#163 L. Randall Wray: Breaking Banks - The Fed’s Magical Monetarist Thinking Strikes Again
The MMT Podcast with Patricia Pino & Christian Reilly
The Fed's Failure to Use Monetary Policy Effectively
The markets simply did not believe it. They did not believe the central banks could cause inflation. So that is a weak link in their story. And just skip forward when we got the COVID pandemic, actual inflation started increasing. Now it had nothing to do with too much demand or Larry Summers arguments. It was mostly supply side inflation. If you watch the expectations, they did not rise nearly as much as actual inflation did at which meant the markets also thought this is not too much demand. This inflation is going to go away and the Fed kept telling them that too for quite a while. I praised the Fed for doing that because that was the right thing to do. We don't
Patricia and Christian talk to award-winning economist and author of “Making Money Work For Us” Professor L. Randall Wray about how central banks use [checks notes] *vibes* to “anchor inflation expectations”, why it keeps failing, and what might work instead.
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Free tickets for the launch of “Modern Monetary Theory - Key Insights, Leading Thinkers”, in London on 20th April: https://gimms.org.uk/event/book-launch/
For an intro to MMT:
Our first three episodes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417
Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318
All our episodes in chronological order: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643
All our episodes with L. Randall Wray: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44467066
Relevant to this episode:
“Magical Monetary Thinking at the Fed Killed SVB” by L. Randall Wray & Stephanie Kelton: https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/magical-thinking-monetary-thinking
“The collapse of SVB shows why monetary policy is the wrong tool to fight inflation” by Yeva Nersisyan & L. Randall Wray: https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/3905479-the-collapse-of-svb-shows-why-monetary-policy-is-the-wrong-tool-to-fight-inflation/
Randy talks about how central banks had to give up on targeting money supply - and that’s because the money supply is determined endogenously. For more on the endogenous money view (the non-fringe, very mainstream view that bank loans create deposits, not the other way around), listen to:
Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683
Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318
Randy talks about US government bond issuance during World War II being a whole other story - for more on that, listen to these two episodes:
Episode 32 - Sam Levey: How Uncle Sam Paid For World War II (part 1): https://www.patreon.com/posts/30005574
Episode 33 - Sam Levey: How Uncle Sam Paid For World War II (part 2):
https://www.patreon.com/posts/30112818
Our Job Guarantee episodes:
Episode 4 - Fadhel Kaboub: What is the Job Guarantee?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742701
Episode 47 - Pavlina Tcherneva: Building Resilience - The Case For A Job Guarantee: https://www.patreon.com/posts/36034543
Episode 148 - Pavlina Tcherneva: Why The Job Guarantee Is Core To Modern Monetary Theory: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-148-why-73211346
Quick read: Pavlina Tcherneva’s Job Guarantee FAQ page: https://pavlina-tcherneva.net/job-guarantee-faq/
Quick MMT reads:
Warren’s Mosler’s MMT white paper: http://moslereconomics.com/mmt-white-paper/
Steven Hail’s quick MMT explainer: https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-modern-monetary-theory-72095
Quick explanation of government debt and deficit: “Some Numbers Are Big. Let Me Help You Get Over It”: https://christreilly.com/2020/02/17/some-numbers-are-big-let-me-help-you-get-over-it/
For a short, non-technical, free ebook explaining MMT, download Warren Mosler’s “7 Deadly Innocent Frauds Of Economic Policy” here: http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
Episodes on monetary operations:
Episode 20 - Warren Mosler: The MMT Money Story (part 1): https://www.patreon.com/posts/28004824
Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318
Episode 13 - Steven Hail: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Banking, But Were Afraid To Ask: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887
Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683
Episode 84 - Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye & Neil Wilson: An Accounting Model Of The UK Exchequer (Part 1): https://www.patreon.com/posts/46352183
Episode 86 - Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye & Neil Wilson: An Accounting Model Of The UK Exchequer (Part 2): https://www.patreon.com/posts/46865929
Episodes on inflation:
Episode 7: Steven Hail: Inflation, Price Shocks and Other Misunderstandings: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41780508
Episode 65 - Phil Armstrong: Understanding Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678
Episode 104 - John T Harvey: Inflation, Stagflation & Healing The Nation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835
Episode 123 - Warren Mosler: Understanding The Price Level And Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379
Episode 128 - L. Randall Wray & Yeva Nersisyan: What’s Causing Accelerating Inflation? Pandemic Or Policy Response?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558
More on government bonds (and “vigilantes”):
Episode 30 - Steven Hail: Understanding Government Bonds (Part 1):https://www.patreon.com/posts/29621245
Episode 31 - Steven Hail: Understanding Government Bonds (Part 2): https://www.patreon.com/posts/29829500
Episode 143 - Paul Sheard: What Is Quantitative Easing?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/71589989?pr=true
Episode 147 - Dirk Ehnts: Do Markets Control Our Politics?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-147-dirk-72906421
Episode 144 - Warren Mosler: The Natural Rate Of Interest Is Zero: https://www.patreon.com/posts/71966513
Episode 145 - John T Harvey: What Determines Currency Prices?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/72283811?pr=true
MMT Events And Courses In 2023
More information about Professor Bill Mitchell’s MMTed project (free public online courses in MMT) here: http://www.mmted.org/
Apply for Dr Dirk Ehnts’ Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics course at Maastricht University (July 31st - August 4th) here: https://maastricht.dreamapply.com/courses/course/183-modern-monetary-theory-and-european-macroeconomics
Details of Modern Money Lab’s online graduate and postgraduate courses in MMT are here: https://modernmoneylab.org.au/
MMT Academic Resources compiled by The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2251544/mmt_academic_resources_-_compiled_by_the_gower_initiative_for_modern_money_studies
MMT scholarship compiled by New Economic Perspectives: http://neweconomicperspectives.org/mmt-scholarship
A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757
We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos
Show notes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/80479169?pr=true
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