Macro N Cheese

By Steven D GrumbineNews Education Politics History

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Macro N Cheese episodes

December 11, 2021 Unanswered 9-11 Questions with Ray McGinnis
It's one thing to understand the US government will not protect us from certain types of abuse by corporations. We see it in the weakness of labor laws as well as environmental and consumer protection regulations. We know the government has no problem sending poor and working-class men and women into harm's way to protect corporate interests overseas. But how much farther will the state go to protect the interests of global capitalism?

Ray McGinnis doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he’s here to remind us of the questions that need to be asked. The title of his book says it all: Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored.

It took a year for George Bush to decide on forming a commission to investigate 9/11. He appointed Henry Kissinger as chair. This was ironic (and outrageous), given Kissinger’s connection to that other 9/11 -- the September 11, 1973, coup in Chile to overthrow the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. Henry Kissinger was responsible for atrocities as far back as the carpet-bombing of Cambodia and was known for keeping secrets from Congress and the people.

A group of women from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee visited Kissinger to voice their concerns. As Kissinger served them coffee, one woman got straight to the point:

“Dr. Kissinger, we just want to make sure you don't have any conflicts of interest. You don't have any business clients by the name of Bin Laden.” At that point, Doctor Kissinger pours the coffee all over the table, partway falls off the couch, blames it on a fake eye, and resigns the next day.
It was clear from the start that Congress had no will for this investigation. McGinnis reminds us that up to $80 million was spent investigating the Clintons in the ‘90s; the 9/11 Commission was given $3 million. Chairman Thomas Kean was on the board of a corporation with interests in building a pipeline across Afghanistan. George W. Bush had begun his presidency with plans for regime change in Iraq. The outline of the eventual Commission report was written before any evidence was examined.

For 20 years, thousands of the 9/11 families have been pressing for an investigation into Saudi complicity in the attacks but have been stonewalled by the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. In April of 2020, Attorney General Barr and a representative of the NSA appeared before a judge to argue against releasing documents regarding a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, claiming it would harm American state secrets and national security.

The families are scratching their heads: how is our lawsuit to find out if there was Saudi Arabian complicity in the attacks on September 11th possibly going to harm American national security and state secrets? What state secrets would those be?
What secrets indeed? It’s been 20 years since the events of 9/11. For those of us fortunate enough not to have lost a friend or family member, some of our questions may have faded. Ray McGinnis brings the inconsistencies back into focus and adds some new ones.

Ray McGinnis was educated in political science, religious studies, and history, and graduated with a B.A. from the University of Toronto. He also earned a Diploma in Christian Education from the Centre for Christian Studies. He was an educator with the United Church of Canada, working at their national office for 9 years. He subsequently worked at the Naramata Centre in rural British Columbia. From 1999 to 2020 he taught writing workshops. He is the author of Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry. McGinnis is interested in the stories we tell, the ones we ignore, and how this shapes our worldview.

https://unansweredquestions.ca/

@RayMcGinnis7 on Twitter
49 min
December 04, 2021 Storming the Ivory Tower with Davarian Baldwin
Do you think of colleges and universities as protected islands of intellectual activity, ivory towers where the world’s problems are contemplated and debated? Steve Grumbine’s guest is here to tell us otherwise. Davarian Baldwin, of Trinity College, is an urban historian and social theorist, whose work examines the landscape of global cities through the lens of the African Diasporic experience. His most recent book is In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities.

Baldwin describes how institutions of higher education are the largest employers, healthcare providers, and landlords in cities and towns across the US. They leverage their massive financial and real estate holdings to displace the most vulnerable communities across the US. Their tax-exempt status does not result in savings for the local citizens, but puts a greater burden on everyone else’s property taxes.

The conservative and mainstream media still maintain the pretense that campuses are a hotbed of radicalism, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Corporate partners sit on universities’ boards of trustees and shape the curriculum to reflect the interests of capital. The Koch brothers and other corporate entities are funding “innovation centers” and entrepreneurial institutes to fit their own needs.

The powerful thing about higher education is the myth of the schoolhouse -- that it's just a place where we conduct classes and conduct pure research. Teaching classes has become a side business in higher education. There's so much more here that goes on in ways that either generate or manage capital that have nothing to do with teaching classes.
Most colleges and universities maintain a substantial policing apparatus. According to Baldwin, “75% of public and private schools have police departments. Not public safety units -- police departments. Nine of ten are armed, and about 85% of these police departments have jurisdiction beyond the main campus. They police regular residents.”

And so the irony of this phenomenon is that the biggest crimes on campus, sexual violence and substance abuse, are not policed. They do a horrible job. While some people might say capacity. I say intent, because schools -- predominantly white schools, I'm going to be clear -- are not going to want to say that they have a campus full of white criminals. This undermines their brand. So the policing is all outward facing into the poor, black and brown neighborhoods around the campuses, to say to investors, to say to students, to say to families, and to say to everyone else that we are open for business and we are safe. These police units, their job is to protect the brand.
Baldwin gives numerous examples of different schools around the country and their outsized effect on the communities they reside in, their poorly paid employees, and, of course, students. He suggests specific reforms and asks that our listeners follow New Deal for Higher Education, Scholars for Social Justice, Cops Off Campus, and other organizations that are working toward change.

Davarian L. Baldwin is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College, and is a historian, cultural critic, and social theorist of urban America. His work largely examines the landscape of global cities through the lens of the African Diasporic experience.

Author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities
Co-editor with Minkah Makalani, Escape from New York: The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem
Author of Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life
Series Co-Editor, Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy

@DavarianBaldwin on Twitter
1 hr
November 27, 2021 Participatory Economics with Michael Albert
Michael Albert is one of the creators of participatory economics (parecon) and has developed a vision for a post-capitalist world that includes participatory governance. His new book, No Bosses, A New Economy for a Better World, goes into detail. From Noam Chomsky’s endorsement:

*No Bosses* describes and advocates a natural and built Commons, workers’ and consumers’ self-managing councils, a division of labor that balances empowering tasks among all workers, a norm that apportions income for duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor, and finally not markets or central planning, but instead participatory planning by workers and consumers of what is produced, by what means, to what ends. It makes a compelling case that these features can be brought together in a spirit of solidarity to establish a self-managing, equitable, sustainable, participatory, new economy, with a rich artistic and intellectual culture as well.
Albert recently spoke with Steve Grumbine about these concepts. His critique of what he calls “20th century socialism” is a rejection of centralized management. He and Grumbine discuss the MMT proposal of a Federal Job Guarantee which, though centrally funded, is locally managed, allowing communities to determine their specific needs and values. While Albert might be opposed to central funding (and all currency?), local management is consistent with his beliefs. He is concerned, however, with replacing the 1% with the 20% - the “coordinator class.”

He also differentiates between reform and non-reformist reform, a concept we value at Macro N Cheese. Albert says, “What makes something more than just a desirable reform is partly how we would fight for it, and to an extent, what it is proposing.” He uses several examples, like the fight for a livable minimum wage and for replacing the use of fossil fuels with clean, green energy. Winning any of these things would be great, but then what?
We're back to the system that we have. Or you can do it in a way which is constantly raising the need for innovation, the need for new social relations, the need for a new system, but recognizes the need to get these things done now. So one approach is reformist, the other approach is, I think, revolutionary.
Albert’s post-capitalist vision includes self-management, diversity, equity, solidarity, and sustainability. Whether or not you agree with him on all fronts, you’ll find plenty to think about in this episode.

** Each episode of Macro N Cheese has transcripts and an Extras page with links to additional information and resources. Go to realprogressives.com/macro-n-cheese-podcast

Michael Albert is a veteran writer and activist of the left. He co-founded South End Press, Z Magazine, ZNet, and the Z Media Institute. He has written over 20 books and hundreds of articles. Along with Robin Hahnel, Michael is the co-developer of the post-capitalist economic vision called participatory economics (parecon). Michael runs a popular podcast called RevolutionZ and founded the School for Social and Cultural Change.

@michaelalbertz on Twitter

nobossesbook.com
1 hr
November 20, 2021 Mapping the Future of Humanity with Parag Khanna
**Reminder** Each episode of Macro N Cheese is accompanied by a transcript and an “Extras” page with links to related material and resources. To access, go to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast.

In one sentence: the winners and losers of the 21st century are the countries that attract young people.
Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor and best-selling author of numerous books on globalization, migration, the info-state, and the future of the world order. In this episode, he speaks with Steve about his newest book, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us.

Most people who pretend to understand globalization reduce it to the rate of world trade growth. Khanna says we need a broader and more nuanced view, even though there are aspects that cannot be quantified. In his work he takes a multi-dimensional and systemic approach.

An earlier book, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization, was about the functional geography of infrastructure and supply chains. Its “punchline” is that connectivity is destiny. The recent book, Move, looks at how these ever-greater volumes of infrastructure affect the evolving distribution of population across the world.

Human geography, Khanna explains, answers the questions: Who are we? Where are we? What are we? It is not simply a matter of the number of people inhabiting the planet, but what is our demographic composition - the distribution of age and race?

Most people agree both climate change and economics are global in nature. They know the price of goods in one country can be affected by various phenomena in other parts of the world. Likewise, the impact of climate change is dramatically different from region to region.

Because climate change is so much more extreme and occurring at a much faster pace than we previously acknowledged, it means that adaptation is as important as mitigation. This is a huge theme in the book and, quite frankly, an open door, a big hole that I'm trying to drive a truck through because I'm beside myself with rage.
For all our concern about climate change, the focus is skewed. According to Khanna, only 6% of climate-related funding goes to adaptation.

Meanwhile, people are dying every single day. You got your rising sea levels in Bangladesh and people dying in floods and heat waves, droughts and cyclones -- all these climate related phenomena. Every single day hundreds, if not thousands, of people are dying. The number of climate refugees in the world is greater than any other category of refugees. Climate migration will soon exceed all other drivers of migration, and yet we don't have a collective discourse on adaptation.
Khanna describes the US as “second world,” by which he means it is both first and third world at the same time. He finds lessons in the history of the rise and fall of past civilizations. Societies collapse when their brittleness is exposed by their vulnerability to complex supply chains and structures they haven't fully grasped or untangled.

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. Parag's newest book is MOVE: The Forces Uprooting Us (2021), which was preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019). He is author of a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also the author of Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012).

Paragkhanna.com

@paragkhanna on Twitter

@drparagkhanna on Instagram
1 hr 7 min
November 13, 2021 MMT Europe with Dirk Ehnts
Dirk Ehnts, an economist from Berlin, joins us to talk about his book, Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics. In addition to discussing the current situation in the Eurozone, he helps us understand the similarities and differences between the Eurozone and the US, especially regarding the relationship between the individual states and the central bank.

So in the US, whatever happens in your state ... you always have government spending coming from the federal level. So that's going to pay for the military installation, that's going to pay for the pensions. It's going to pay for some of the public federal infrastructure. And that means that whatever happens in your state, the federal government is always there. And you also have these institutional mechanisms to ensure that states which do not have a lot of employment can somehow make bargains in the political process and basically trade votes for jobs. And that's the main difference.
The Eurozone has both the European Central Bank (ECB) and national central banks for each EU nation.

We have this problem, that there's going to be a lack of government spending when it really matters. And there's no institution to address this kind of shortcoming. So the Euro was always incomplete, and it was kind of the idea that once it is in place, it can be completed by having a Euro Treasury. But we've been in this kind of mess now since the global financial crisis, and it's not clear where we are going.
Ehnts also addresses the question of how countries within the EU make fiscal policy and get programs funded. He talks about causes of the disparity between northern and southern European nations and Steve brings up the race to the bottom we see among US states. Not only are there differences in the political economic strengths of individual EU countries, but within each there are states or provinces with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The episode covers austerity policies, the changes from pre- to post-GFC eras, and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s enough about money creation, interest rates, and bond sales to satisfy the wonkiest among us.

Don’t forget to check out the episode transcript and Extras pages! If you’re listening on a podcast platform, you’ll have to head over to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast to find them.

Dirk Ehnts is an Adjunct Lecturer at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, the Speaker of the Board of the Pufendorf Society for Political Economy and author of Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics.

@DEhnts on Twitter

Website (in German or English): dirk-ehnts.de
1 hr 1 min
November 06, 2021 The Fall of Evergrande with Robert Hockett
Somber headlines recall the 2008 financial crisis: “Global financial markets have been on high alert,” warns the BBC. “Chinese property giant Evergrande is on the brink of collapse, and analysts warn the potential fallout could have far-reaching implications that spill outside China’s borders,” says CNBC. From the New York Times: “Every once in a while a company grows so big and messy that governments fear what would happen to the broader economy if it were to fail.”

To navigate this story, we needed someone immune to hysteria, so Steve invited the infinitely sensible Robert Hockett to guide us through the Evergrande saga.

Hockett begins the episode with a brief history of China’s strategy for economic development. Unsurprisingly, it looks a lot like that of the US, Germany, and Japan, in different eras. The so-called export-led growth strategy involves developing industries that can achieve a sizable share of the global market for manufactured goods, starting at the low end and proceeding up the ladder to higher end products. Current account surpluses are plowed back into domestic investment, creating a virtuous circle and growing productive capacity.

Throughout the history of capitalism, developed nations have been willing to tolerate current account deficits of developing economies for a number of reasons. During the post-WWII cold war years, the US was in competition with the Soviet Union for influence with Germany and Japan, for example. Sometimes, it’s simply to help create good trading partners. The US was pleased to see China join the WTO in 2000.

And even before that, the US was willing to endure or experience sustained current account deficits vis a vis China on the theory that China developing more rapidly in consequence of that strategy would ultimately give it a stake in the global neoliberal order that it would become a team player…

But as tends to happen over time, after a while, the countries that are footing the bill as it were, or in this case, the US, which was footing the bill in the form of rapidly hollowing out industrial base and even more rapidly eroding labor standards and workplace standards all in the name of global competition or competitiveness. Eventually the US began to object.
When the pressure mounted, the Chinese government turned toward investment in domestically generated demand. They looked at the commercial and residential real estate bonanzas that drove American growth during the Reagan and Clinton years, respectively. These investments are substantially debt fueled. Ergo, Evergrande.

As for predictions of imminent financial meltdown, Hockett remains sanguine. If a bailout is required, the Chinese government has the capacity to do so without the kind of constraints, real or fictional, that prevent the US government from acting in the interests of the majority. China is not afraid to attach strings to bailouts, including, if necessary, seizing control of a private company.

Grumbine takes a detour to ask about infrastructure. Given the deteriorating state of infrastructure in the US, it’s remarkable to see the massive amount of government spending in China, some of which may appear baffling to people in the West. They have literally built bridges to nowhere and uninhabited ghost cities, but there is logic behind it. It is a way to both spend money into the economy as well as prepare for the eventual migration of people from the countryside. Rather than tent cities and Hoovervilles, they will have housing, roads and utilities.

One conclusion we might draw from this episode is that sovereign states’ differing approaches to spending their fiat currency can have vastly different outcomes.

Robert Hockett is the Edward Cornell Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, Adjunct Professor of Finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and Senior Counsel at Westwood Capital, LLC.

@rch371 on Twitter
54 min
October 30, 2021 The Battle for America's Schools with Rana Odeh
This week Steve investigates the cutthroat world of local school board elections. So, get ready to get down and dirty... Just kidding! His guest, Rana Odeh, is the genuine article: thoughtful, straight forward, and unafraid to bring up uncomfortable topics. At a time when the country’s political polarization seeps into every crevice of civic and social life, our school boards have become battlegrounds. Rana is willing to armor up and fight for our youth and their education.

Rana is running for a seat on the school board in Granville, OH, where she lives with her three kids and her husband, Fadhel Kaboub – a dear friend of this podcast. Anyone who follows Fadhel on Facebook has seen their beautiful family of fledgling artists, musicians, and young campaigners.

Steve and Rana talk about the lack of a federal right to education in the US and the need for proper (federal) funding, decoupled from the local tax base. They talk about the mask mandate wars now being waged in schools across the country, serving as proxy for the deeper political divide. They talk about Islamophobia.

The recent hysteria over Critical Race Theory is absurd because, as Rana points out, CRT isn’t even taught in K through 12. It’s a law school term. Racism itself, however, is alive and well in every part of our society. Instead of helping students understand the history of racism in this country, the focus is on No Child Left Behind with its emphasis on testing and memorization.

Students are memorizing things, but not learning how to write very well. And other life skills. I'm thinking about how to get along in society, and the discussion on racism is a big part of that. How can you go out into the workforce in 2021 or later and not have a basic understanding of racism and current affairs...
Rana’s emphasis is on the whole child, preparing them for problem solving in the real world. In a recent candidate forum, she said:

It's about learning for life and equipping students with the skills they need to be collaborative, critical thinkers - empathetic, adaptable, responsible, and resilient.
If any of our listeners are in Rana’s district, we urge you to support her campaign and vote. For everyone else, perhaps listening to her will spark your imagination for ways to engage in your own community.

Rana Odeh is a mother of three boys, a potter, and a public speaker. She and her husband Fadhel have enjoyed being active members of the Granville community for the past 12 years. Rana currently serves on the Granville Township Land Management Committee and has served on the board of the Granville Parent Cooperative Preschool. She has previously worked as a freelance writer and editor, and was a debate forum columnist for the Dayton City Paper. Rana has a Bachelor's degree in English, and a Master's degree in International and Comparative Politics.

ranaforgranvilleschools.com

Follow her on Facebook: Rana Odeh for Granville School Board
54 min
October 23, 2021 Ep 143 - Whither the Next Rebellion with Jamie Skillen
In 2014, Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters engaged in armed confrontation with law enforcement. Bundy had been embroiled in a 21-year legal dispute with the US Bureau of Land Management. The “Bundy Standoff” was splashed across the news, allowing the public to watch as Cliven Bundy became a hero – a symbol of conservative America under attack by the federal government.
This week, Jamie Skillen talks with Steve Grumbine about the history and politics of federal lands. Skillen’s book, This Land is My Land, traces three periods of rebellion against federal land authority over the past forty years. The issue wasn’t originally defined by the so-called left/right divide. Prior to the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979-1982) these were regional actions waged by people who shared a common material interest in federal lands, regardless of political identification. Since 1979, however, federal land issues have become flashpoints in conservative politics.

In a nation that prizes private ownership and individualism, isn’t it ironic that the federal government owns 28% of the surface land? Conservatives demand these lands be ceded to the states, but were that to happen, the states would have to bear the cost of maintaining them. Politicians rail against public lands, pledging to eliminate them, while fully aware of their constituents’ love of national forests and parks.

When the federal government encouraged expansion beyond the original thirteen colonies, European Americans settled wherever there was arable land, across the Midwest and Great Plains and, eventually, on the West coast. The topography of the intermountain region was less hospitable to agriculture. When, in the late 19th century, the US government began creating national forests and parks, the lands available to it were largely those that nobody wanted at the time.

Historically, the federal government manages the development of oil, gas, coal, and timber, as well as ranges for livestock grazing. Generally, about half of the revenues from these ventures are given to the counties where they’re located. Any new federal regulations, restricting timber harvesting, for example, directly affect jobs and slice into funding mechanisms for those counties. (As MMTers, we know that states and counties are currency users, not currency issuers.)

Skillen sees the public lands issue as a microcosm of our national politics, replete with all the contradictions and hypocrisy therein. While Western states and conservative political leaders have become increasingly radical and vitriolic about federal ownership …

... I never hear a parallel complaint against the market economy, against corporations. There is built into our culture this idea that what government does is a choice, and we can question those choices. We can make different choices. Whereas what the markets do is like nature; it’s like evolution.

Note to the Macro N Cheese audience: on our website, realprogressives.org, you’ll find past podcast episodes with transcripts and extras. Please consider supporting Real Progressives by becoming a monthly donor at patreon.com/realprogressives.

James R Skillen is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Calvin University and director of the Calvin University Ecosystem Preserve and Native Gardens. He is an expert on public land management and politics, including the impacts of anti-government extremism in public land politics and author of This Land is My Land: Rebellion in the West.

https://www.jamesrskillen.com/

@JamesskillenR on Twitter
52 min
October 16, 2021 Things That Should Not Be with Scott Fullwiler
This week Steve welcomes Scott Fullwiler for the first time in two years. Scott is a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and associate professor of economics at UMKC, where he teaches the macroeconomics PhD program. As listeners of this podcast know, UMKC is one of the two academic birthplaces of MMT.

The episode begins with a look at social security and FICA taxes. Originally, the idea behind FICA was for people to feel like they’re paying into their own retirement. The expectation is that SS will be politically protected as a result. Scott points out that this is an unnecessary narrative and compares it to national defense. “It's not as if the reason why we continue to get national defense spending is because somebody feels like they've paid into it and they’re owed it.”
There are three different separate things we need to remember when it comes to Social Security and Medicare, and unfortunately, all three of them get blended together in our public discourse … And those three narratives are the financial ability to pay for Social Security, the legal authority to pay for Social Security, and the productive capacity to have a future in which both retirees and workers can sustain the standard of living that's improving.
Scott says FICA reduces production capacity. Not only does it pull money out of the economy, it’s a regressive tax, with a vast amount not coming from the “one percent” but from the majority of workers between 16 to 67, who are far from wealthy.

The episode covers the debt ceiling in terms of both political and operational realities. Scott calls it “one of those tragically hilarious things that we do,” enabling a “savvy minority party to take a pound of flesh out of the majority party.”

He also describes the workings of both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department as well as the possibility of minting trillion dollar coins.

Scott Fullwiler is a Research Scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and Associate Professor of economics at the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

www.global-isp.org/scott-fullwiler/
1 hr 10 min
October 09, 2021 The New Liberals with Steve Keen & Victor Kline
This week we’re checking in with a couple of candidates from The New Liberals (TNL) of Australia. We’ll be learning about the traditional Australian political parties and getting an overview of how their electoral system works.

Steve Keen is an old friend of this podcast. In the past he’s joined us to talk about everything from climate change to Marx to the breakdown of supply chains during the COVID pandemic. Now we’re meeting him as a political candidate; soon Professor Keen will be Senator Keen. Victor Kline, the leader and one of the founders of TNL, is running for a seat in the House of Representatives.

TNL is only two years old but has already gained wide support. Unlike the US, where third parties have been almost entirely shut out of national elections, Australia’s preferential voting system and parliamentary style of government have made it possible for TNL to gain traction.

Voting is mandatory in Australia, which Keen explains is far superior to the farce called democracy in the US:

I see it as a way of making sure the politicians can't ignore you because they can't just hope to suppress different groups and stop them registering because it's against the law not to register and not to vote. So therefore the politicians can't ignore you. And I say this is a law controlling the politicians rather than the voters.
With an existential climate crisis bearing down on us and Australia just as eager to adopt the neoliberal agenda as western Europe and the US, Steve Grumbine asks how they’re breaking through the narrative of false scarcity. It’s not so difficult, says Kline:

Well, funny thing is that most people intuitively understand MMT or Keynesianism. If you say to them, look, we've got 3 million people below the poverty line in Australia. We want to put them back to work, and every dollar we spend putting somebody back to work gets spent and re-spent across the economy and stimulates small and large business alike … Now, most people get that, they don't see that as strange. You tell them that a sovereign government can invest in what it wants to invest in. They get that.
Like the US, Australian politics are presided over by a duopoly of neoclassical parties - an “alternative autocracy.” The Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party are almost indistinguishable in their fealty to the neoliberal agenda, both “reporting to Rupert Murdoch and the fossil fuel industry.” However, unlike the performative opposition of American Democrats and Republicans, the two Australian parties tend to vote the same way. Imagine what kind of policy gets 100% “yes” votes.

Whether or not it’s possible to fix the mess we’re in through electoral politics, political campaigns allow for a dialog with the public, as Bernie Sanders demonstrated in the US. We’ll be watching and cheering on our friends down under.
Victor Kline is a Sydney barrister specializing in refugee law. He is the Founder and Director of the Refugee Law Project which offers pro bono legal advice and representation to asylum seekers and refugees. He is the Leader of TNL (The New Liberals) and one of its founders. TNL will be contesting the next Australian federal elections running candidates in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Victor will be contesting the House of Representatives seat of North Sydney in New South Wales.

Steve Keen is a Distinguished Research Fellow at UCL and the author of “Debunking Economics,” “Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis?” and his latest “The New Economics: A Manifesto.” He is one of the few economists to anticipate the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, for which he received a Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review. His main research interests are developing the complex systems approach to macroeconomics, and the economics of climate change. Professor Keen is the lead Senate candidate under The New Liberals.

On Twitter:
@victorklineTNL
@ProfSteveKeen
57 min

About Macro N Cheese

From the publisher's feed

A podcast that critically examines the working-class struggle through the lens of MMT or Modern Monetary Theory. Host Steve Grumbine, founder of Real Progressives, provides incisive political…