forces that are working within the US to misrepresent the true nature of the financial crisis and allow government support for the elites who have committed gross fraud to override basic job creation support for the unemployed. I was also thinking about this in the context of the debate about the morality of WikiLeaks and the growing government attacks on that organisation.

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Saturday Quiz – December 4, 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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Saturday Quiz – November 27, 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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Saturday Quiz – November 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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Saturday Quiz – November 13, 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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Saturday Quiz – November 6, 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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Fiscal vandals chasing a dream

The Australian government is digging a hole for itself at present. In the May Budget it talked (neo-liberal) tough to demonstrate what it claimed was “Responsible Economic Management” – and this meant it entered a battle with the Opposition about who would deliver the biggest budget surplus. This became one of the comical (in a tragic way) features of the August federal election campaign. The respective treasury boof-heads from the Government and Opposition boasting about the size of their future budget surpluses. They also tried to win the battle of who would get there the quickest. The whole discussion was definitely mindless. Now with the Australian dollar appreciating fairly strongly the Government has realised the reduced economic activity that seems to be occurring is reducing its tax revenue prospects and therefore undermining its surplus projections. So what do they do next? Answer: announce they will cut spending by even more than originally planned. They are going to deliberately undermine employment growth and force even more people to lose their jobs at a time that labour underutilisation sits at the obscene level of 12.5 per cent and inflation is moderating. It is sadly a case of the fiscal vandals chasing a dream. The dream however is a nightmare.

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Saturday Quiz – October 30, 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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Saturday Quiz – October 23, 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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Why fiscal deficits drive private profit

I have been working on the macroeconomics textbook today that Randy Wray and I are hoping to publish sometime next year. We have a publisher and now just have to complete the text which is progressing well. Also today I have been wondering why UK business firms are not horrified at the latest damaging policy announcement by the new conservative British government. My thoughts generalise to any government at present in terms of the obvious need to expand fiscal policy. I brought those two things together today – the practical need for continued fiscal support for private sector activity and the development of our textbook – by considering the macroeconomic origins of profits. It is an interesting story that very few people really understand because they think micro all the time when it comes to the understanding the profits of business firms whereas you have to start thinking from a macroeconomics perspective to really understand this. It also helps you understand the relationship between the government and non-government sector more fully – a relationship which is at the heart of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). So read on and see if you have thought about this before.

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Saturday Quiz – October 16, 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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