Welcome to The Weekend Quiz. The quiz tests whether you have been paying attention or not to the blog posts that I post. See how you go with the following questions. Your results are only known to you and no records are retained.
There was an unedifying and fairly undignified war on Twitter recently about whether Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) economics advocate using taxes to deal with inflation. Like all these Twitter ‘debates’, the opening proposition was a ‘gotcha’ attempt that was correct from one angle but then missed the point when it was applied to whether MMT is a valid framework or not. The responses from the MMT ‘activists’ were also overly defensive and reflected the fact that they had fallen for the framing trap presented by the antagonist. In this blog post, I want to clarify the MMT position on the use of taxes and inflation policy. What you will learn is that both positions presented in that Twitter war were largely erroneous, and, conflated concepts, either knowingly (probably not) or unknowingly, to leave a muddy mess. As the cloud became thicker, the ‘debate’ descended, as all these Twitter exchanges seem to, into unhelpful accusations of racial insult, claims of ignorance and stupidity, and worse. Not very helpful.
It’s Wednesday and I am pushed for time today. My local community is in the last stages of trying to stop a massive overdevelopment in our midst, which will damage the social cohesion and environmental amenity in our neighbourhood, while delivering massive profits to a greedy property developer. I have to appear before a tribunal today to document the impacts of the development on these things. Property developers are the scourge. So are mainstream economists like Larry Summers who is proposing that unemployment be deliberately increased by more than 2.3 million and held at that level or higher for years in order to reduce the current (transitory) inflation. Who would be so stupid? And after getting really mad about that and Keir Starmer’s abandonment of working class representation, we can soothe our souls with some Roy Elridge.
The French National Assembly results from the weekend are a good outcome. Not the best, but good, although the continued presence of the Right is disturbing. At least Macron’s group of Europhiles has lost its absolute majority with the new Left alliance becoming a viable opposition. The polarisation – with a surge from the Right and the strong performance of the real Left rather than the lite Socialist Party version – is indicative of what Europe has become – a fractured, divided, divergent set of nations and regions. If the Left had have seen the value in this unity ticket during the Presidential election things might have been different. But better late than ever. France will now find it hard pushing further neoliberal policies and there will be pressures on the government to defy the fiscal rules and redress some of the shocking deficiencies that the neoliberal period has created. But, those pressures are coming squarely up against the impending crisis facin gthe monetary union. All the economics talk in Europe at the moment is indicative of the plight that monetary union faces after papering over the cracks during the first two-and-a-half years of the pandemic. After years of holding the bond spreads down, with their asset purchasing programs, things are changing as the ECB is pressured to follow suit and hike interest rates and abandon their bond buying. If they do both things, then there will be a crisis quick smart because nations like Italy will face increasing yields on their borrowing which will run out of control. So, the solution – another ad hoc response – an “anti-fragmentation” tool. If it sounds like a joke that keeps on rolling, you would not be wrong. More paper, same cracks.
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.
Welcome to The Weekend Quiz. The quiz tests whether you have been paying attention or not to the blog posts that I post. See how you go with the following questions. Your results are only known to you and no records are retained.
My two sessions at the Levy Summer School begin early on Friday morning (Australian time). The details follow.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released of the latest labour force data today (June 18, 2022) – Labour Force, Australia – for May 2022. The labour market improved markedly in May after several months of weakness. The robust full-time employment growth was a good sign as was the increasing participation rate. That particularly favoured the younger workers. The official unemployment rate was unchanged but the underlying (‘What-if’) unemployment rate is closer to 6.1 per cent rather than the official rate of 3.9 per cent. There are still 1,355.5 thousand Australian workers without work in one way or another (officially unemployed or underemployed). The only reason the unemployment rate is so low is because the underlying population growth remains low after the border closures over the last two years.
I am back at about 70 per cent but improving. This morning was good news although it should have been better. Australia’s minimum wage setting authority – the Fair Work Commission (FWC) – increased the federal minimum wage by 5.2 per cent or $A40 a week to $A812.60. In their decision – – Annual Wage Review 2021-22 – the FWC sought to protect the real living standards of the lowest-paid workers in the nation after receiving a ‘direction’ from the new Federal Labor Government to do so. They failed. Real wages for low-paid workers will still fall over the next 12 months, just not by as much as they would have had not the Federal government intervened and supported a 5.1 per cent rise (which was the March-quarter inflation rate). So good but should have been better. The major employer groups argued for variously very low nominal rises, while at the same, they enjoying booming profits and rising productivity growth. A scandalous indictment of our system.