Modern Money Theory – Part 1

Posted on July 9, 2015 by | 1 comment

Part 1 of an interview with Randy Wray for attactv in Spain. Randy is explaining  Modern Money Theory.


Teoría Monetaria Moderna – Randall Wray – Parte… by attactv

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The New York Times Urges the Troika to “Make an Example of Greece”

Posted on July 7, 2015 by | 16 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: July 7, 2015

It is often the moral and economic blindness of New York Times articles about the EU crisis that is most striking. The newest entry in this field is entitled “Now Europe Must Decide Whether to Make an Example of Greece.” That is a chilling phrase most associated in our popular culture with a Consigliere and his Don deciding whether to order a mob “hit.” It is, therefore, fitting (albeit over the top) as a criticism of the troika’s economic, political, and propaganda war against the Greek people. Except that the article is actually another salvo in that war.

Let’s start with the obvious – except to the NYT. “Europe” isn’t “decid[ing]” anything. The troika is making the decisions. More precisely, it is the CEOs of the elite German corporations and banks that direct the troika’s policies that are making the decisions. The troika simply implements those decisions. The troika consists of the ECB, the IMF, and the European Commission. None of these three entities represents “Europe.” None of them will hold a democratic referendum of the peoples of “Europe” to determine policies. Indeed, they are apoplectic that the Greek government dared to ask the people of Greece through a democratic process whether to give in to the troika’s latest efforts to extort the Greek government to inflict ever more destructive and economically illiterate malpractice on the Greek people.

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BBC Propaganda War v. Greece Reaches New Low After “No” Vote

Posted on July 6, 2015 by | 11 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: July 6, 2015

If you want to know why economic policy has gone insane in the UK you simply have to read the work of the BBC’s “Economics editor,” Robert Peston. I showed one example of his failed effort to terrify the Greeks into voting “Yes” in favor of continuing the self-destructive policies that have forced Greece into worse-than-Great Depression levels of unemployment in my most recent column. Peston argued that the Greeks had to submit to the troika’s demands that it make these policies even more economically illiterate and self-destructive because the troika would otherwise ensure that Greece’s economy was “utterly crippled.” As you know, the EU stands for “ever closer union.”

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Greece Proves Again Why Democracy is the Criminal Classes’ Great Fear

Posted on July 6, 2015 by | 6 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: July 5, 2015

The people of Greece have just shown great courage, and even greater common sense, in voting “No” in overwhelming numbers against the troika’s war on the Greek people and labor throughout the EU. In recent days we have seen the spectacle of the major media shamelessly lying globally about the referendum and the Greek government – cheered on by the troika. The troika openly sought to depose a second Greek head of state for the high crime of favoring a democratic vote on the troika’s economic malpractice and effort to extort the Greek people by threatening to destroy their economy. The tone and content of the propaganda were extraordinary – and reversed reality.

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MINDS Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Posted on June 26, 2015 by | Comments Off on MINDS Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Rio de Janeiro- RJ. On July 24, the Multidisciplinary Institute for Development and Strategies (MINDS) will gather top policymakers, economists, and analysts at the FORD-MINDS Conference on Banking, Financial Instability, and Financial Governance in Brazil to discuss the structure of Brazil’s financial system to ensure stability for a growing and equitable economy. The conference, is being organized by MINDS with support from the Ford Foundation, and will take place on Friday, July 24, at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV/EESP), Rua Itapeva 474, in São Paulo. Conference details are below.

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The BBC’s Inept but Revealing Attempt at a Game Theoretic View of Greek Crisis

Posted on June 26, 2015 by | 6 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: June 25, 2015

The BBC came up with a good “hook” for a story on the troika’s assault on the Greek economy and people. “Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, spent his academic career … studying game theory.” Professor Marcus Miller, a UK economist (U. Warwick) wrote an article for the BBC premised on how Varoufakis would apply game theory to Greece’s negotiations with the troika (the IMF, ECB, and the European Commission). Miller is a colleague of the great Robert Skidelsky and has co-authored with him an article explaining the economic illiteracy and self-destructive nature of the troika’s (and UK’s) infliction of austerity in response to the Great Recession.

The BBC, however, is such a great fan of austerity that one rarely reads why the vast majority of economists think that using austerity to respond to a Great Recession is akin to the quackery of bleeding a patient to make him healthier. Miller’s article in the BBC about game theory has the wrong title (recall that the author often does not get to choose the title), the wrong game, the wrong concept, and the wrong payoffs. The title of the article is: “Can game theory explain the Greek debt crisis?” The article does address that issue. It is limited to the issue of the new Greek government’s negotiations with the troika concerning a crisis that they inherited.

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Greek debt disaster bodes ill for daily life

Posted on June 25, 2015 by | 4 comments

By Pavlina Tcherneva
Cross posted from Al Jazeera

“There are red lines in the sand that will not be crossed,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said just weeks ago as he began the long negotiations process with creditors.

Some of these lines included no more pension cuts or value-added tax (VAT) increases, and a debt restructuring deal that incorporates renewed economic assistance from Europe. Tsipras has been working to complete the previous government’s austerity commitments, without any guarantee of a meaningful debt reprieve in the future.

Yet on Monday, he crossed his own previous red lines and offered a round of fresh austerity measures worth 7.9 billion euros ($8.9 billion) — the largest to date — which in turn prompted mass protests at home.

Crafted by the Greeks, an agreement seemed close at hand, but was nevertheless rejected by the International Monetary Fund and Greece’s euro partners at the European Commission and European Central Bank. The fiscal tightening that is currently being discussed is on the order of 2 to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), comparable to that at the peak of the crisis in 2010.

Read the rest of the post here.

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TPP: 13 Democratic Senators Invite Republicans to Make Them Laughing Stocks and More Serious Matters

Posted on June 24, 2015 by | 8 comments

The cloture vote in the Senate is now done, making the TPA vote itself a mere formality. The vote was 60 – 37 in favor of cloture with 13 of the 14 original Democratic defectors (Ben Cardin was the exception) sticking with the multinational corporations, the President, and all but five of the Republicans in supporting cloture. Supporters of cloture celebrated the bipartisan nature of the vote, as if Americans who lose their jobs and their sovereignty as a consequence of it, and the things it enables, will look more favorably on what they did because both major parties did it. Continue reading →

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A Harvard Don is Enraged that Pope Francis is “Opposed to the World Economic Order”

Posted on June 22, 2015 by | 13 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: June 21, 2015

A New York Times article entitled “Championing Environment, Francis Takes Aim at Global Capitalism” quotes a conventional Harvard economist, Robert N. Stavins. Stavins is enraged by Pope Francis’ position on the environment because the Pope is “opposed to the world economic order.” The rage, unintentionally, reveals why conventional economics is the most dangerous ideology pretending to be a “science.”

Stavins’ attacks on the Pope quickly became personal and dismissive. This is odd, for Pope Francis’ positions on the environment are the same as Stavins’ most important positions. Stavins’ natural response to the Pope’s views on the environment – had Stavin not been an economist – would have been along the lines of “Pope Francis is right, and we urgently need to make his vision a reality.”

Stavins’ fundamental position is that there is an urgent need for a “radical restructuring” of the markets to prevent them from causing a global catastrophe. That is Pope Francis’ fundamental position. But Stavins ends up mocking and trying to discredit the Pope.

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TPP: Will Voters Re-elect Laughing Stocks to the Senate?

Posted on June 21, 2015 by | 13 comments

Let’s review the devious process for passing the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill devised by the Republicans I outlined in my last post. It has the following steps:

– Step one: the House passes a TPA bill without passing Trade Adjustments Assistance (TAA); then

– Step two: the Republicans in the Senate give assurances to Senate Democrats that TAA will be passed by the Senate and later the House;

– Step three: the Senate then passes the House’s TPA bill, and then sends it to the President; then Continue reading →

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