Today I’m chatting with Steve Grumbine, founder of Real Progressives and host of the popular Macro N Cheese Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) focused Podcast.
Holy haggis! I never thought old men with grey beards speaking on the Internet would be making so much sense. You gentleman are honorary youngsters with hearts that are alive. Like... forever.
I totally agree with Jim about MMT being "just the understanding of operations". But what a lot of activists maybe fail to fully appreciate is that knowledge is part of wisdom. Though I am sure everyone knows this, but it gets suppressed I feel. Acquiring accurate knowledge is a moral and spiritual obligation, it does not fulfill ethical obligations nor guarantee wisdom & compassion, which takes time and "tests of fire" to develop, but you cannot honestly claim to be acting ethically without at least the knowledge, except by shear accident.
Hence we get these anti-capitalist "friends" in heterodox econ circles who hate MMT (revealing they are intellectually retarded, I mean technically so, a few wires loose and all that), so it's the old story of "with friends like these who needs capitalists?"
People who say, "Yeah, I don't care about the government debt because MMT says it is not important," are not wholly formed righteous activists. They are even ignoring half of the MMT mechanics (the price story), and so cannot possibly be wise policy advocates except again by accident. (I am not opposed to accidental justice, I'll take what we can get.) Often they are even Thatcherite parrots "your hard earned tax dollars are funding..." (so doubly retarded, since I thought they just said they do not care about the deficit?). The modern incantation of such foolery is found in people saying tariffs can sometimes be good — triply retarded, or simply lacking a full deck of cards?
If your domestic manufacturing rises thanks to tariffs, that is perhaps accidentally good, but as the Chinese socmed memes suggest, good luck getting your lard asses back to work in the factories. It will be the immigrant labour doing that shitty work.
Out the other side of their mouths they will advocate a highly regressive UBI (the state's claim on other people's labour) and promote fear of the inflation boogeyman(*). A fully formed MMT'er knows inflation can be a good thing, monopolist price mark-ups a bad thing & the wage rate hysteresis a bad thing.
Too much smarty pants nuance?🤣 I think not. It's not rocket science.
* Inflation is almost always a good thing, provided the political false psychology can be handled — not alienating too many voters, so keeping the rate in single digits or thereabouts, although Worgl had it at 12% with no trouble (which I know is not technically & psychologically inflation _per se_, but effectively it was the same, since a fiat currency is a gauge system).
Excellent comment Bijou. I particularly like the idea that knowledge does not equal wisdom. And I agree with the point - you obliquely make - that a little knowledge on a subject can be dangerous: we need to continually learn and deepen our understanding.
Yep. And with family I often mention Steve Grumbine as a prime example of someone who put himself through some fiery tests. Would that more people could hold themselves to account so well.
Great discussion. It reminds us how much we have in common despite our different nationalities. Because we live in the belly of the beast, we Americans tend to believe we are the center of the universe. Haha.
PS, The German writer... were you referring to Brecht? “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” (Genau, Brudi!)
Holy haggis! I never thought old men with grey beards speaking on the Internet would be making so much sense. You gentleman are honorary youngsters with hearts that are alive. Like... forever.
I totally agree with Jim about MMT being "just the understanding of operations". But what a lot of activists maybe fail to fully appreciate is that knowledge is part of wisdom. Though I am sure everyone knows this, but it gets suppressed I feel. Acquiring accurate knowledge is a moral and spiritual obligation, it does not fulfill ethical obligations nor guarantee wisdom & compassion, which takes time and "tests of fire" to develop, but you cannot honestly claim to be acting ethically without at least the knowledge, except by shear accident.
Hence we get these anti-capitalist "friends" in heterodox econ circles who hate MMT (revealing they are intellectually retarded, I mean technically so, a few wires loose and all that), so it's the old story of "with friends like these who needs capitalists?"
People who say, "Yeah, I don't care about the government debt because MMT says it is not important," are not wholly formed righteous activists. They are even ignoring half of the MMT mechanics (the price story), and so cannot possibly be wise policy advocates except again by accident. (I am not opposed to accidental justice, I'll take what we can get.) Often they are even Thatcherite parrots "your hard earned tax dollars are funding..." (so doubly retarded, since I thought they just said they do not care about the deficit?). The modern incantation of such foolery is found in people saying tariffs can sometimes be good — triply retarded, or simply lacking a full deck of cards?
If your domestic manufacturing rises thanks to tariffs, that is perhaps accidentally good, but as the Chinese socmed memes suggest, good luck getting your lard asses back to work in the factories. It will be the immigrant labour doing that shitty work.
Out the other side of their mouths they will advocate a highly regressive UBI (the state's claim on other people's labour) and promote fear of the inflation boogeyman(*). A fully formed MMT'er knows inflation can be a good thing, monopolist price mark-ups a bad thing & the wage rate hysteresis a bad thing.
Too much smarty pants nuance?🤣 I think not. It's not rocket science.
* Inflation is almost always a good thing, provided the political false psychology can be handled — not alienating too many voters, so keeping the rate in single digits or thereabouts, although Worgl had it at 12% with no trouble (which I know is not technically & psychologically inflation _per se_, but effectively it was the same, since a fiat currency is a gauge system).
Excellent comment Bijou. I particularly like the idea that knowledge does not equal wisdom. And I agree with the point - you obliquely make - that a little knowledge on a subject can be dangerous: we need to continually learn and deepen our understanding.
Yep. And with family I often mention Steve Grumbine as a prime example of someone who put himself through some fiery tests. Would that more people could hold themselves to account so well.
Exactly.
Great discussion. It reminds us how much we have in common despite our different nationalities. Because we live in the belly of the beast, we Americans tend to believe we are the center of the universe. Haha.
PS, The German writer... were you referring to Brecht? “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” (Genau, Brudi!)
You got it Virginia. I was indeed referring to Brecht. :-)