Monthly Archives: November 2015

Road to COP21 and Beyond: The Missing Analysis of the Kyoto Protocol and its Failure

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Michael Hoexter | 2 comments

In this series, I will attempt to outline key issues facing policymakers as they meet in Paris at the UN’s Conference of the Parties-21 starting on November 30^th and possibly culminating in a global climate treaty by the end of the conference on December 11^th, called a “deadline” by the organizers. COP21 is being viewed as a last chance for humanity to seriously address climate change in concert and therefore face humanity’s most serious and ominous existential crisis. Human survival as a species may very well be at stake.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
George Santayana, The Life of Reason

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Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged climate, climate policy, COP21, environment

MMT and Bernie Sanders

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Devin Smith | 7 comments

L. Randall Wray

Yesterday Senator Bernie Sanders gave an important speech in which he invoked President Roosevelt’s “second bill of rights” in defense of his platform. As Bernie rightly pointed out, all of Roosevelt’s New Deal social programs to which we have become accustomed, were tagged as “socialism”—just as pundits are branding Bernie’s proposals as dangerous socialist ideas. You can see Bernie’s prepared remarks here.

Just before Bernie’s speech, I was asked to do an interview with Alex Jensen, on TBS eFM’s “This Morning” English radio program in Seoul, Korea. I was sent a list of questions and jotted down very brief responses. Unfortunately, in our radio interview we were only able to get through a few of these. You can listen to the interview (uses iTunes) here. My interview is #8, Name: 1119 Issue Today with Professor L.R. Wray

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7 Comments

Posted in L. Randall Wray

Tagged bernie sanders, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

The Global Haves And Have-Nots In The 21st Century

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Devin Smith | Comments Off

NEP’s Marshall Auerback interviews Branko Milanovic, Visiting Presidential Professor, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. This is almost certainly the highest level of relative, and certainly absolute, global inequality at any point in human history. Is there anything we can do to reverse or mitigate this trend? See the interview here.

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Posted in Marshall Auerback

Tagged #poverty, inequality

Some Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part V

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Joe Firestone | Comments Off

This is Part V, and the conclusion, of the series providing my reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my evaluation of his views on the platinum coin proposal and other options for settling debt ceiling conflicts. In Part I I discussed some preliminary mis-characterizations of what I said and, more importantly, why the commonly recognized fiscal policy rule that, at least over a number of years, government revenues ought to match government spending is fiscally unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible in light of deductions from the Sectoral Financial Balances (SFB) model. Continue reading →

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $100 Trillion coin, Brookings Institution, Conservatism, consols, debt ceiling crisis, debt limit, fiscal myths, Mike Castle, Philip A. Wallach, Philip N. Diehl, platinum coin seigniorage, Political legitimacy, Trillion Dollar Coin, weirdness

Neil Delamere Talks Economics with Bill Black

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Devin Smith | Comments Off

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NEP’s Bill Black talks economics and the Irish economy with Neil Delamere on Neil’s Sunday Best program. You can listen here.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged ireland, Kilkenomics

Some Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part IV

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Joe Firestone | 5 comments

This is Part IV of my reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my evaluation of his views on the platinum coin proposal and other options for settling debt ceiling conflicts. In Part I I discussed some preliminary mis-characterizations of what I said and, more importantly, why the commonly recognized fiscal policy rule that, at least over a number of years, government revenues ought to match government spending is fiscally unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible in light of deductions from the Sectoral Financial Balances (SFB) model.

In Part II I continued with a discussion of political legitimacy and usurpation issues and then covered some legal objections to using the $100 T platinum coin option related to the “intent” of the coin law. In Part III I discussed a legal objection based on Wallach’s view of the intent of the coin law, which quickly morphed into a political objection about the desirability of mutual respect and comity among the three branches of government, as well as the threat to political legitimacy arising from the judgment that the platinum coin option is really “weird.”

In this, Part IV, I’ll continue discussing the “weirdness” objection, and also cover Wallach’s views on Inflation and hyper-inflation, and Modern Money Theory. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $100 Trillion coin, 14th Amendment, Brookings Institution, Conservatism, debt ceiling crisis, debt limit, fiscal myths, Mike Castle, Philip A. Wallach, Philip N. Diehl, platinum coin seigniorage, Political legitimacy, Trillion Dollar Coin, weirdness

Some Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part III

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Joe Firestone | 13 comments

This is Part III of my lengthy reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my evaluation of his views on the platinum coin proposal and other options for settling debt ceiling conflicts. In Part I I discussed some preliminary mis-characterizations of what I said and, more importantly, why the commonly recognized fiscal policy rule that, at least over a number of years, government revenues ought to match government spending is fiscally unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible in light of deductions from the Sectoral Financial Balances (SFB) model. In Part II I continued with a discussion of political legitimacy and usurpation issues and then covered some legal objections to using the $100 T platinum coin option related to the “intent” of the coin law.

In this installment I’ll continue with more discussion of political objections. Continue reading →

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $100 Trillion coin, 14th Amendment, beowulf, Brookings Institution, Carlos Mucha, Conservatism, debt ceiling crisis, debt limit, fiscal myths, Mike Castle, Philip A. Wallach, Philip N. Diehl, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

Some Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part II

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Joe Firestone | 17 comments

I began a lengthy critical reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my earlier analysis of his paper in Part I of this series. There I covered some preliminary mis-characterizations of what I said and, more importantly, why the commonly recognized fiscal policy rule that, at least over a number of years, government revenues ought to match government spending is fiscally unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible in light of deductions from the Sectoral Financial Balances (SFB) model. In this Part II, I’ll cover some conjectures about political legitimacy Wallach offers about the consequences of minting a $100 T, some legal legitimacy issues, and some additional political legitimacy issues. Continue reading →

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Some Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part I

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Joe Firestone | 10 comments

As I was working my way through the series of posts beginning with this one, news was announced that Republican and Democratic Party leaders in Congress, along with the President had come to agreement on the terms of ending the debt ceiling standoff in the context of a new budget deal. Their agreement provides for suspension of the debt ceiling until March of 2017; so the immediate need to turn to unusual solutions to a pending debt ceiling crisis is now gone, and, along with it, crisis-driven discussions about the platinum coin option.

Nevertheless, even though the immediate reason motivating renewed discussions of the platinum coin option is now gone, I still have some unfinished business dealing with the issues surrounding it. Late last week I replied to a paper from Philip Wallach of The Brookings Institution with a post at Naked Capitalism, as well as a number of other sites in the blogosphere. Now, Wallach has replied to my post, which mostly presents new arguments not in his original paper.

These are important to answer for the record, since platinum coin options and debt ceiling issues are likely to return again in the future, especially if we still have divided government in 2017, a very good possibility, I think. Answering them is also important, however, because they are the kinds of arguments that will be offered by the mainstream neoliberals against using the $100 T platinum coin, as well as the trillion dollar version. This series, of which this post is Part I, will present a detailed reply to Wallach’s new paper. Continue reading →

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $100 Trillion coin, 14th Amendment, Brookings Institution, Conservatism, debt ceiling crisis, debt limit, fiscal myths, Philip A. Wallach, platinum coin seigniorage, sectoral financial balances model, SFB model, Trillion Dollar Coin

The Road To COP21: Where is the “Locus of Control” of Effective Climate Action?

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Michael Hoexter | 2 comments

By Michael Hoexter

In the next several weeks, I will attempt through this series “The Road to COP21” to outline key issues facing policymakers and activists as they converge on Paris at the UN’s Conference of the Parties-21 starting on November 30^th and possibly culminating in a global climate treaty by the end of the conference on December 11^th. COP21 is being viewed as a last chance for humanity to seriously address climate change in concert and thereby face humanity’s most serious and ominous existential crisis. Human survival as a species may very well be at stake.

With the approach of COP21, policymakers and activists concerned about the climate will have a series of choices to make, choices perhaps that will seal the fate of humanity as a species. These decisions will be influenced by the participants’ pre-existing or emerging ideas about who or what are the central players or forces in effective climate action and which are the social-political-economic dynamics that they will initiate or continue to maintain. Alternatively if those participants are not sincerely concerned about the fate of humanity as regards climate, they may simply enact “some” climate policy as a fig-leaf or showpiece. Seriousness, sincerity, and clear-headedness, would seem to be prerequisites for, at COP21 and surrounding events, both a successful negotiation as well as a design of an effective new international system to reduce human-caused warming emissions eventually to net zero or less. So for the moment, in this discussion here, I’m going to assume that there are at least some people in positions of influence (a very large group) or political power (a few people) who sincerely want to cut emissions to stabilize the climate, employing a variety of means.

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