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@TheStalwart @arindube A really awful state of affairs. Bunch of people come along, saying stuff that is false, claiming lots of new insights that aren't, and policy prescriptions based on no new empirical work, and no substantive critique of either the theory or the empirics they want to dispose.
@TheStalwart @arindube I have personally learned way more from heterodox critics like @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella . They have specific critiques about the theory and empirics of mainstream econ. Don't agree with most of them, but they are there and provide alternative foundations.
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella From them I got things like 'you can't make those policy prescriptions because the microfoundations are too bad, look!'; or 'we think you mischaracterize banks and money, and from them on it's all wrong'. Or: look, chaos!
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella From MMTers I get 'you are so arrogant/something something taxes don't finance spending/governments can never run out of money/let the govt do inflation policy'. And frankly feel no obligation to engage at all, only curiosity.
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella There is a highly fertile debate within the mainstream about the concept of and quantitative location of the fiscal limit, and about optimal monetary and fiscal policy generally. MMT proponents act like they don't understand and have not read and are not aware of most of it.
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella What, precisely, is their model of money and bond demand? How does demand for these objects vary as government monetary and fiscal policy varies? What is their view about nominal wage and price stickiness? What imperfections pervade the financial system?
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella On what empirical evidence are these views founded? Mainstream econs have a few answers to all of these questions, with 100s of papers behind them. MMT begs all these question+reads like the era of gentleman aristocrat economics before anyone had really thought about anything.
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella For instance, either beause of finally getting the message, or advances in computing and understanding, mainstream econ is starting to revisit mon pol and fiscal questions that were previously settled using representative agent models, now using het agent models.
@TheStalwart @arindube @JoMicheII @ProfSteveKeen @stephenkinsella What would MMT have to say about that? "......."
