Money is one of humanity’s greatest social innovations.  It’s been transformed in form and function for thousands of years and our digital age has accelerated that metamorphosis.  Banking institutions have also been changing dramatically with shadow banking taking over large swaths of the conventional bank credit marketplace.  Our guest, noted author and prominent leader of the Modern Monetary Network Dr. Rohan Grey, talks with Ellen and Walt about his design for digital eCash, the dramatic changes implied by MMT, and the emergence and importance of creating public banks.

America’s deteriorating infrastructure challenges government officials to come up with financing for a numerous critical needs that may well cost over $5 trillion dollars, according to experts. While costly public-private partnerships have been touted as a way forward, they can’t really scale to anywhere near that size. Founding father Alexander Hamilton would appear to have the answer – the American System of self-financing which established America in its earliest years and in its most difficult years of growth and challenge.  Ellen, Prof. Robert Hockett and members of a coalition backing Congressional bill HR3339, examine why Hamilton’s genius financing idea is a perfect model for a proposed National Infrastructure Bank – capable of fixing all of America’s needs without raising the national debt or taxes!

Hazel Henderson was a futurist.  She understood that what is really important in an economic system isn’t measurable in dollars, but rather in the health and well-being of those living in the economy, including that primary partner, Planet Earth.  On today’s program we revisit our last conversation with Hazel from 2020 -- a tribute to an authentic, bold thinker who raised the consciousness of markets worldwide with the simple notion that our economic systems must operate with values that prioritize life. 

America’s early financial innovations led a remarkable flowering in world history of expanding economic prospect, at least until the late 20th century.  Since then, financial elites and banking cartels have shifted the emphasis from investing for public benefit to private profiteering through monetary manipulations and resource exploitation. In his latest book “Who We Are,” our guest, historian and author Anton Chaitkin, observes that America’s positive economic dynamism has morphed into a form of self-interest that has transformed America’s image on the world stage to one of destructive predator. Chaitkin urges a return to the America we once were

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) has set the US standard for how a public bank

Another historic milestone in the emergence of public banks around the country has been reached in Philadelphia with an overwhelming vote of the City Council to establish a Municipal Public Financial Authority.  We talk with two of the citizens that helped realize this success, Vanessa Lowe and Conni Bille. And later in the program Ellen talks with author Michael Mechanic about his new book “Jackpot: How the Super Rich Really Live and How Their Wealth Harms Us All.” 

Celebrated economist Michael Hudson thinks that the world of academic economics is both deceptive and essentially wrong in its formulations of the role of money and debt.  Hudson says today’s oligarchic monetary systems invariably reinforce the flow of profits from labor to the top of the economic ladder.  The result is unsustainable debt, which he says is an historical pattern that goes back a couple thousand years. Something has to give. Ellen and Michael spend the hour discussing what that might look like.

Inflation is the latest economic lament over whether the national economy is in good shape or in trouble. The topic is frequently oversimplified into monetary categories of either too much money in circulation or too few goods, with the Fed trying to resolve inflation with too few, and wrong, tools. Our guest is the renowned economist Dr. Robert Hockett, who says that the Fed needs substantive revisions which mirror its earliest days in order to balance the demand (monetary) side of the supply/demand equation with supply (goods and services). Bob and Ellen explore these historical and monetary principles in depth, engaging in subject matter that influences many more far-reaching economic concerns than just inflation.

“The magic of compound interest” – interest on interest on borrowed principal – is a primary way monetary wealth grows, but it is at the expense of real economic growth. What if our money system were built on local exchanges directly between producer and consumer? Our guest Thomas Greco, a global voice for community currency systems and credit clearing exchanges, discusses how these systems sidestep the monetary debt trap and open the door to new socio-economic prospects.  Later in the program Ellen completes her conversation with historian Matt Ehret, whose latest volume of “The Clash of Two Americas” explores the political and economic dynamics that produced two divergent 20th century Americas.

The Clash of Two Americas

Matt Ehret’s new book “The Clash of Two Americas – The Unfinished Symphony” provides an extraordinary tour of the historical landscape that created our economic and political history. A consummate historian and student of the issues that lead to the creation of the political and economic tenets and systems we’ve inherited. Ellen talks with Matt about how those principles and vested interests animated the American Revolution and the international intrigue that accompanied it.  And we complete our conversation with Dr. Thomas Marois, a global scholar on public banks whose new book “Public Banks: Decarbonization, Definancialization and Democratization” describes how public banks have taken leadership investment roles in initiatives for green energy production.