I recently noted in a comment on a Youtube clip by GhostOnTheHalfShell That MMT followers are almost always zealous acolytes who have discovered MMT being presented by other zealous acolytes as a fully-formed, out-of the box, fit-and-forget panacea for all the world's economic woes. This is a very beguiling proposition indeed- in the same category as the Christian Evangelists' 'all you need to do to gain everlasting life is to accept Jesus died for your sins', thereby absolving the subject from the necessity of living a virtuous life. Another similarity to Christian Evangelism is that the acolyte will accept no criticism of the true prophet- the adoration of Mosler in this case is often little short of fawning sycophancy. This has not been helped by the fact that other popular MMT 'Public Personae' such as Stephanie Kelton have glibly failed to make a clear distinction between money for public purpose being raised by bond sales to private financiers, which is generally approved of by the finance sector, since it profits them at the expense of the public, and bonds being 'sold' to the Central Bank directly, which is only approved as an 'emergency measure' such as wartime, since that sidelines the financiers.
In my opinion these cultish adorations and omissions are a deliberate obfuscation to paper over the vast cracks of the political chasm that MMT / Post Keynesian ideas have to cross, notwithstanding their technical correctness, which is that the governments of the so-called 'free' world are simply the minions of the combined finance sectors of those countries, Particularly in the USA where penetration of government by Wall Street started (probably) with Henry Morgenthau in the 1930's and became total with Robert Rubin in the 1990's to the extent that the entire US government is now little more than the military branch of Wall Street's global dominion. The same is true of the City of London etc, but it's not a case of individual governments being dominated by their national finance sectors- it's all governments dominated by the entire sector at the same time.
It's all very well Mosler fanboys admonishing heretics, Kelton making cute movies, and even Steve and his system-dynamics buddies making long-form presentations on Youtube, but the elephant in the room is that the obstacle to change is 99% political and only 1% technical. To go back to the religious metaphor I used earlier, if the leaders of 'Christian Evangelism' were to tell their acolytes to give up their wealth and property, share everything they have with strangers and to emulate the life of the disciples, rather than some cutesy trope about 'faith alone conquering death', they would be talking to an empty room. The cult of MMT as a hobby interest but without political action is a similar cutesy trope.
Yes, every "movement" runs into the human proclivity for grasping onto orthodoxy...which sets up a duality to fight over, and that ends up blocking the full
experience/understanding of a thirdness greater oneness which such movement is generally pointing at. Even buddhism, which warns that mental grasping inhibits mental flowing, has fallen prey to the negative effects of our unwillingness/inability to seek the integrative thirdness signature of wisdom instead of the egoistic disease of dualism.
The concept/experience that denotes and is an integrative thirdness greater oneness is the natural philosophical concept of grace. That is grace as in flow/freeflowingness, ethical thirdness as in the rational integrative consideration of morals/duality, freeness as in Gifting, epistomology as in knowingness instead of even true, but mere data/abstraction and gracious/loving policies...as policies are the actions of systems...just to mention a few of the aspects of the most pregnant concept man has ever conceived and experienced.
Drop all of the pre-scientific, parochial and dualistic nonsense that attends the concept of grace in the west and apply grace at the most efficaious points in the economic process and we might be able make economics serve us instead of dominate and delude us.
Steve, I think I understand your difference with standard MMT on imports & exports being one of relative cost vs benefit, and also oversimplification. Would you elaborate on what aggravated the Leeds leadership beyond this because I'm missing something.
This argument is one of Mosler's "Deadly Innocent Frauds" #5:
"The trade deficit is an unsustainable imbalance that takes away jobs and output.
Facts:
Imports are real benefits and exports are real costs. Trade deficits directly improve our standard of living. Jobs are lost because taxes are too high for a given level of government spending, not because of imports...
A trade deficit, in fact, increases our real standard of living. How can it be any other way? So, the higher the trade deficit the better. The mainstream economists, politicians, and media
all have the trade issue completely backwards. Sad but true."
I see that as US-centric, static thinking poppycock, which I can run a train, but I've refrained from doing so because I applaud their success in getting the good bits of MMT into the public arena. But I've had enough of the shitty behaviour of the MMT bigwigs--Mosler, Wray and Mitchell--and I don't want to let a piece of bad logic slip in on the coattails of good logic.
I have read very little on MMT, and I can't recall this issue of imports and exports. The youtube stream that was "not well-received" by the MMT community is about 2 hours long. At (roughly) what hh:mm in that (recorded) stream can I find your talk on imports and exports (and MMT)?
TBH Marius, I don't even buy the 'export/import issue' variance as a pretext for Steve's exclusion. I think it's a clique of fanboys who are attempting to define themselves as the 'one true church' and don't want to share their space with someone who can advance the subject by doing the maths. You don't see the same kind of factionalism between, say, Ann Pettifor and Steve, even though Ann is, by her own definition, pretty much an 'old-school' rather than a 'post-' Keynesian.
You may be right. If have have read little about MMT as a "theory", I have zero knowledge of MMT as a movement. Including who its big egos are and whatever internal forces are playing out..
Anyway I do find MMT as a theory interestening, and I would like to know the basics about this import/export issue, and Steve's criticism of it.
I'll do the criticisms in a paper sometime soon. And yes, you're right. There's a cabal at the top, with one individual in particular who almost relishes aggravating other academics. It's not Warren, as it happens.
" I would like to know the basics about this import/export issue, and Steve's criticism of it". Me too. I just read Mosler's take here https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf but I'm not personally mathematically adept enough to check the veracity of it. I do take Steve's point that it is 'American-centric' though, and living in a country (NZ) that survives almost entirely by exporting primary produce and importing fertiliser and manufactured goods, and has surprisingly little 'natural wealth' other than agricultural land and a good climate, I very much feel the necessity for an equitable 'balance of trade'.
Imports and exports we may aways have with us, but having a robust manufacturing and generally productive economy guards against potential instabilities and can't be anything other than virtuous.
Of course integrating a new monetary paradigm of Gifting utilizing accounting operations into the Debt Only present system with 50% reductions of costs at retail sale and of debt levels at the point of loan signing makes the entire system hit on all 30 trillion cylinders, reduces costs for everyone and stops the continual build up of private debt. Or at least tht's what Hyman Minsky channeled to me about 7 years ago. ;)
I recently noted in a comment on a Youtube clip by GhostOnTheHalfShell That MMT followers are almost always zealous acolytes who have discovered MMT being presented by other zealous acolytes as a fully-formed, out-of the box, fit-and-forget panacea for all the world's economic woes. This is a very beguiling proposition indeed- in the same category as the Christian Evangelists' 'all you need to do to gain everlasting life is to accept Jesus died for your sins', thereby absolving the subject from the necessity of living a virtuous life. Another similarity to Christian Evangelism is that the acolyte will accept no criticism of the true prophet- the adoration of Mosler in this case is often little short of fawning sycophancy. This has not been helped by the fact that other popular MMT 'Public Personae' such as Stephanie Kelton have glibly failed to make a clear distinction between money for public purpose being raised by bond sales to private financiers, which is generally approved of by the finance sector, since it profits them at the expense of the public, and bonds being 'sold' to the Central Bank directly, which is only approved as an 'emergency measure' such as wartime, since that sidelines the financiers.
In my opinion these cultish adorations and omissions are a deliberate obfuscation to paper over the vast cracks of the political chasm that MMT / Post Keynesian ideas have to cross, notwithstanding their technical correctness, which is that the governments of the so-called 'free' world are simply the minions of the combined finance sectors of those countries, Particularly in the USA where penetration of government by Wall Street started (probably) with Henry Morgenthau in the 1930's and became total with Robert Rubin in the 1990's to the extent that the entire US government is now little more than the military branch of Wall Street's global dominion. The same is true of the City of London etc, but it's not a case of individual governments being dominated by their national finance sectors- it's all governments dominated by the entire sector at the same time.
It's all very well Mosler fanboys admonishing heretics, Kelton making cute movies, and even Steve and his system-dynamics buddies making long-form presentations on Youtube, but the elephant in the room is that the obstacle to change is 99% political and only 1% technical. To go back to the religious metaphor I used earlier, if the leaders of 'Christian Evangelism' were to tell their acolytes to give up their wealth and property, share everything they have with strangers and to emulate the life of the disciples, rather than some cutesy trope about 'faith alone conquering death', they would be talking to an empty room. The cult of MMT as a hobby interest but without political action is a similar cutesy trope.
Spot on Kevin, every word.
Yes, every "movement" runs into the human proclivity for grasping onto orthodoxy...which sets up a duality to fight over, and that ends up blocking the full
experience/understanding of a thirdness greater oneness which such movement is generally pointing at. Even buddhism, which warns that mental grasping inhibits mental flowing, has fallen prey to the negative effects of our unwillingness/inability to seek the integrative thirdness signature of wisdom instead of the egoistic disease of dualism.
The concept/experience that denotes and is an integrative thirdness greater oneness is the natural philosophical concept of grace. That is grace as in flow/freeflowingness, ethical thirdness as in the rational integrative consideration of morals/duality, freeness as in Gifting, epistomology as in knowingness instead of even true, but mere data/abstraction and gracious/loving policies...as policies are the actions of systems...just to mention a few of the aspects of the most pregnant concept man has ever conceived and experienced.
Drop all of the pre-scientific, parochial and dualistic nonsense that attends the concept of grace in the west and apply grace at the most efficaious points in the economic process and we might be able make economics serve us instead of dominate and delude us.
Steve, I think I understand your difference with standard MMT on imports & exports being one of relative cost vs benefit, and also oversimplification. Would you elaborate on what aggravated the Leeds leadership beyond this because I'm missing something.
This argument is one of Mosler's "Deadly Innocent Frauds" #5:
"The trade deficit is an unsustainable imbalance that takes away jobs and output.
Facts:
Imports are real benefits and exports are real costs. Trade deficits directly improve our standard of living. Jobs are lost because taxes are too high for a given level of government spending, not because of imports...
A trade deficit, in fact, increases our real standard of living. How can it be any other way? So, the higher the trade deficit the better. The mainstream economists, politicians, and media
all have the trade issue completely backwards. Sad but true."
I see that as US-centric, static thinking poppycock, which I can run a train, but I've refrained from doing so because I applaud their success in getting the good bits of MMT into the public arena. But I've had enough of the shitty behaviour of the MMT bigwigs--Mosler, Wray and Mitchell--and I don't want to let a piece of bad logic slip in on the coattails of good logic.
Thanks, Steve.
Trade has always seemed like a reasonable, cooperative thing. I never understood the trade deficit logic even before I knew anything about economics.
I have read very little on MMT, and I can't recall this issue of imports and exports. The youtube stream that was "not well-received" by the MMT community is about 2 hours long. At (roughly) what hh:mm in that (recorded) stream can I find your talk on imports and exports (and MMT)?
TBH Marius, I don't even buy the 'export/import issue' variance as a pretext for Steve's exclusion. I think it's a clique of fanboys who are attempting to define themselves as the 'one true church' and don't want to share their space with someone who can advance the subject by doing the maths. You don't see the same kind of factionalism between, say, Ann Pettifor and Steve, even though Ann is, by her own definition, pretty much an 'old-school' rather than a 'post-' Keynesian.
You may be right. If have have read little about MMT as a "theory", I have zero knowledge of MMT as a movement. Including who its big egos are and whatever internal forces are playing out..
Anyway I do find MMT as a theory interestening, and I would like to know the basics about this import/export issue, and Steve's criticism of it.
I'll do the criticisms in a paper sometime soon. And yes, you're right. There's a cabal at the top, with one individual in particular who almost relishes aggravating other academics. It's not Warren, as it happens.
" I would like to know the basics about this import/export issue, and Steve's criticism of it". Me too. I just read Mosler's take here https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf but I'm not personally mathematically adept enough to check the veracity of it. I do take Steve's point that it is 'American-centric' though, and living in a country (NZ) that survives almost entirely by exporting primary produce and importing fertiliser and manufactured goods, and has surprisingly little 'natural wealth' other than agricultural land and a good climate, I very much feel the necessity for an equitable 'balance of trade'.
Turning the other cheek is wisdom, good for you.
Imports and exports we may aways have with us, but having a robust manufacturing and generally productive economy guards against potential instabilities and can't be anything other than virtuous.
Of course integrating a new monetary paradigm of Gifting utilizing accounting operations into the Debt Only present system with 50% reductions of costs at retail sale and of debt levels at the point of loan signing makes the entire system hit on all 30 trillion cylinders, reduces costs for everyone and stops the continual build up of private debt. Or at least tht's what Hyman Minsky channeled to me about 7 years ago. ;)