Inflation thread 🧵
Beneath the models, mainstream economists make huge assumptions about the nature of individuals allegedly constituting “the market”. Yet they have never made any robust or close intellectual contact with the field of psychology and don’t care to do so Instead, it has always relied on a poor imitation of 19th century energy physics. It is this ideological and religious attachment to outdated science disguised as a theory of the market that tells us “printing money” causes inflation, like magic or gravity

Current interest rate policy is still a consequence of neoliberal ideology. Before the Regan revolution, the mainstream Keynesians had already evacuated Keynes’ legacy of its most intellectually transformative potential and assimilated it into neoclassical policy /1 So when the oil shocks hit in the 70’s, they had no answer for inflation issues and or “stagflation”. They (and the rising New Democrats) had already given up on the macro economics of full employment and functional finance (MMT) /2

Truth is that @StephanieKelton & @ptcherneva are rockstars and world builders because their work frees economics from technocratic value free modeling. Their approach to budgets and employment recognizes that any worthy economic theory must be BOTH descriptive AND perspective And this is by far the best definition of MMT. Sorry I don’t make the rules

One big reason we insist that taxes don’t finance spending, even though otherwise important, is that “redistributing” taxes doesn’t do anything about resource constraints that matter. Inflation is not a dis-equilibrium of quantity. That’s why we need non-fiscal pay fors instead Taxing elites is good for democracy but doesn’t do absolutely anything about the hospitals, doctors, nurses, and infrastructure you need for single payer healthcare. In fact shrinking the private insurance system would likely free up resources rather than be inflationary

Saying Free money and printing money are both incoherent-dumb terms used to try to provide deep analysis of macroeconomics and or critique modern monetary theory but exposes how the most important insights of a monetary-economy have not been understood 1) money is neither free or not free. It is a governance technology that mediates debts and obligations via socially negotiated and administered prices. It is not required to exclusively proceed a transaction because it also mobilizes action and settles balances

*Incluiré una traducción al Español al final de este hilo* Last night I went into the lion’s den to debate the future of the Colombian economy, progressive policies, and heterodox economics via MMT with a group of right wing market fundamentalists both neoclassical and Austrian I did so entirely in Spanish, my second language of which I have conversational skills and no formal education. It was an insightful conversation and relatively respectful with some big exceptions. However, a few of my assertions caused outrage from my orthodox opponents

Things to know about Colombia: Clinton’s Plan Colombia was a human rights and environmental disaster. The FBI listed Uribe, the right wing hero and current shadow President, as associated with Escobar in 91. Land distribution in the countryside is near feudal Hundreds of social and environmental leaders have been murdered in the last few years. Foreign mining and extractive companies hire mercenaries to kill them. The Colombian state has a reputation for disappearing people including students during moments of major protesting

The post-neoliberal paradigm shift is when we realize our capacity to spend independent of arbitrary budget constraints is not because of circumstantial and temporary low interests rates but rather that we don’t need to rely on bonds and interest rates at all for fiscal policy This will be when we understand that interest rates are neither natural occurring signals nor provide ideal information about economy’s capacity

I just can’t wrap my head around how stupid this is
nytimes.com/2021/04/05/opi…

#FalconAndWinterSoldier The Malthusian logic in the MCU persists post-Thanos! Not only does Falcon get denied a loan for his sister because “there’s no money” beyond military contracts, but the raison d'être of Flag Smashers is that there’s no room for people to return from blip The Global Repatriation Council is entrusted with the maintenance necessary to accommodate the people that returned from being dusted but can only be imagined as a violent authoritarian force managing scarce resources. It is asserted that humanity was better cared for under blip

Doug Henwood is just an absolute unethical idiot and that guy shouldn’t be trusted in any political space that has any integrity whatsoever Literally give any Left MMTer from the @themmtnetwork 10 minutes to destroy this hack in a debate so we can be done with it and move on

This is an era of struggle over the commanding heights of the economy: money and investment along with the intellectual hegemony that conditions political thought. It is a matter of life & death for millions. It determine whether entire communities can live with dignity & thrive For this reason, any left that believes that deficits, or Federal spending not offset by equivalent taxes, is inherently inflationary or that balancing public budgets is a coherent position, is compromising on their principles and the possibility for authentic radical changes

So @NaomiAKlein made some important points on the @PitchforkEcon podcast about neoliberalism and the #GND. She said that while the popularity of purist neoliberal doctrine is not as popular pervasive, its success has been in convincingly asserting that #thereisnoalternative /1 This is because neoliberalism has effectively captured the public imagination in two critical ways. 1) Framing debates about Capitalism under the assumption that it is an immutable indivisible totality, while they themselves understand and act on the assumption it is not /2

Hey @realDonaldTrump, besides the gross generalizations indicative of being so intellectually vapid, why might there be poverty and dysfunction around the world? Perhaps some places are ruled by unaccountable oligarchies and cronies, like what you represent and embody /1/ Perhaps this is no accident, but is actually maintained and supported because it benefits the bottom line of you and your ilk who have made your fortunes off the pain and work of others here and abroad /2/

Thread: Friends, Climate Change is a Global existential crisis. A threat to the very habitability of human and non-human life on Earth. We simply cannot achieve what is necessary to address this urgency at the scale and speed required with something like "low-interest loans" 1 Lending is not going to mobilize our country to transform and revitalize this economy away from fossil fuels in time to avoid catastrophe and ensure a #justransition. Here in the U.S. only the Federal Government and the power of the purse can make this happen as needed 2