Author Archives: Devin Smith

Beowulf and Diehl Embrace Trillion Dollar Coin Incrementalism!

Posted on January 25, 2013 | 30 comments

A wonderful discussion thread has been going on at Monetary Realism (MR) after a very good new post by beowulf (Carlos Mucha), who first brought forward the proposal for the Executive Branch to use the authority provided in the 1996 Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) legislation to fill the public purse, on whether the Fed had a legal basis for turning down PCS in the form of the Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC). I’ll leave the legal discussion for another blog post, since I agree with beo on these, and also need to review some legal arguments against the TDC by some George Washington University Professors. Here I want to write about some of the MR discussion relating to PCS options.

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30 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $60 T coin, austerity, beowulf, Carlos Mucha, Fiscal Policy, HVCS, HVPCS, incrementalism, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, Philip Diehl, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

It Was Not a Free Lunch: The True Cost of the AIG Bailout

Posted on January 24, 2013 | 12 comments

James Tilson and Robert E. Prasch

“If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” This old adage came to mind on December 11, 2012 when the U.S. Treasury made the announcement, reiterated unthinkingly by the press, that the AIG bailout was coming to an end with American taxpayers making a tidy profit on the deal. In an effort to capitalize on the news, AIG has spent millions of dollars on a primetime ad campaign thanking America for the bailout, highlighting its success: “We’ve repaid every dollar America lent us. Everything, plus a profit of more than 22 billion.” Unfortunately, this cleverly designed public relations maneuver deceives the taxpayer by distorting the perception of what has been a contentious use of government funds.

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12 Comments

Posted in robert e. prasch

Tagged AIG bailout, Financial crisis

Good Luck Stopping Austerity With Incremental Platinum Coin Seigniorage!

Posted on January 21, 2013 | 144 comments

By Joe Firestone

Some have responded to the recent boomlet for using Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) as a solution to the debt ceiling problem, by reacting to the ridicule visited upon PCS advocates by know-nothings like Heidi Moore of the Guardian and Matt O’Brien of the Atlantic, by proposing “smaller ball” PCS than the clearly inadequate Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC) itself. This post will focus on J. D. Alt’s interesting post which makes five points about the TDC debate as it was addressed on a recent Chris Hayes show.

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144 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged $60 T coin, austerity, Fiscal Policy, HVPCS, incrementalism, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

Our Leaders Are Mistaking the Modern Money System for a Fistful of Dollars – Part 2

Posted on January 21, 2013 | 26 comments

By Michael Hoexter

An Adjustable Liquidity Source and Liquidity Sink

While it may seem obvious and a tautology to treat money as a “liquidity source”, sometimes, especially in an area of life where there are many unexamined assumptions, it makes sense to rehearse the obvious. “High-powered” state-issued money is treated within accounting as an individual’s or a businesses “most liquid” asset but anything that functions as money confers “liquidity” on any individual who possesses that instrument or thing. Liquidity means that that object or instrument can be readily traded for wished-for goods and services. This liquidity can extend to “money-objects” other than state issued currency but the latter is in most contexts the most liquid money technology that we have.

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26 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged fiat currency, functional fiinance, liquidity, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

Our Leaders Are Mistaking the Modern Money System for a Fistful of Dollars – Part 1

Posted on January 20, 2013 | 36 comments

By Michael Hoexter

When looking down at earth from space, you would be able to see the shapes of continents and even, if you are aware of geological history, the way, for instance that Africa and South America fit together as they were once part of the same mega-continent. When living on the surface of the earth, as we most often experience it, one gets an entirely different perspective in which the individual contours of the land, vegetation, buildings, and coastlines look much larger and have different proportions relative to the viewer. Both perspectives are real and equally valid but in each, different information is revealed or becomes salient to the viewer/participant.

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36 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged fiat currency, functional finance, liquidity, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

MMT and Social Norms

Posted on January 18, 2013 | 125 comments

By J. D. Alt

Chris Hayes’ recent MSNBC show on the Trillion Dollar Coin brought four aspects of the Modern Money debate, for me at least, into a clearer focus. I list them here not in their order of appearance on the show, but in their order of importance and logical connection.

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125 Comments

Posted in J. D. Alt

Tagged MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, resource constraints, Trillion Dollar Coin

The Great Austerity Swindle!

Posted on January 18, 2013 | 21 comments

By Joe Firestone

Our Congresspeople, corporate CEOs, tea partiers, most economists, Pete Peterson’s minions, and even our President, tell us that we’re running out of money; and that if we can’t keep running huge deficits, and increasing our national debt forever, because eventually, our creditors will just cease lending us our dollars back.

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21 Comments

Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #mintthehvpcs, $60 T coin, austerity, Fiscal Policy, grand bargain, great betrayal, HVPCS, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, platinum coin seigniorage, Trillion Dollar Coin

Blocking a bad idea that enriches the rich: Peterson, Austerity, and the Washington Consensus

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 13 comments

By William K. Black

John Williamson, a Peterson Institute “senior fellow” coined the term “the Washington Consensus” at a conference in 1989.

Williamson joined the Institute in 1981 when it was founded. Pete Peterson is the Republican billionaire from Wall Street who has dedicated his life to proselytizing for lower taxes on the wealthy, stringent spending cuts in social programs, and privatizing Social Security – the unholy grail of Wall Street that would provide our largest banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional investment fees. Peterson has funded many groups to evangelize for these neo-liberal dogmas.

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13 Comments

Posted in William K. Black

Tagged austerity, neo-liberal doctrine, peterson, washington consensus

Some One Penny Bets

Posted on January 16, 2013 | 63 comments

By James Stuart

This post is not about the TDC, although I am a big fan. This is about putting into the MMT conversation a different point of view about Obama. Most MMTers seem to think that the President is a Trojan Horse – attractive on the outside; dangerous, even lethal on the inside. I have a different perspective. What I often do now, when I disagree with someone, instead of arguing, I make one penny bets. The bets need to be about something definite and measurable. If I win, my position on the issue may not be proven, but it is at least partially vindicated.

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