Tag Archives: spending

Democratizing Sovereign Spending

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Devin Smith | 18 comments

This past month I have been diligently working to complete my entry in a design competition to envision the “Residential Tower of the 21^st Century”. At first, I did not intend to enter the competition because I have believed, for many years, that the challenge of future architectural development was horizontal rather than vertical—how to organize and “enable” high density , “piecemeal development” into horizontal communities (using people-mover technologies as a “horizontal elevator” core.) I even named this development model “The Horizontal Skyscraper”.

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18 Comments

Posted in J. D. Alt

Tagged budget gridlock, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, spending

Rotten Title, Great Summary of My Talks on MMT

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Devin Smith | 11 comments

By Stephanie Kelton

As much as I dislike the title of this article from Advisor Perspectives, the essay itself is a good overview of the talks I’ve been giving at national, regional and chapter meetings of the Financial Planning Association (FPA) over the past year-and-a-half. I wasn’t aware that Veras was working on a piece and didn’t see it until it was published (or I would have implored him to change the title!). I wanted to share the piece but only after this word of caution: I would not and did not say, “deficits don’t matter,” as you’ll discover if you read the entire piece. This is a touchy subject for MMTers, who’ve been (wrongly!) accused of taking the position that “deficits don’t matter.” Randy Wray made the MMT position crystal clear years ago, and I told Dan Jamieson the same thing when he interviewed me for a similar piece in Investment News:

InvestmentNews: Are MMT theorists saying deficits don’t matter?

Ms. Kelton: Deficits do matter, but not in the way people think.

So with that flashing neon disclaimer in place, here’s Veras’ article from Advisor Perspectives.

11 Comments

Posted in Stephanie Kelton

Tagged budgets, congress, deficits, spending

Ryan and Romney’s Secret Plan to Cut the Deficit – and why Romney opposes it

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Devin Smith | 16 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

My favorite scene from The West Wing is the episode in which the President’s press secretary is recovering from a root canal and Josh Lyman decides to handle a press briefing. Lyman is a young whiz kid who believes he is the smartest guy in the room, but the briefing goes disastrously. Lyman has to explain to the President that he has, sarcastically, told the press that the President has “a secret plan to fight inflation.” The press, fed up with Lyman’s arrogance, has decided to report Lyman’s statement about the secret plan without noting the sarcasm. Worse is still to come, for upon questioning Lyman about the incident, the President asks in exasperation: “Are you telling me that not only did you invent a secret plan to fight inflation but now you don’t support it?” Continue reading →

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged budget, deficit, romney, ryan, spending

Beyond the Morality of Spending and Saving (Money) – Part 2

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Devin Smith | 6 comments

By Michael Hoexter

Ethics, Moral Advocacy and Economics (con’t)

If we look at the structure of the discourse produced by academic economists after Smith whether in print or in media appearances, moral frameworks provide a structuring role that often outweighs the technical aspect of the content which is presented. Well-known among MMT-oriented and post-Keynesian economists are the arguments of austerity advocates, who ignore the analytically obvious monetary and economic consequences of austerity in pursuit of the seeming virtue of every economic actor becoming a “saver” of money. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged austerity, neoliberalism, spending, TINA

Beyond the Morality of Spending and Saving (Money) – Part 1

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Devin Smith | 9 comments

By Michael Hoexter

Readers of this blog will know that the austerity drive is based on faulty macroeconomics and austerity itself is a self-defeating economic strategy. Austerity relies and capitalizes on critical misunderstandings within economics, misunderstandings that were not conclusively and clearly enough debunked by John Maynard Keynes and others 75 years ago and in subsequent years. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Michael Hoexter

Tagged austerity, neoliberalism, spending, TINA

Why do Keynesians Think More Spending will Stimulate the Economy?

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Stephanie Kelton | 53 comments

By Stephanie Kelton

My Twitter followers are constantly asking me if I think more spending would really help the economy recover. I understand their skepticism. Many are probably struggling with high debt levels, and the last thing they want is some economist urging them to rack up more debt for the good of the economy. (Bad advice, indeed.) Others have heard President Obama talk about putting Americans back to work by investing in our nation’s infrastructure, educational system, energy future, etc., but many aren’t sure if the “stimulus even worked“, so they, too, wonder if more spending is really the right way to grow the economy. Well, here’s the answer.

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