Yearly Archives: 2012

Responses to Blog 41: MMT, Austrians, and Ideology

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | 44 comments

By L. Randall Wray

Sorry for the delay. I will respond to comments on my blog and also to comments on Dan Kervick’s excellent piece on MMT (part one—if I have any comments for part two I will post them after I get time to read the post and comments).

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Stay Tuned for Responses to the Latest MMP Post

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 1 comment

Responses to the latest in the “MMT for Austrians” series will be delayed until tommorow.  In addition to addressing questions and comments concerning the MMP piece, Prof. Wray will also deal with others raised in Dan Kervick’s recent two part series.  Stay tuned!

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Senator Grassley calls Attorney General Holder’s Bluff

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 13 comments

By William K. Black

On March 7, 2012, I testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the failure to prosecute the elite fraudulent financial CEOs who drove the ongoing crisis.  The first witness testifying to the committee was Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez.  The focus of the hearing was Countrywide’s massive racial and ethnic discrimination against minorities.  Perez testified that there were over 200,000 identified victims of discrimination by Countrywide and that the settlement his office negotiated led to a payment that was 50 times larger than the largest previous settlement.  Perez testified that each of these victims of Countrywide’s discrimination will receive between one and two thousand dollars.

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Newt’s Latest Declaration of Independence From Reality

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 1 comment

By William K. Black
(Cross-posted from HuffPo)

Newt Gingrich’s story is that Freddie Mac was so impressed with his skills as an historian that they paid him at least $1.6 million not to lobby, but to serve as their historical muse. Gingrich was, of course, a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, a politically inconvenient fact for a candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

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(Re) Occupy Greece

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 9 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross-posted from Benzinga.com)

While the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement set its sights on occupying a financial center, Germany has accomplished the vastly more impressive feat of occupying an entire nation – Greece.  Germany has experience at occupying Greece having done so during World War II.  The art of occupying another nation is to recruit a local puppet to do the dirty work required to repress the citizens.  Germany used several puppets, most notoriously the murderous Ioannis Rallis, to (nominally) rule Greece and terrify the Greek people during World War II.  (After Germany’s defeat, Rallis was executed for his treason.)

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William K Black’s Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 2 comments

The full hearing can be viewed here.  Prof. Black’s testimony starts around the 144th minute.

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The Public Money Monopoly (Pt. II)

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 24 comments

By Dan Kervick

In Part One of this essay I defended the MMT view that the national government is the monopoly issuer of the currency in the US, and I attempted to clarify the actual economic status of that government currency with respect to the Fed’s conventional balance sheet accounting.   In this concluding part of the essay I will further develop the contrast between the government’s role as currency issuer and the role of private sector households and firms – including commercial banks – as currency users.  I will then make a few points about how the government supplies currency to the non-governmental sectors of the economy before concluding with a discussion of several topics that tend to engender resistance to the very idea that such a currency monopoly exists.

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The Public Money Monopoly (Pt. I)

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | 41 comments

By Dan Kervick

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) emphasizes the central role of governments in sovereign monetary systems.  MMT co-developer Warren Mosler has described the US dollar system, for example, as a “simple public monopoly.”    L. Randall Wray has written that, “In the United States, the dollar is our state money of account and high-powered money (HPM or coins, green paper money, and bank reserves) is our state monopolized currency.”   Sometimes this crucial MMT claim is expressed more broadly by saying the US government is the monopoly supplier of “net financial assets” to the non-governmental sectors of the dollar economy.

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William K. Black: 2nd ‘German Occupation of Greece?

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | 4 comments

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Microcredit Accounting Control Fraud Deepens Bosnia’s Nightmare

Posted on March 11, 2012 by | 19 comments

By William K. Black

I write to recommend reading David Roodman’s recent column in the Washington Post (“Microcredit doesn’t end poverty, despite all the hype”).

Microcredit has been the fair-haired child in economic development despite very weak evidence that it was successful in reducing (much less “end[ing]”) poverty.  It has been praised by liberals, conservatives, and feminists – an odd but strong coalition.  Roodman explains that providing credit to poor people does not necessarily increase growth and reduce poverty.  Roodman notes that providing large amounts of microcredit can produce bubbles.  He notes that Bosnia is one of the nations that have experienced this problem, but does not note the critical article on the Bosnian microfinance crisis and he fails to mention the five-letter “f” word – fraud.  Doing so would greatly strengthen his argument and demonstrate that badly designed microcredit can spur control fraud, bubbles, financial crises, recessions, and increased poverty.  Roodman was writing a brief, general article about microfinance.  A longer article about Bosnia’s microcredit nightmare is a good complement to his piece and I urge reading both articles in full.

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