I am sorry to see the @nytimes taking MMT seriously as an intellectual movement. It is the equivalent of publicizing fad diets, quack cancer cures or creationist theories.

nytimes.com/2022/02/06/bus…
Yes article does point out data it regards as inconsistent w MMT & quotes @jasonfurman as being critical but this is like reporting symmetrically on the ongoing argument btw evolutionary biology & creationism & noting a development on evolutionary side. Fundamentally misleading
I greatly admire @jeannasmialek's reporting but I was very disappointed this time out. She was also victimized by an egregiously misleading headline, if the goal of her story was to point out MMT’s weakness.
There are things MMT says that are true and things it says that are new but unfortunately there is no overlap.
This is not about politics or agreement with me. I deplore the @nytimes and economic journalism in its general neglect of Marxist and post Keynesian scholarship, most of which is very critical of my views and policy choices.
I am all for intellectual diversity and wish that the NYT would give more attention to Marxist scholars like Steve Marglin, whose book Raising Keynes deserves extensive debate, or other left scholars like Tom Palley, Dean Baker or Jamie Galbraith.

scholar.harvard.edu/marglin/raisin…
Serious leftist scholars submit their work to peer review, are willing to engage in public debate with their critics and carry out empirical work that others can try to replicate. Not the MMT movement.
It would be valuable for the Senators to verify that Fed nominees are not in the thrall of MMT.

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More from @LHSummers

Jan 27
I approve of the Fed’s turn towards recognition of inflation as the primary threat to the US economy. I can’t understand why they are still doing QE on any scale. Perhaps they will learn the lesson that being specific @ future intentions is dangerous b/ of what it locks you into.
I don’t understand the communications strategy behind causing major volatility during the press conference rather than delivering all the messages in the FOMC statement.
The Flexible Average Inflation Target (FAIT) framework taken seriously would require a period of sub 2 percent inflation to offset what we are now going thru.
Read 5 tweets
Jan 19
1/ @paulkrugman works to manufacture disagreement between us over antitrust policy and its relation to inflation.

Paul agrees that increased monopoly power of a kind addressable by antitrust is at most a minor cause of the recent surge in inflation.
2/ I was clear in my tweets that if inflation was simply being used as an impetus to support the Biden competition policy agenda, much of which I support, I had no objection.
3/ Paul invokes Kennedy’s attack on steel executives. That rhetoric was very strong. So were the legal tactics used by his brother’s Justice Dept. Most historians regard Kennedy’s victory as pyrrhic.
Read 7 tweets
Dec 26, 2021
The emerging claim that antitrust can combat inflation reflects “science denial”. There are many areas like transitory inflation where serious economists differ. Antitrust as an anti-inflation strategy is not one of them.
I hope the Admin is simply using inflation as a way of adding urgency to the promotion of competition. That is a possible reading of this important @nytimes @jimtankersley @arappeport article. I strongly support much of the Admin’s competition agenda.

nytimes.com/2021/12/25/bus…
However, as described, hipster Brandeisian antitrust, with which the Admin and its appointees flirt, is more likely to raise than lower prices.
Read 14 tweets
Dec 24, 2021
Judged purely in terms of economic impacts, the Administration’s decision to extend student loan moratorium is highly problematic.
At a time when unemployment is unusually low and household balance sheets are very strong for all income quintiles, there is no special case for across the board relief now, unlike when it was put in place two years ago.
The Admin understood this when it made clear the last round of temporary debt relief would be the final one & not be extended. How much things have changed since the onset of Covid when it was completely explicit that student loan relief would sunset after the previous extension
Read 12 tweets
Dec 22, 2021
This article is devastating. When ⁦@propublica⁩ sees overly heavy handed regulation they are super likely to be right.
propublica.org/article/this-s…
As with the aftermath of 9/11 or the financial crisis there should be a systematic review of the performance of key agencies after the pandemic arrived.
I suspect it will show that good and dedicated people applying traditional procedures to a totally new context made bad decisions that caused thousands of deaths.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 21, 2021
⁦.@ojblanchard1⁩ is out here with a superb rigorous treatment of macro issues in the current low rate environment. …y-under-low-interest-rates.pubpub.org
Not surprisingly, I am largely in agreement with his analysis of the current world where secular stagnation has been and likely will again be a principal macro policy challenge.
If the view now priced into markets that the US economy cannot withstand a Fed funds rate as high as 2 percent even with high debt and deficits is right saving absorption/secular stagnation is a major macro challenge.
Read 5 tweets

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