Macro N Cheese

“We’ve been given the wrong answers to the right questions,” says Steve’s guest Reverend Delman Coates, founder of the new organization, Our Money. “As a faith leader, it’s time to reclaim a theology of economics.”     Rev Coates recounts that being a pastor, he sees too many people who follow all the rules yet find themselves dislocated and struggling. Understanding that money can be distorted and manipulated, and its relationship to pain and poverty in the world today, he set out to learn the structural and systemic causes. It led him to Modern Monetary Theory.    Beyond the perceived differences between communities in SE Washington DC, Appalachia, or Ohio, the one thing that unites us is the reliance on money to buy goods and services, to keep a roof over our heads, and to provide for our families. Our Money advocates for more government investment in society’s priorities, preferring the creation of currency through public spending rather than private lending by banks.   “As a faith leader, it’s time to reclaim a theology of economics.” Rev Coates believes we can move towards a moral economy that works for us and not against us. His eloquence and clarity makes believers of us all.    

Rent control, redux. Back in 2017, Steve interviewed Nathan Tankus, of the Modern Money Network, shortly after the 1st MMT conference where Nathan spoke of the heterodox approach to planning housing affordability. With renters now the majority in major US cities, and homelessness on the rise throughout, we are re-releasing this as a podcast to introduce it to a whole new audience.   The US is plagued with problems of housing insecurity, gentrification, and rents that are too damn high. Nathan guides us through the ins and outs of the faux rent control laws in urban centers like New York, where landlords avail themselves of more loopholes than a crochet needle.   Modern Monetary Theory allows us the policy space to deal with unemployment, public health, and student debt. But how do we navigate the labyrinth of federal, state, and municipal issues that affect the cost of housing? US cities and states cannot literally create dollars but they can come surprisingly close by creating monetary value through zoning policies that can elevate or reduce trillions of dollars of land value overnight.     Peering through the lens of MMT, Nathan lays out the two major types of obligations that governments impose. The first is familiar to fans of this podcast: the direct monetary obligation to pay taxes, fines and fees. The second is the obligation to respect property rights. In the US this refers almost entirely to private property. So, if the lack of sufficient federal spending and planning are responsible for both joblessness and homelessness, then the government has a dual obligation to the public. Just as a job guarantee will eliminate unemployment, using the public planning and regulatory apparatus can eliminate housing insecurity and homelessness.   Nathan Tankus is Research Director at the Modern Money Network and Research Fellow at Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell.   https://modernmoneynetwork.org/

Back by popular demand! Ellis Winningham, MMT guru and educator with acerbic wit and acute intellect, joins Steve to dissect the federal job guarantee. Together they set the record straight on the myths and realities of the UBI then go on to explain how and why the federal job guarantee is more than mere policy. It is both a price anchor and economic stabilizer, making it an intrinsic component at the core of Modern Monetary Theory.   Confused about NAIRU versus NAIBER? Don’t know the difference between a pool of unemployed labor and a buffer stock of the employed? Press “play.”   http://elliswinningham.net/    https://www.facebook.com/ellis.winningham

The reality and repercussions of racial oppression are mostly absent from political discourse in the US. Steve and his guest Darrick Hamilton address it head-on in this thoughtful and detailed 2018 discussion of the range of solutions.   Hamilton, professor of policy, economics and sociology at OSU, explains why reparations cannot be simply about handing out cash. The first requirement is a detailed acknowledgment of the harm done, which must be specific to the victimized group. When talking of reparations to Native Americans, for example, that unique history of oppression must be spelled out.   Redress in the form of individual payments could have unintended consequences, exacerbating class divisions, so some form of ownership might be included. The nation needs a Marshall plan for building black institutions as a further means of redistribution and reparations.   A federal job guarantee, while separate from reparations, is also crucial for mitigating inequality.
It’s not only an economic benefit, but a psychological one, which doesn’t get emphasized enough in the debate.   Finally, Professor Hamilton explains the principles of baby bonds, which address the mechanism by which Americans build wealth. Each child would be given a trust fund at birth, calibrated to the family’s wealth. The concept goes back to Thomas Paine, who spoke of a “stakeholder society.”   Darrick Hamilton is Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Professor in the Glenn College for Public Affairs, and Professor, Departments of Economics and Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences (by courtesy) at The Ohio State University.  http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/about/#staff   https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/federal-job-guarantee-universal-basic-income-investment-jobs-unemployment/   https://theconversation.com/why-wealth-equality-remains-out-of-reach-for-black-americans-111483   https://www.ted.com/talks/darrick_hamilton_how_baby_bonds_could_help_close_the_wealth_gap?language=en   https://bidenforum.org/racial-equality-is-economic-equality-64fca8e8bfc0

Steve’s guest is Brian Romanchuk, founder of the blog bondeconomics.com., He is known for, among other things, his detailed technical rebuttals to critics of Modern Monetary Theory. Brian became interested in MMT because, as a data analyst in the bond market, it was the first macroeconomic theory that made sense. It actually matched what he saw, on a daily basis, in the real world.    After a look at the history of post-Keynesian thought, Steve asks him to delve into the nuts and bolts of bonds. Those familiar with MMT understand the role of Treasury bonds, but Brian gives us an overview of other types of public and private bonds. Along the way, he compares US state and Canadian provincial governments & municipalities, and their relative power over the local economies.    And we can’t talk with a Canadian without discussing single-payer health care. Brian shares his thoughts on the economic impact of removing private insurers from the equation.   Brian Romanchuk was a fixed income quantitative analyst in Quebec.  His writings can be found on:
www.BondEconomics.com   https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14055811.Brian_Romanchuk

Steve’s guest, Ivan Invernizzi, co-founder of Rete MMT in Italy, explains that currency has an “exchange rate” within a nation’s borders.  In fact it has several, because there are different levels of discrimination in access to currency.  With geographical and class differences, the balance of power shifts because of the way the state organizes banking, and who the state supplies with currency.    The corporations and individuals who receive payments directly from the government are in a stronger position than those a few rungs down.  Ivan refers to this as filtering; we call it subcontracting.  The farther from the currency issuer, the weaker the economic position.  This is true of both employer and worker.  A job guarantee would eliminate the filter, putting workers on equal footing.   Ivan widens the discussion to include the role of foreign exchange.  Does trade determine the exchange rate or is the state still in control?   Ivan Invernizzi is co-founder of ReteMMT Italia and MMT France.  He is working toward his MS in Economics and Global Markets at the University of Bergamo, Italy   www.retemmt.it www.mmt-france.org

Professor William A. Darity, Jr. also known as 'Sandy' is an American economist and researcher. He is currently the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Darity maintains that people are out of work in the US not because of personal defects but because the economy doesn’t generate enough jobs. He tells Steve why we need a federal job guarantee, covering the 5 main points from the Jacobin article of that name which he co-authored with Mark Paul and Darrick Hamilton. He also shows how the FJG is superior to a universal basic income. This interview is as important today as it was when it was first aired in 2017.   https://sanford.duke.edu/people/faculty/darity-jr-william

Steve Grumbine’s guest is Raul Carrillo of the New Economy Project and Modern Money Network.  As an anti-poverty & economic justice attorney he has a unique perspective on the monetary system.
Raul talks about his seminal article, “The Dangerous Myth of Taxpayer Money,” and the legal history of taxation, citing the Supreme Court ruling that the gov’t has power to issue money backed only by the full faith & credit of the US gov’t - not backed by gold, taxes, or bonds.  He reveals some startling facts about the connection between taxation and the civil rights struggle for public education.
Raul & Steve discuss the scramble to find truncated ways to present complex ideas.   Progressives must attack false scarcity, which is at the core of both conservative & liberal thinking.  Raul says that fighting for the Job Guarantee brings people to understand the concentration of power.  It’s an awareness that can create the momentum to take on the system itself.   Racial Taxation: Schools, Segregation, and Taxpayer Citizenship, 1869-1973, by Camille Walsh
https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469638942/racial-taxation/ https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902 @RaulACarrillo on Twitter
Modern Money Network https://modernmoneynetwork.org/
New Economy Project https://www.neweconomynyc.org/   Special Thanks to Geoffrey Ginter for the excellent intro song! And of course special thanks to our guest Christian Reilly, the donors of Real Progressives and our excellent staff of volunteers.

Steve's guest is L. Randall Wray, a professor of Economics at Bard College and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute.  In this 2017 interview, Wray looks at the Global Financial Crisis from both sides now. The celebrated economist tells Steve how the rise of shadow banking led to banking deregulation, opening the door for massive fraud, leading to the global financial crisis. He then explains in detail how globalism affected average Americans, suppressing their wages for 40 years and forcing them to amass unsustainable personal debt.  These two threads led to the GFC.   Wray compares the federal government’s response to the banking crisis with the reaction to the real economy’s crisis, the jobs crisis, and the consumer spending crisis. Is it any wonder that Wall St recovered, but the rest of the economy did not?   He maintains that only a federal job guarantee will prevent more pain. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US any time soon.  He goes on to address both the myths and reality of Social Security and Medicare.  And finally, he offers a simple but truthful description of the relationship & interaction between the central bank, or Federal Reserve, and the Treasury.   http://www.levyinstitute.org/scholars/l-randall-wray
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/about.html

Alan Nasser joins Steve to discuss his new book Overripe Economy: American Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy.  Alan is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy & Philosophy at The Evergreen State College. His prediction of a new economic crisis is substantiated by a thorough exploration of the history of capital development as it passed from its most productive stage, the “Golden Age” from 1949 to 1973, into this new financialized economy, where massive profits are no longer invested in growth, but are used for stock buybacks and price manipulation. He speaks of “disaccumulation” and maintains that capital’s only job is to increase itself. Nasser insists we must look to the government for investments that support the public purpose.   AlanNasser.org