Randy’s presentation for FUHEM in Madrid, Spain coinciding with the release of the spanish version of his Modern Money Primer. The introductions are in spanish and Randy speaks in english beginning at about 10:00 with a panel member translating to spanish. He presents Modern Money Theory and then what is wrong with the Euro/EMU.
By William K. Black
Quito: March 8, 2015
This is the fourth column in my series of articles critiquing Deirdre McCloskey’s book review in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Two Cheers for Corruption.” McCloskey has subsequently written to New Economic Perspectives – but apparently not the WSJ – to complain that the title was authored by the WSJ and is contrary to her views. As I mentioned, in my third column, the title is also innumerate in that McCloskey’s book review actually endorsed three types of corruption – and corruption is inherently a composite of bribery, extortion, and fraud. She claimed that these three types of corruption exemplified why corruption can be desirable because it makes society more “efficient and just.” I addressed in my second column in this series the first form of corruption that she endorsed – secret bribery, fraud, and corruption by firms in order to violate building safety codes with impunity.
In the first two parts of this series of commentaries on Bruce Bartlett’s testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, I’ve reviewed the first 8 paragraphs in his statement. These points debunked various concerns of those who think the United States has a serious “debt crisis” it must handle before it takes on trivial problems such as its unprecedentedly high level of wealth inequality, lack of true full employment at a living wage, roughly 30 million people still lacking health insurance, one of the worst infrastructure systems in the developed world, transitioning from fossil fuels and ending climate change, creating a first class public educational system from pre-K through graduate school, ending the student loan crisis, creating a single standard of law for all, including the various categories of violators categorized as too big to prosecute by recent Administrations, and ending the student loan debt crisis, just to name a few.
However, what was noticeably missing from the variety of arguments given in his eight paragraphs was a recognition that the United States is a fiat sovereign nation and that this fact has serious implications for most of the subject matter Bruce Bartlett covers in his statement. In this post I’ll continue my analysis of his statement to explore the extent to which his views correspond to Modern Money Theory (MMT).
By William K. Black
Quito: March 8, 2015
Deirdre McCloskey has responded with two comments (to date) to my series of articles critiquing her book review in the Wall Street Journal of two new books about corruption. We welcome her to the pages of New Economic Perspectives and invite her to provide an article or series of articles presenting her views on elite white-collar crimes such as fraud and corruption of whatever length she thinks best. The harm done by these crimes is so severe that these topics well warrant extended discussion and debate. NEP is one of the rare economic blogs that devotes considerable space to these topics.
By Robert W. Parenteau
March 06, 2015
As Greece staggers under the weight of a depression exceeding that of the 1930s in the US, it appears difficult to see a way forward from what is becoming increasingly a Ponzi financed, extend and pretend, “bailout” scheme. In fact, there are much more creative and effective ways to solve some of the macrofinancial dilemmas that Greece is facing, and without Greece having to exit the euro. But these solutions challenge many existing economic paradigms, including the concept of “money” itself.
At the Levy Economics Institute conference held in Athens in November 2013, I proposed tax anticipation notes, or “TANs”, as a way for Greece to exit austerity without having to exit the euro (see “Get a TAN, Yanis!” published here last month, for an updated version of that policy proposal). This proposal is based on a deeper understanding of what money actually is, and the many roles that it plays in the economies we inhabit. In this regard, Abba Lerner captured the essence of modern fiat currencies, which are created out of thin air by modern states with sovereign currency arrangements. Lerner’s essential insight is contained in the following passage from over half a century ago (and, you will note, Lerner’s view informs much of the neo-chartalist view espoused by advocates of what is called Modern Monetary Theory):
This is the second in a blog series of commentaries on Bruce Bartlett’s recent statement to the Senate Budget Committee. The first post in the series discussed a number of his comments on aspects of the “debt crisis,” a crisis he and I both believe doesn’t exist. I discussed a number of his reasons for doubting the severity of any debt problem and related each of them to the capabilities of the United States as a fiat sovereign.
In this post, I’ll cover the issues related to capital investment, the debt burden, fiat currency, and the debt limit. I’ll begin with Bruce Bartlett’s statement on how capital investments ought to be treated in the budget.
Today, I’d like to offer the first of three commentary posts on Bruce Bartlett’s recent testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. Bruce Bartlett is a long-time veteran of the fiscal policy wars. He initially became known as a supply-side free market economist working for Ron Paul and then Jack Kemp in the 1970s. Later, he served as a senior policy analyst in the Reagan Administration, and then in the Bush 41 Administration as the deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department. Since then he’s worked at conservative think tanks and as a well-known writer on economic policy and politics, becoming increasingly critical, first of the Bush 43 Administration and then of the increasingly rightward trend of the Republican Party. Today I think Bruce Bartlett is best characterized as a fiercely independent voice still respected in conservative circles, and also, among progressives such as Jamie Galbraith and Stephanie Kelton, but never afraid to call balls and strikes on any Administration or Congress as he sees them.
By William K. Black
Quito: March 5, 2015
In my first column in this series I discussed the gaping contradiction in Deirdre McCloskey’s book review of two books on corruption. The title of her article captures the immorality of her proposed “sermons” on corruption: “Two Cheers for Corruption.” McCloskey urges us to embrace many forms of corruption because she asserts that they add to economic efficiency and justice.
“But corruption can be efficient and just, too. It can be good for efficiency if, say, bribes are paid to get around bad laws (such as most of the building codes in American cities) or to smooth the course of sales by U.S. businesses to the Egyptian military. And the turkey at Christmas supplied by Tammany Hall justly helped the poor—if they voted right.”
McCloskey’s first of three “cheers for corruption” is inherently a cheer not only for corruption, i.e., bribery and extortion, but also a cheer for four types of felonies by elite white-collar criminals. The first crime is deliberately violating the building safety codes. The second crime is covering up that underlying crime through corruption – the bribery and/or extortion of the building safety code inspectors.
By William K. Black
Quito: March 4, 2015
Deirdre McCloskey has provided another proof of our family saying that it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. She did so in the guise of a review in the Wall Street Journal of two books on corruption. McCloskey’s thesis is that only ethics, not institutions, matter when it comes to stopping corruption.
“All that works in the end is ethical change, urged from the mother’s knee, the pastor’s pulpit, the judge’s bench, the schoolmaster’s lectern. It is fruitless to propose ‘mechanisms’ or ‘institutions’ absent an ethical desire in enough of us to do good.
We need sermons, which is to say instruction from our mothers and movies and imams about How to Be Good. Sarah Chayes and Jay Cost provide ample texts for the sermons. Indignation on the ground, if pervasive, stops corruption. The books give us cause for indignation, surely. But the rest is up to us, or our mothers teaching us at their knees.”
McCloskey proposes that we create “pervasive” “indignation” demanding an end to “corruption.” She suggests that the key is the consistency of that ethical message to “do good.” We need “sermons” from clergy, mothers, teachers, judges (during sentencing), and the media and movies that reinforce the message that the public must achieve a “pervasive” loathing of corruption and a commitment to “stop” it.
We can see the positioning and the messaging on the Democratic side beginning to take shape for the 2016 elections. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren with nods to Thomas Piketty and various economists have stepped forward to offer the themes of salvation for the middle class, moderating the extremes of inequality in American society, and doing something real about jobs and wages.
Clinton World seems to be responding, not yet with forthright statements from Hillary Clinton, but recently with articles by stalwarts of neoliberal Clintonism (and veterans of the Obama Administration) such as Larry Summers and Peter Orszag, expressing concerns about inequality and proposing measures to alleviate it, even including increased taxation on the wealthy.
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