#153 Dirk Ehnts: Fiscal Black Holes And How To Escape Them

Patricia and Christian talk to economist and author Dr Dirk Ehnts about the false-but-folksy economic premises behind Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement, the difference between currency users and currency issuers, why government borrowing isn’t really borrowing, why taxes are important (but not for the reasons many think) and help climate envoy John Kerry discover which government in the world has trillions of dollars.

 

Please help sustain this podcast!

Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast

 

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 Dirk Ehnts: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44467243

 

Dirk Ehnts on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DEhnts

Dirk Ehnts’ Website: https://www.dirk-ehnts.de/en-us/

Dirk Ehnts on Mastodon: https://econtwitter.net/@DirkEhnts@mastodon.social

 

Patricia Pino on Mastodon: https://econtwitter.net/@patriciapino

 

Relevant to this episode:

Stephanie Kelton’s “green dollar / yellow dollar" explanation of government bonds (except she uses small pink pieces of paper for dollars and big pink pieces of paper for bonds) starts at 19:49: https://youtu.be/c6ss3p4jjI4

 

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

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

On government debt: “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/

 

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

 

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

 

Pavlina Tcherneva’s Job Guarantee FAQ page: https://pavlina-tcherneva.net/job-guarantee-faq/

 

 

Details of Modern Money Lab’s online graduate and postgraduate courses in MMT: https://modernmoneylab.org.au/

 

Sign up for alerts from The Gower Initiative For Modern Money Studies about their forthcoming MMT book: https://gimms.org.uk/

 

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/75038084