Monday, 17 October, on the weekly progressive radio program Hopping Mad with Will McLeod and Arliss Bunny, JD Alt was interviewed about his book The Millennials’ Money. The broadcast version of the interview, which aired on Netroots Radio at 8AM Eastern on Monday, 17 October, was twenty-two minutes long. The podcast version of the interview is about twice that. The podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and on the Hopping Mad website.
JD’s book was previewed here, on NEP, in sections as he was going through the writing process and many NEP contributors participated in comment threads which influenced aspects of the book. If you have not read it in its entirety, The Millennials’ Money is quite worthwhile in that it not only brings JD’s excellent diagrams, from his best-selling ebook Diagrams & Dollars, to a hardcopy format covering the basics of MMT but then goes beyond that with some genuinely interesting thinking on how the millennial (fourth turning) generation can best use MMT to solve some of the immense challenges they face.
As one of the hosts I may have a silly name (it’s one of those accidental internet names…long story) but I’m very serious about MMT. I cover economics and financial news on the show every week and do as much MMT education as I can along the way. For instance, just recently I completed a series on how banks create money. Those of you who are MMT pros will not hear anything new but the year-old show grows in audience at a rate of about 20% per week so going over MMT concepts repeatedly has a purpose. In the show this week I do my second installment on the lies Donald Trump told during the second debate as they relate to the economy. It’s like shooting carrots in a barrel but I think it is still important to help listeners understand tired and false GOP arguments as they relate to old neocon saws.
Like JD, I am in the process of taking my well-reviewed little MMT ebook, The Smart Bunny’s Guide to Debt, Deficit and Austerity (and reviewed at NEP by Joe Firestone), into a hardcopy, revised second edition and I’m getting ready to release the rest of the series over the following months including The Smart Bunny’s Guide to the Federal Reserve, The Smart Bunny’s Guide to Government Spending and The Smart Bunny’s Guide to Social Security. Just as have JD and Joe Firestone, I have joined in the cadre of non-economists (JD is an architect, Joe has a PhD in political science and my PhD is in physics) trying to spread the MMT word to the masses as best we know how. In my opinion, JD’s book is an important step in this process in that it makes it clear to millennials that they have power to do the things they are so (rightfully) frustrated with my generation for not getting done.
I encourage you to take a listen to JD’s interview. It is the first one he has done for The Millennials Money and I think he is an excellent ambassador for the MMT community. Any comments about the show, either specifically this episode or in general, are very much welcome. In two weeks, on the 31 October show, we have Dr. Randall Wray on his fabulous new book, Why Minsky Matters and on the MMT textbook he has recently co-authored. I would also like to extend an invitation to any of you who might have a burning MMT topic you would like to come on-air and discuss. I am constantly looking for MMT folk to include and am open to virtually any topic. I can always be reached on Twitter (@ArlissBunny or @ImHoppingMad) or directly via email at [email protected].
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