Australian Politics Forum - Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)

thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #705 - Jan 2^nd, 2024 at 9:13am

"Brilliant" - as noted in a tweet by prof. Yan Liang, re prof. James Galbraith's critical observations on mainstream economics:

"“In mainstream macroeconomics today, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile have been replaced by money, government spending, jobs, and expectations. While the few remaining monetarists blame “money printing,” fiscalists focus on budget deficits."

"Then there are the Phillips-curve holdovers, for whom a low unemployment rate must signal danger. Expectations theories cover the gaps left by the other three.”

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thegreatdivide Gold Member Offline Australian Politics<br /> Posts: 13884 Gender:	Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Reply #706 - Jan 7^th, 2024 at 3:04pm https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/private-equity-funds-capitalists?utm_source... Private equity funds – capitalists or leeches? Morrisons faces cuts as the acquiring private equity fund tries to recoup losses they incurred buying the company. Is that how capitalism is supposed to work
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thegreatdivide Gold Member Offline Australian Politics<br /> Posts: 13884 Gender:	Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Reply #707 - Jan 9^th, 2024 at 10:49am https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/01/06/central-bankers-on-the-ability-of... Central bankers on the ability of banks to create money out of thin air
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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #708 - Jan 11^th, 2024 at 6:08pm

Chaos in the UK and New Guinea, as money pinching public payroll departments stuff up, causing uproar among workers forced to live paycheck to paycheck (if they even have a job).

The food and housing is already there; currency-issuing governments can create the money (out of thin air), which workers need to pay for the food and housing.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #709 - Jan 12^th, 2024 at 10:29am

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/08/australias-cost-of-living-...

Australia’s cost-of-living crisis isn’t about the price of groceries. It’s about wealth distribution
John Quiggin

....

A bit like the black gap isn't about failure to implement "rights" (as asserted by a UN rep today), it's about a dysfunctional neoliberal economy which badly affects, and entrenches the disadvantage seen in black (and white) groups.

The miminum requirement for government ought be to ensure provision of housing and jobs for all (not "defence"; that job should be the task of the UNSC...).

That's how you ensure blacks in the NT - with the highest rates of homelessness and joblessness in Oz, aren't incarcerated at the highest rates in the world; letting them out of prison as one lawyer wants (in the name of "rights"....another egg-head lawyer) - without homes and jobs to go to - won't fix the problem.

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thegreatdivide Gold Member Offline Australian Politics<br /> Posts: 13884 Gender:	Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Reply #710 - Jan 15^th, 2024 at 7:12pm A look at 'funny money'.... Episode 8: 'Bond vigilante's exposed. https://linktr.ee/podfunnymoney
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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #711 - Jan 17^th, 2024 at 10:44am

Tweet from Jeoff Coventry, quoting Stephanie Kelton (author of 'The Deficit Myth') on good financial management in the EU.

"Establish a proper fiscal union in the eurozone and introduce a new budgetary framework. Abandon arbitrary targets for debt-to-GDP or deficit-to-GDP ratios. Stop trying to keep government spending deficit neutral. Work to keep it inflation neutral."

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #712 - Jan 18^th, 2024 at 10:41am

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/other/tax-our-wealth-super-rich-tell-politicians...

Tax our wealth, super-rich tell politicians at Davos

“We are also the people who benefit most from the status quo,” they said in a letter titled Proud to Pay, which they will attempt to deliver to world leaders gathered in Davos in Switzerland on Wednesday. “But inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe – and growing every day. In short, we need action now.”

........

Yet a better way to reverse increasing inequality, rather than fiddling around with tax scales, is for governments to command a portion of the nation's resources (before the self-interested, greed-based private sector) to enable provision of housing and jobs for all (whether in the public or private sectors) , thus eradicating structural inequality.

Managing inflation**, not monetary debt and deficits, or 'balancing government budgets', is the task of currency-issuing governments, as noted in the previous post.

**and govt. can avoid contributing to inflation by avoiding a competition with the private sector for resources, as outlined above.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #713 - Jan 18^th, 2024 at 5:18pm

A look at the history and nature of money, by prof. Randall Wray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cLDFjTt4Bs

...before money, and before writing, humans kept records of credit and debt (eg, in bushels of wheat, or goats, etc); the records progressed (through writing) from payment in kind, to payment in money of account issued by a government.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #714 - Jan 18^th, 2024 at 5:50pm

https://sunsetbutterflymoonar.pro/6yD8bg?blp=1&eng_click=669a4a6c0ea84957a68a473...

BREAKING NEWS: Elon Musk Attends Fox News Show To Announce Quantum AI Platform

Elon Musk visited FOX Business last week. At the beginning of the show, the presenters discussed the current state of the cryptocurrency market at the time of the escalation in Ukraine and the risks of investing. But suddenly, Elon dropped a bombshell when he announced that his new cryptocurrency trading platform was launched at the end of last year, although it was in closed testing. The platform was first launched in the US in January 2022. A few days ago, it went global.

....

But be warned - Wray (in the previous post) explained why crypto isn't money, but rather a way of relieving the stupid and gullible of their money......

Undoubtedly rich people have enough spare money to pump and dump crypto, but all ponzi schemes eventually collapse, so you need to know when to exit.....

And as for Musk, he no doubt has his eye on Tesla's 12% share price drop (wiping $billions from his personal wealth) since the start of the year, due to an apparent plateauing of the EV market; apart from China (where EVs are subsidized) the people who can afford EVs have already bought one, and competition is becoming fierce - Chinese car-maker BYD overtook Tesla as the leading manufacturer of EVs in the last quarter.

Elon would do better urging governments to transition to renewables ASAP, rollout public EV chargers ASAP, subsidize personal rooftop solar and batteries, and voila - the EV market would boom again, allowing Tesla to compete with BYD.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #715 - Jan 19^th, 2024 at 8:39am

https://ellenbrown.com/2024/01/17/casino-capitalism-and-the-derivatives-market-t...

'Casino Capitalism' and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?

Any major black swan could prick the massive derivatives bubble, which the Bank for International Settlements put at over one quadrillion (1,000 trillion) dollars as far back as 2008. With global GDP at only $100 trillion, there is not enough money in the world to satisfy all these derivative claims. A derivative crisis helped trigger the 2008 banking collapse, and that could happen again.

The ugly side of the capitalist casino, divorced from the real economy and the workers who depend on it.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #716 - Jan 20^th, 2024 at 8:56am

Below is an except from a post by UK post growth economist and podcaster Katy Shields in response to Professor Wray's talk on the History and Nature of Money: (available on youtube)

In 1983 Margaret Thatcher famously said: "There is no such thing as public money, there is only taxpayers' money."

This story - a "fundamental truth", as she put it - turns out to be a fundamental lie.

One reason the story endures is that, at its root, it is about power.

To solve our crisis we have to re-write the story of money.

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #717 - Jan 21^st, 2024 at 9:44am

https://abc7.com/trillionaire-billionaire-rich-elon-musk/14344139

We could see the world's first trillionaire in the next decade. Here are some of today's richest 1%

....

Hm.... the outcome of Thatcher's lie "there is no such thing as public money" (see previous post) , combined with the reluctance of the public to pay taxes even on huge incomes and wealth.

So Musk alone has half the wealth of Argentina (c $200 billion) where the "broke" government is cutting govt. spending to deal with inflation, despite the already high 40% poverty rate.

An insane global economic system....

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #718 - Jan 22^nd, 2024 at 2:32pm

https://jacobin.com/2024/01/stephanie-kelton-monetary-theory-economy

Stephanie Kelton Thinks the Conventional Wisdom Is Changing

We did things very differently, including a full-throated embrace of the spending power of the state, not getting sidetracked by worries over the fiscal impacts. I think the proof is there: we had the shortest recession in US history. It lasted just two months. We lifted almost 40 percent of all the kids in this country out of poverty. We have had the strongest recovery among G7 nations, and real wages are growing fastest for those at the bottom, people without college degrees.

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thegreatdivide

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Re: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Reply #719 - Jan 23^rd, 2024 at 8:53am

The problem with 'taxpayer money' as the source of government revenue is that no-one wants to pay tax.

And as for the concept of tax fairness, greed muddies the water:

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/they-can-afford-it-left-slammed-for-stance-...

‘They can afford it’: Left slammed for stance (on) stage three tax cuts debacle

Sky News host Paul Murray says in Australia 11.9 per cent of workers pay 55 per cent of the tax in the country and the assumption from lefties is that “they can afford it”.

“Think about the person who works 69 hours a week, not the average 40 or even more, now again, no one is saying these people are poor,” Mr Murray said.

...a meangingless rant from Paul Murray (he says debate on stage 3 is a "debacle"); in a cost of living crisis hurting low income earners the most, he wants people earning 3 times the average wage (>$180k) to get a $9k tax refund, cf $375 refund for someone on $45k income (near the mean income).

He continues:

“But when 11 per cent of the population is paying 55 per cent of the tax, then when they get a small tax cut, they are still going to be paying the extreme bulk of tax in Australia.

“The assumption is anyone over $180,000, well, they vote Liberal, so who cares, or they vote Teal which means they stop the Liberal Party, so who cares?”

..dripping with concern for taxes paid by the better off.

Typical greedy conservative.

In contrast:

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/prime-minister-hints-at-expansion-of-sta...

Prime minister hints at expansion of stage 3 tax cuts to benefit lower-income earners

On Monday, 2GB reported the government would instead keep the current 45 per cent tax rate between $180,000 and $200,000, which would trim the tax cut from $9,075 to $6,075 for those who earn over $200,000.

It would then raise the tax-free threshold, which applies to all taxpayers.

Independent economist Chris Richardson suggested the threshold could increase from $18,200 to $19,500 using the money saved at the top, delivering an across-the-board tax cut of $247 a year.

Delivering some tax fairness, at least..

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« Last Edit: Jan 23^rd, 2024 at 5:57pm by thegreatdivide »

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