MMT

By J.D. ALT The last two and a half months I’ve been at work on a new book. As it evolved, I found I was approaching MMT from a new direction—one which made an explanation of MMT much less counter-intuitive … Continue reading →

By J.D. ALT It’s ironic that, at this moment, when the truthfulness and utility of modern money theory (MMT) is being publicly realized—(and even potentially implemented!)—that its singular vulnerability must emerge as a real concern: hyper-inflation. The most recent thing … Continue reading →

By J.D. ALT The theme and illustrations of this essay are from the new book “Paying Ourselves to Save the Planet.” It might seem, as we observe the U.S. government “instantly” generating $2 trillion new dollars for direct payments and … Continue reading →

If the global financial crisis (GFC) of the mid-to-late 2000s and the COVID crisis of the past couple of years have taught us anything, it is that Uncle Sam cannot run out of money. During the GFC, the Federal Reserve lent and spent over $29 trillion to bail out the world’s financial system,[1] and then […]

The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is pleased to announce it will be holding a summer seminar June 11–18, 2022. Through lectures, hands-on workshops, and breakout groups, the seminar will provide an opportunity to engage with the theory and policy of Modern Money Theory (MMT) and the work of Institute Distinguished Scholars Hyman Minsky […]

Macro and Cheese pod, July 9 2022.  Michael Hudson A central tenet of the World Bank from the beginning is to convince countries not to grow their own food, but to create plantation agriculture to prevent family-owned farming of food, to grow plantation export crops and they become dependent on the United States for their Continue Reading

The post International Trade and MMT with Keen, Hudson first appeared on Michael Hudson.

I wrote this tweet because I thought that it would be really interesting for students to ask that question. They would find out what it is that determines the price of a government bond. Little did I know that many people would be interested in my view of the issue. So, by popular request, here […]

The payments system is merely a technical and bookkeeping question, mundane in the end. The idea of operating it with only reserves puts in stark relief a far more important question: What is the point of banks at all?

This sixteen-part series, The Souls of the People, will explore these issues and the ideas and economics behind them. The values, origins, economics and philosophy behind the call to "cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" (Norquist). The creation of think tanks specifically to provide a pseudo-intellectual foundation for inequality, and that along with media convince the middle class to vote against their own interests. The rise, reasons for, and effect of beliefs that markets without law allow for full employment and that wage laws cause unemployment. That competition alone can bring about good working conditions. The rejection of progressive taxes, and of the right to avail ourselves of the power and resources of the country through organizing public goods. And most importantly, how all of these are maintained by laws that impoverish the powerless and enrich the powerful, and thus are self-perpetuating.

These issues are yet again the problem of our age. Their seeming trajectory towards resolution post WWII, with widespread prosperity and a rising middle class, has been undone. What undid them points to the underlying problem: Immediate causes include the spectacular increase in financialization and unearned rents, the lack of and lack of enforcement of progressive taxes, both in turn largely due to a shift in the public's understanding of these issues. What caused this shift in public understanding is the age old problem—power and the lack thereof.