Daily Archives: January 9, 2014

The Greatest Myth Propagated About The FED: Central Bank Independence (Part 1)

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Devin Smith | 10 comments

It has been commonplace to speak of central bank independence—as if it were both a reality and a necessity. Discussions of the Fed invariably refer to legislated independence and often to the famous 1951 Accord that apparently settled the matter. [1] While everyone recognizes the Congressionally-imposed dual mandate, the Fed has substantial discretion in its interpretation of the vague call for high employment and low inflation. For a long time economists presumed those goals to be in conflict but in recent years Chairman Greenspan seemed to have successfully argued that pursuit of low inflation rather automatically supports sustainable growth with maximum feasible employment.

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Posted in L. Randall Wray

Tagged central bank, central bank independence

The Social Enterprise Sector Model for a Job Guarantee in the U.S.

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Pavlina Tcherneva | 34 comments

By Pavlina R. Tcherneva

Jesse Myerson created a firestorm over mainstream media with his Rolling Stone piece “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For”. I’d like to address the very first of these reforms, the Job Guarantee (JG), as Myerson references my proposal for running the program through the non-profit sector and discussed it in several interviews on Tuesday.

Last month, I did a podcast with him about this program. Let me focus on some questions that keep popping up about the proposal, e.g., Josh Barro’s Business Insider piece.

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Posted in Pavlina R. Tcherneva

Tagged job guarantee

What about Ecuador?

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Devin Smith | 2 comments

By William K. Black

The Wall Street Journal has written it’s latest “just so” article about how leftist Latin American leaders (Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela) are bad and rightist Latin American leaders (Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru) are wonderful. It quotes favorably this dismissal of progressive leaders.

“’We set out to create the Pacific Alliance because we wanted to set ourselves apart from the populists,’ said Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Peruvian finance minister. ‘We wanted a thinking man’s axis.’”

No thinking women, allowed, of course. Dr. Michelle Bachelet just busted the “axis” by being re-elected President of Chile by a large margin. No one intelligent, of course, could be a progressive, at least that is what the right claims.

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