letsgetitdone's blog

It was very welcome to see The Washington Post cover MMT with a reasonably favorable post by Dylan Matthews, published on Ezra Klein's blog called “You know the deficit hawks. Read below the fold...

After reading one of my rants about the stupidity of policies aiming at a balanced budget, somebody in my Facebook environment, commented by saying: “1 + 1 = 2.” Here's my answer.

Yes, 1+1 = 2.

Now here's an accounting identity from macroeconomics, called the Sectoral Financial Balances (SFB) model:

Domestic Private Balance + Domestic Government Balance + Foreign Balance = 0.

It's like 1 + 1 = 2. But just slightly more "wonkish." Read below the fold...

A few weeks ago I called for a technocratic debate on the merits of the JG, relative to other fiscal policies. A number of bloggers took the charge but the debate was not immune to ideological biases, which proved the starting point of my piece that one cannot separate fact from theory or ideology (and by ideology I do not mean the derogatory use of the word, but that which signifies ‘ontology’ or a ‘world view’). What I didn’t expect is for friends and sympathizers to resurrect one particularly invidious charge we have long heard from MMT deniers, namely that MMT is pushing authoritarian policies.

Oh, boy. How did we even get here? I thought this was going to be a technocratic debate. Read below the fold...

After opposing the Job Guarantee proposal as part of the broader MMT policy program in service of the goals of public purpose, full employment with a living wage and price stability, and for many weeks now, combining with Mike Sankowski and Carlos Mucha to found “Monetary Realism” and also saying: Read below the fold...

An article in WaPo in the January 28 print edition made the case for decreasing the workload of Americans based on the fourfold increase in the productivity of US workers since the 1950s. I liked the article and didn't disagree with much of it, which is a pretty rare experience for me in the last decade when reading WaPo articles on economic policy. However, there was this little gem appearing in it, that I think is worth at least a small comment, in passing.

”Companies argue that grueling work schedules are necessary to boost productivity.”

Read below the fold...

This is an introduction to a series of 16 posts I began in reply to a number of posts by John Carney at the CNBC blog and Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalism, and discussions replying to them. The posts by Carney and Roche criticized the MMT Job Guarantee (JG) proposal. Read below the fold...

Since I provided some reaction to the SOTU, I thought I might also provide some analysis of Jill Stein's version of it. I won't dignify Mitch Daniels's reply to the President with an analysis, however, because it's simply not worth the electronic ink to comment on that nonsense.

By and large, I really liked Jill Stein's Green New Deal speech, and I think I'd be much happier if she were in the Presidency then I am right now. Dr, Stein, is really direct and straightforward, and she seems to genuinely care about the condition of working people and about protecting the constitution and its guarantees of liberty. Her sincerity shines through and she seems to lack the guile of the major party candidates. Her program seems to be a synthesis of the WW II New Deal and Green Agendas and I strongly support the idea that we need both right now. Here are some quotes and comments. Read below the fold...

Last year I prepared for the SOTU by speculating about the “fairy tales” the President would tell about fiscal responsibility, fiscal sustainability and the debt/deficit problem. That series ended here, and here. Yesterday's SOTU covered many subjects, but once again, the President paid lip service to the irresponsible religion of fiscal responsibility. Here are some comments on the parts of the SOTU related to it. Read below the fold...

This is the concluding post in this Job Guarantee and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) series. Read below the fold...

In this post I'll list the primary components of the MMT Knowledge Claim Network (KCN) classified under the major categories: the Social/Value Gaps; the Knowledge Gaps (Problems); the Descriptive Components (including Solutions); the Policy Prescriptions; and the Narratives.

The Social/Value Gaps mentioned by MMT developers

-- Failure of Economics to contribute to the Public Purpose as defined by the failure to close the other social value gaps listed below;

-- the gap between actual output and projected “full” output;

-- High involuntary unemployment vs. full employment;

Read below the fold...

The recent extensive blogosphere discussion on the JG and the MMT core began with a post by John Carney that stated his opposition to the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) Job Guarantee proposal and claimed it either wasn't an essential component of MMT, or that if it was, then MMT was wrong. Cullen Roche, a well-known popularizer of MMT at his Pragmatic Capitalism blog then asserted: Read below the fold...

In a piece called “More Questions About the Job Guarantee,” John Carney provides some links to the continuing debate on the Job Guarantee (JG). All the links are to posts critical of the JG idea except a link to one of my four posts critical of Carney's earlier work and supportive of the JG. Read below the fold...

Cullen Roche continued his extensive and multi-faceted critique of the Job Guarantee policy and the Modern Monetary Theory approach to economics with a piece attempting to distinguish “theory” and “fact.” His piece is based on the common sense idea that there's a distinction between them, and Cullen tries to use it in his argument. There is, but, unfortunately, the common sense notion of the distinction has long been put aside in the philosophy of science, and in most of the sciences a decade or so later, because of its incoherence. So, in using it, Cullen's argument shares this incoherence.

The “Theoretical” and Something Else Read below the fold...

Is the JG a Price Anchor?

More on Cullen Roche's claims about the JG, this time a discussion of his price anchor vs. price buoy post.

Let's begin with: Read below the fold...

Cullen Roche continued his attack on the JG and his critics with a post asking whether America really needs to do a 180? I see the post as a set of distractions and straw man arguments that misconstrue the positions of his critics. The post quotes no one and constructs their positions fictionally without any documentation.

A Drastic Overhaul? Who Said Anything About That?

“This whole job guarantee debate has really shed light on the schism in many MMT thinkers. One group wants you to believe that the American way of doing things is so broken that it needs a drastic overhaul (in this case, the hiring of up to 30 MILLION government employees). . . . “

Read below the fold...