Steve’s guest is noted economist L. Randall Wray, one of the early developers of modern money theory. As many times as this podcast has talked about MMT, it’s always topical. In fact, just last week, Elon Musk discovered 14 magic money computers in government agencies! 

So, Trump had to hire the richest man in the world who hired who knows how many hundreds of young tech kids to discover what we've been saying for 30 years, which is that Congress appropriates money, and then the computers keystroke it into people's accounts. 

There's no mystery about this at all, but they think they've discovered not only something that people didn't know, but something that's, oh, it's so scary. It's nefarious that the government uses computers to increase the size of people's accounts. Well, that's spending. That's the way it's done. 

Clearly, this is a good time to revisit the valuable insights of MMT and look at the implications for building a society that serves its people. 

This episode dives deep into the fundamentals, debunking misconceptions about government spending, the role of taxes, and the myth that the US government can run out of money, like a household.  

Randy and Steve talk about changes in the economy due to financialization, and the difference between budget constraints and inflation constraints. Randy explains why we need to look at the history of debt in order to understand money. He talks about banking, including transactions between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury.  

The conversation breaks down complex concepts into relatable terms, sometimes with a touch of humor.

Illustrating the creation of currency, Randy describes an imaginary scenario in which the fictional characters Robinson Crusoe and Friday devise a currency to facilitate barter. 

Randy: So, they come up with the idea of, ‘hey, we can use seashells as a medium of exchange.’ And this is where money came from. It was Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Okay, think about this a little bit. It's pretty bizarre. We've got Crusoe and Friday marooned on a desert island. I can think of two much more likely scenarios. Okay, one, Crusoe came from Europe. What do Europeans do when they come across native people? 

Steve: Kill them. 

Anyone with an interest in how the economy truly operates will learn something from this episode.

L. Randall Wray is a Professor of Economics at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Emeritus Professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is one of the developers of Modern Money Theory and his newest book on the topic is Understanding Modern Money Theory: Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies (Elgar), forthcoming in spring 2025.  

Recent books on MMT include Making Money Work for Us (Polity, November 2022), a companion illustrated guide, Money For Beginners (Polity, May 2023, with Levy Institute graduate Heske Van Doornen), and the third edition of Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems (Springer, 2024). He is also the author of Why Minsky Matters (Princeton, 2015) as well as the author, co-author, and editor of many other books. 

Find more of his work at levyinstitute.org 

**Every Tuesday night, we gather online to listen to the episode and discuss it among friends. Everyone is invited to this community building event. Bring your insights and questions. REGISTER HERE for Tuesday, March 25th, 8 pm ET/5 pm PT



Steve’s guest is Michael McCarthy, author of 'The Master's Tools: How Finance Wrecked Democracy and a Radical Plan to Rebuild It.' They explore McCarthy's analysis of financialization as a deliberate class project to dismantle working-class power and exacerbate inequality.

They look at the historical shift from a robust Social Security system to a privatized, financialized pension system as well as the rise of neoliberal policies post-1970s, facilitated by monetary policy changes (anybody remember the gold standard?)  The conversation goes into the failure of both traditional and direct democracies to serve the working class.

The episode also weaves through MMT perspectives and the impact of government policies. They touch on the potential of public banking and democratizing finance to empower the working class as well as the challenges of implementing these ideas.

Michael A. McCarthy is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Community Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His book Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal was awarded the Paul Sweezy Book Award as well as an honorable mention for the Labor and Labor Movements Book Award. His most recent book is The Master's Tools: How Finance Wrecked Democracy (And a Radical Plan to Rebuild It). Mike has written for the Boston Review, The Guardian, Jacobin, Noema, and the Washington Post.

@its_mccarthy on X 

Near the start of this episode, Yeva Nersisyan talks with Steve about leftist economists who are still wedded to the belief that government spending relies on taxpayer money. She says if an academic on the left uses the ‘taxpayer dollar’ framing, then you cannot be surprised when the right uses it too – to say they’re saving taxpayer money, cutting wastefulness, cutting inefficiency. It’s why being consistent is so important. If one side can use it, the other side can too.

“It leads to the Elon Musks of the world using this taxpayer money trope to basically take a sledgehammer or a chainsaw to the public sector.” 

Yeva and Steve revisit some basics of MMT, including the understanding that a government is not like a household.  

Yeva and Steve go into other insights of MMT, including sectoral balances and the reality of the so-called national debt.  

They unravel the absurd dynamics of current economic policy and look at the implications of proposed spending cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Fallout from the government's ruthless abandonment of social programs will be disastrous.  

Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. She received her B.A. in economics from Yerevan State University in Armenia, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in economics and mathematics from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is a macroeconomist working in the Modern Money Theory, Post-Keynesian, and Institutionalist traditions. Her research interests include banking and financial instability, and fiscal and monetary theory and policy. She has published a number of papers on the topics of shadow banking, fiscal policy, government deficits and debt, and the Green New Deal. Nersisyan is currently coediting the Elgar Companion to Modern Money Theory with L. Randall Wray. 

Find her work at levyinstitute.org/publications/yeva-nersisyan 

If you ever find yourself asking “What’s left?” you’re in good company. Today’s left is often indistinguishable from neoliberal centrism. 

Steve’s guests are Simon Winlow and Steve Hall, authors of the book, The Death of the Left: Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again. They talk about the historical shifts that have led to ideological collapse, disconnection from the working class and the embrace of individualism over collective action.

The conversation emphasizes the urgent need for a revival of working-class politics that transcend identity divisions and focus on collective struggles against economic neoliberalism and austerity.

Simon Winlow is Professor of Social Sciences at Northumbria University, UK. A fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, his work is particularly well known in the fields of criminology, sociology and contemporary political analysis. He is the author or co-author of the following books: Badfellas (Berg, 2001); Bouncers (Oxford University Press, 2003); Violent Night (Berg, 2006); Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture (Willan, 2008); Rethinking Social Exclusion (Sage, 2012); Riots and Political Protest (Routledge, 2015); Revitalizing Criminological Theory (Routledge, 2015); Rise of the Right (Policy, 2017); Death of the Left (Policy, 2022), and The Politics of Nostalgia (Emerald, 2025). 

@winlow_s 

Steve Hall is Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the University of Teesside. He is a polymath who has published in the fields of criminology, sociology, anthropology, history, economic history, political theory and philosophy. He is also co-author of Violent Night (Berg 2006, with Simon Winlow), Rethinking Social Exclusion (Sage 2013, with Simon Winlow), Riots and Political Protest (Routledge 2015, with Simon Winlow, James Treadwell and Daniel Briggs), Revitalizing Criminological Theory (Routledge 2015, with Simon Winlow), The Rise of the Right (with Simon Winlow and James Treadwell) and The Death of the Left (with Simon Winlow). He is co-editor of New Directions in Criminological Theory (Routledge 2012, with Simon Winlow). In 2017 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the international Extreme Anthropology Research Network at the University of Vienna. 

@ProfHall1955 

Control of information is a vital weapon of the ruling class in its war on the people. Critical media literacy is more important now than it has ever been. For the past year we’ve been drowning in imbalanced coverage of the war on Gaza. (How many times did mainstream news outlets use the word ‘genocide’?) It’s just one example – and it’s an outrage.   

Steve’s guest is Shealeigh Voitl, Project Censored’s digital and print editor. They discuss the media’s role in shaping public perception and delve into the systemic disinformation propagated by corporate and academic institutions. While sensational inconsequential stories dominate the headlines, the voices and experiences of the working class and the marginalized are silenced. 

Steve and Shealeigh look at the power dynamics inherent in media ownership, reinforcing inequality and promoting working class subjugation. Passive news consumption is the equivalent of unilateral disarmament.  

Shealeigh Voitl is the digital and print editor at Project Censored. She first began her research with the Project at North Central College alongside Steve Macek, co-authoring the Déjá Vu News chapter in the State of the Free Press 2022 and 2023 yearbooks, and the Top 25 chapter in SFP 2023. In addition to her editorial contributions to the yearbook series and work with the Campus Affiliates Program, Shealeigh helped develop the State of the Free Press 2024 teaching guide and the Project’s “Critical Media Literacy in Action” social media series. Her writing has also been featured in Truthout, The Progressive, and Ms. Magazine. 

Thomas Fazi joins Steve once again, this time to explore the current geopolitical landscape under Trump 2.0 and the absurdity of an American empire that creates enemies out of thin air to justify its ongoing military and economic interventions.

The conversation touches on the implications of austerity measures on the working class and the irony of billionaires like Elon Musk advocating for cuts to government spending while enjoying the benefits of public funding via massive subsidies.

With a touch of sarcasm, Thomas & Steve critique how the political elite manipulate narratives to maintain control and distract from the real issues facing ordinary citizens. They remind us of the need to critically examine the intricate relationship between power, propaganda, and the everyday lives of people.

Thomas Fazi is a “journalist/writer/translator/socialist.” who lives in Italy. He is the co-director of Standing Army (2010), an award-winning feature-length documentary on US military bases featuring Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky; and the author of The Battle for Europe: How an Elite Hijacked a Continent – and How We Can Take It Back (2014) and Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (co-authored with Bill Mitchell, 2017). His articles have appeared in numerous online and printed publications. Find links to his articles on his Substack.

@battleforeurope on Twitter 

John Perkins is a storyteller. His stories tell of his work as an economic hit man, creator of a death economy that is polluting and consuming itself into extinction. He has served as advisor to the World Bank, UN, IMF, Fortune 500 corporations, and government and business leaders across the globe. 

“You know, my job was pretty easy, generally speaking, because I was offering the president of a country or his finance minister, whoever, a big loan. And the fact that this loan would help him and his family, his friends – they owned the businesses in most cases – they were the ones who benefited from big infrastructure” 

 “They knew that if they didn't accept this deal, the people we call the jackals would come in and they would either overthrow or assassinate the President, whoever was responsible. And, you know, the United States has admitted to this over and over. Allende in Chile, Mossadegh in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo. My two clients. We haven't admitted to that one yet, but we have admitted to Diem in Vietnam and more recently [Manuel] Zelaya in Honduras. We've admitted to these things.” 

For seven out of his ten years as an economic hit man, John believed what he was taught in business school: to help a poor country pull itself out of poverty, you invest heavily in infrastructure. Statistically this can be shown to increase the country’s economy – its GDP and GDP per capita. Per capita implies that everybody in the country is participating, but that's just not true. “GDP primarily measures how well the wealthy are doing and the big corporations.” 

John’s insights are not merely theoretical; they are rooted in personal experience. In other episodes of this podcast, we’ve talked about cycles of debt that sink global South nations into dire poverty. In this conversation, John recounts the manipulative tactics for securing lucrative contracts for US corporations across the globe, thus creating these debt traps. 

To repair the damage, John urges a radical shift towards a ‘life economy’—one that focuses on sustainability, equity, and regeneration. 

John Perkins served as Chief Economist at a major consulting firm and was advisor to the World Bank, UN, IMF, Fortune 500 corporations, and government and business leaders in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States. Before that, he apprenticed with shamans when he lived in the Amazon rainforest from 1968 to 1971 and has since studied with shamans from many different cultures. His eleven books on economics, shamanism, and transformation include the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man trilogy; Shapeshifting; The World Is as You Dream It; and Touching the Jaguar. They have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 70 weeks, sold millions of copies, and are published in at least 38 languages. 

https://johnperkins.org/ 

Depressed about the state of the world? Meet podcast hosts, Dai Poole and David Kugler, who are able to talk about the depressing stuff, yet manage to have a little fun along the way. In November, they brought Steve onto Call Me Limbo because they’re interested in Modern Monetary Theory (smart guys). A few months have passed since then, and things have changed in the US.   

The episode dives right into the thorny questions of divisiveness and weaponized identity politics. Anything that further divides us is dangerous, but anti-wokeness threatens the very people who are most vulnerable. The opposite of woke is sleep. 

Dai suggests “we've become so hyper focused on individuality that our individuality – our ‘rugged individualism’ – has just become rugged narcissism. We've gotten to the point (where) patriotism just means loving the idea of America more than loving the people that make up America.” 

Throughout the episode the three talk about working class solidarity and the need for collective struggle. In conversation and in their podcast, David and Dai include psychological insights as well as a therapeutic dose of humor.  

Check out David & Dai’s Call Me Limbo Substack https://callmelimbopod.substack.com/ 

David Kugler and Dai Poole are hosts of the award-winning Call Me Limbo, a weekly podcast that brings the concept of the Fireside Chat into the 21st Century.

“We need to understand the limits of capitalism. Capitalism has serious limits in the sense that it puts exchange value over use value. And this is by definition irrational according to logic of need, but very rational according to logic of profit...  

But we also need to understand that we are the ones who have produced the system. That's where the empowering voice comes out, because it says, okay, if we have created it, we can also change it.  

And guess what? The system is really fragile. That's why we need austerity constantly to protect it.” 

Economist Clara Mattei talks to Steve about the launch of the Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) on the eve of its inaugural conference, February 6th through 8th, in Tulsa, OK. 

In the episode, Clara expresses her frustration with the inadequacies of mainstream economic education that neglects the real-life challenges faced by students and communities and explains that the CHE is being designed to break down traditional academic barriers and elitism. 

She mentions names of some participants in the upcoming conference, including Jamie Galbraith, Anwar Shaikh, Branko Milanovic, and Robert Brenner. 

From the Mission page on its website, the CHE is built on the following pillars:  

 1. Critical Political Economy: Understanding the dynamics of power, class, and social relations that shape economic outcomes.   

2. Critical History of Economic Thought and Economic History: Exploring diverse schools of thought and the historical evolution of economic systems to inform our understanding of contemporary challenges.   

3. Praxis: Economics, at its core, should be about more than analysis—it should be about action. At CHE, we are dedicated to producing knowledge that not only explains the world but transforms it. 

For information, go to https://sites.utulsa.edu/chetu/ 

Clara E. Mattei is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE). She previously taught at the The New School for Social Research Economics Department and has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. Her research contributes to the history of capitalism, exploring the critical relation between economic ideas and technocratic policy making. Her first book, The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (University of Chicago Press 2022) is translated in over 10 languages. Her current book project critically reassesses the Golden Age of Capitalism (1945-1975) and its Keynesianism through the lens of austerity capitalism.

“It's a wound. Palestine is a wound that doesn't go away because it's ignored.” 

Where there is oppression, there is resistance. Even when it seems invisible to outsiders, it can always be found in the art and culture of the oppressed. 

Malu Halasa and Jordan Elgrably, of the Markaz Review, talk to Steve about Sumud: A New Palestinian Reader, an anthology of essays, poetry, fiction, memoirs, and art. 

Sumud is translated to mean ‘steadfastness’ or ‘standing fast.’ Recounting the work of author and human rights lawyer Raja Sheheda, Malu adds: 

“Sumud is practiced by every man, woman and child in Palestine, struggling on his or her own to learn to cope with and resist the pressures of living as a member of a conquered people. Sumud is watching your home turned into a prison ... It is developing from an all-encompassing form of life into a form of resistance that unites the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.” 

Malu and Jordan highlight the ongoing violence and erasure faced by Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, where artistic expression becomes a vital form of resistance against dehumanization. The Israelis are intentional in their attempt to erase the art, culture, and memories of Palestine. Like the destruction of hospitals, schools, and arable land, it is intrinsic to the genocide. 

The conversation also touches on the implications of US support for Israel. Gaza has become an international display of arms and weaponized AI, serving the military industrial complex and global perpetrators of the endless war. 

Malu Halasa, Literary Editor at The Markaz Review, is a Jordanian Filipina American writer and editor. Her latest edited anthology is Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (Saqi Books, 2023) has been shortlisted for the 2024 Bread & Roses Prize for Radical Publishing.. Previous co-edited anthologies include: Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (Saqi Books, 2014) among others. She has written for The Guardian, Financial Times and Times Literary Supplement. Her debut novel, Mother of All Pigs (Unnamed Press, 2017), was described as: “a microcosmic portrait of … a patriarchal order in slow-motion decline” by the New York Times. Halasa has been writing about Palestine for the past thirty years. 

Jordan Elgrably is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and translator, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020), and producer of the stand-up comedy show “The Sultans of Satire” (2005–2017) and hundreds of other public programs. Most recently he is the editor of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights 2024). He is based in Montpellier, France and California.