Macro N Cheese

We call this episode “Duality” because it covers what Bill Mitchell describes as separate realities experienced by the elites and the masses. We do not occupy the same universe. The results of this duality are reflected in the manufactured divisions within the working class itself and in the unequal economic power relations between countries. There is a conflict between the public’s need for services and capital’s need for profit and privatization.The point is, we live in 2 worlds – and the disparities are extreme.Bill lays out some of the ways our lives are organized around serving capital. Most of us understand how the education system serves to condition us to passively obey authority, but even our leisure time has been transformed. Bill refers to the book, Labor and Monopoly Capital, by Harry Braverman:What Braverman spoke about was more than a spatial spread of capital and capitalism of the type you’ve just been talking about, but also more and more activities that we typically never thought were part of our working lives, our productive lives. In the past, we would go to work for 8 hours a day ... and then we'd come home and have leisure. We would have non-work time. We'd go and play sports or we'd go dancing or whatever. But increasingly, those non-work activities have become surplus producing profit-making activities. So, you can't go to the football match in Australia now without being completely confronted with surplus creating processes, sport has become a corporate machine. Music has become a corporate machine. And so, more and more of our lives become subsumed within this process of surplus production and profit realization.The pressure of mass solidarity and citizens’ uprisings – from events like the Paris Commune of 1871 and the labor movement of the first half of the 20thcentury – forced certain concessions by the ruling class. The neoliberal era brought a retrenchment, a rollback of many of those gains. Now, instead of paying a living wage...The financial engineers could trap us in increasing debt, which allowed us to maintain our consumption, which allowed the participants in this other reality to realize profits through surplus value creation. And that's my worldview. And that's how I see the struggle of MMT. It's a transverse between the first reality and the elite reality, and it threatens the propositions because the elite reality reinforces itself and secures itself by miseducation. And it controls media. It pumps out lies … and it keeps us under control in a state of ignorance.Bill’s commitment to teaching Modern Monetary Theory stems from his belief that, for the first time in economic history, MMT directly challenges the miseducation program used by the elites to suppress us. His free course, MMT Ed (URL below), is available to all. We urge you to register.Professor Bill Mitchell holds the Chair in Economics and is the Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), an official research centre at the University of Newcastle. He is also a Visiting Professor at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and is on the management board of CofFEE-Europe, a sister centre located at that university. He is co-author of the MMT textbook, Macroeconomics.Enroll, support and donate to MMTed at mmted.org@billy_blog on Twitterhttp://www.billmitchell.org/“Macroeconomics” ordering information on bilbo.economicoutlook.net/#MMT #capital #capitalism #scarcity #austerity #labor #neoliberalism #taxpayer #Australia

Stephen Williams and Philip Lawn join Steve to discuss the forthcoming book, Sustainability and the New Economics: Synthesising Ecological Economics and Modern Monetary Theory, which Williams co-edited. The book brings together sustainability, ecological economics, and MMT.As you learn more and more about this thing called sustainability, you realize that it's really the economic system that is at the heart of the problem. It's the economic system you have to change. So when you start studying what we usually call heterodox economics, you soon start to learn about something called ecological economics, which Phil is an expert in. And then you start to hear about this other thing called Modern Monetary Theory. And it turns out these two things are completely complementary, and you need both of them.The volume is a collection of work by 15 authors or so, all with expertise in different areas, including the relationship between climate change and health impacts, planetary boundaries, sustainable development goals, and law. The book contains chapters by friends of this podcast -- Professor Steve Keen, who looks at the way mainstream economics has perverted the IPCC process, Steven Hail who wrote the chapter on MMT, and Phil Lawn, whose work ties the whole thing together by connecting ecological economics and MMT. In fact, according to Williams, he was the inspiration for the entire project. There is no other book with a focus on this connection.They explain the extent of the current mess, the post WWII Anthropocene, and examine how we got here, including the birth of neoliberalism, the fossil fuel industry, the publication of the “Limits to Growth” report, (which Steve Keen has talked about in a previous episode of this podcast), and more. Once they’ve laid out the past and the present, they look to the future: where do we go from here?How do we design a safe and prosperous future? That essentially means what new economic system could we bring in to replace the current failed economic system? Hey, there's nothing more dangerous than a bad idea. And mainstream economics is a terrible idea.**For a full transcript and “extras” page of this and every episode, go to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/**Stephen Williams, from Australia, has a long background in newspaper journalism and a short background in law. His lifelong obsession is the issue of designing societies for maximum well-being and sustainability. This has led him to the study of heterodox economics as an essential suite of tools. He is the co-editor of the forthcoming collected volume, Sustainability and the New Economics: Synthesising Ecological Economics and Modern Monetary Theory(Springer International, 2022).Based in Adelaide, Philip Lawn is an evidence-based economist and Adjunct Professor at Torrens University, Philip is also research fellow with the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and a member of the Wakefield Futures Group (South Australia). He is the author and editor of eight books on sustainable development, climate change, and the steady-state economy, and has 55 journal articles and more than 40 book chapters to his name. Philip makes speaking appearances at public events/debates and is regularly invited to deliver keynote and plenary presentations at academic conferences.#IPCC #MMT #ecological #climate #economics #sustainability #Anthropocene #GISP #Kelton #StevenHail #SteveKeen

Stuart Medina is a founder and current president of Red MMT Spain. He joins Steve this week to talk about conditions in Spain after two years of the pandemic, more than two decades as a member of the eurozone, and nearly half a century since the death of General Franco, dictator from 1939 to 1975, when Spain became a parliamentary monarchy.In the 1960s and 70s Spain had a fairly successful state-led industrialization policy. Franco’s death coincides with the ideological victory of neoliberalism. The elites turned to deregulation (“let the market decide”) and shut down all the public banks.When asked to summarize the situation in Spain today, Medina brings up the astounding unemployment figure of 15%, which doesn’t begin to reflect the reality. In 2011 it was as high as 27%, a rate which the US hasn’t seen since the Great Depression.But we are suffering those unemployment rates currently, as we speak. And when you look at the details, when you look at the youth unemployment rate there, we're talking of close to 40% unemployment. It's a tragedy because it's just such a waste of potential, of human dignity, I think, is the right word. It's just lives that are cut short. In some cases, people not being able to develop a career, a project, a life, getting married, having children, buying homes. It's a tragedy that is basically what is going on.Greece’s treatment at the hands of the notorious “Troika” is well known, as are the results of the harmful fiscal choices they were forced to make. Stuart tells us how Spain, too, was virtually blackmailed in 2011, pressured by the European Central Bank, Germany, and the Obama administration to amend the Spanish constitution and adopt impossible austerity measures.Stuart provides a thoughtful critique of the EU and discusses the kind of flexibility required to put a population back to work. He and Steve talk about Mosler’s assertion that imports are a net benefit and exports are a net loss, and how an export-led growth model has affected other economies.It can be difficult for a foreign audience to understand why countries like Spain and Italy joined the EU. Stuart suggests the European Union can be considered a surrogate imperial project to replace the old one.There's also the fact that the elites of Italy and Spain somehow needed or wanted some tool to control the restless trade unions, the industrial unrest of the 1970s and early 1980s. And let's face it, these elites are not doing badly.Those in the section of the ruling class with an export-led growth model are doing extremely well. They are, of course, interested in keeping their access to the European markets, among other benefits.They're interested in repressing wage growth. They're interested in fiscal rectitude because it helps to discipline the workforce and either consciously or unconsciously, they know it's in their best interest to enter into the arrangements of the European Union. The European Union is a neoliberal project. It is the project of the European elites, and they control the media. And they have convinced most of the population, I would say, (to be) in agreement that the European Union has been good for Spain.**Don’t forget to check out the transcript and “extras” page accompanying every episode of Macro N Cheese. Find them at realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast**Stuart Medina is an economist and a founding member of Red MMT Spain, of which he is currently the president. He is an advisor to Parliamentarians of the Progressive political movement Elkarrekin Podemos in the Basque Country. He has developed his professional career in the biotechnology sector where he has held management positions such as controller and director of business development. He also founded the consulting firm Metas Biotech and the biopharmaceutical company ProRetina Therapeutics. He is the author of two books on modern currency theory: El Leviatán Desencadenado and La Moneda del Pueblo.@SMiltim on Twitter@RedMMT

This week’s episode is the audio portion of a presentation by our friend Professor Fadhel Kaboub when he spoke with the Hanon Project's Yousra Magouri in September about the causes and effects of inflation during the pandemic. It’s a beautiful illustration that you don’t need an education in MMT to make sense of the economy. With Fadhel’s characteristic cogency, complex subjects are made accessible without sacrificing depth.He opens with basic definitions of inflation and how it is measured. He describes the two main types – demand pull and supply push -- then contrasts the mainstream and MMT explanations of inflation and the connection of our current circumstances to the pandemic.For the last several decades since the 70s, the mainstream economist will tell you too much government spending will cause inflation, right? Whether it's government subsidies or government contracts, you're just flooding the system with cash, giving people dollars to go out and shop and increase demand way beyond the capacity of the economy to keep up with it.Needless to say, different explanations of the causes lead to very different prescriptions for the solutions, as evidenced by political opposition to further pandemic relief measures and spending on social programs and infrastructure.Fadhel maintains the risk of inflation is triggered by the lack of productive capacity, including the supply chain disruptions during the pandemic. These problems exist on a global scale.The second source of inflation, which is the most important, I think, and most neglected by the economics profession is what I call the abusive market power and price setting behavior of key players in the economy. Think of big pharma, think of the energy companies, think of companies that have high degrees of market concentration that allows them actually to set prices simply because they can, because there isn't enough competition, because consumers don't have a choice...…Now, that type of inflation is not going to go away by spending less on the unemployed, on the pandemic, on education or infrastructure. It's got nothing to do with it.The episode goes into creative solutions for the global South, the danger of deflation, the limits of quantitative easing, the effect of climate change on the economy, and much more.Full transcripts of this and every episode of Macro N Cheese can be found at realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcastDr. Fadhel Kaboub is an Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics & Social Science Consortium, 2006, University of Missouri - Kansas City; M.A. in Economics, May 2001, University of Missouri - Kansas City; B.S. in Economics, June 1999, with Distinction. Emphasis: Money & Banking.@FadhelKaboub on Twitter

The Blockchain Socialist wants to dispel the notion that blockchain technology can only serve a right-wing libertarian agenda. In this week’s episode, he tells Steve the left loses out when new trends or innovations are introduced into the economy. Blockchain is a neutral tool on which we can build different types of organizations and institutions. He speaks of the risks taken when groups use Google Docs for organizing their information. Google’s removal of access to Palestinian activists should be seen as a threat to the left.The Blockchain Socialist – let's call him TBS – created his blog and podcast to provide a space for learning about blockchain and digital currency free of right=wing propaganda. He talks with Steve about a wide range of uses in both the near and distant future. For countries under economic sanctions, cryptocurrency can make it possible to engage in international financial activity. For the myriad groups on the left who seem unable to unite because of, often, some pretty obscure differences, TBS sees other benefits......using this shared economic platform to do that -- to keep track of political goals and to move forward on them. Then in some utopian socialist future in which the workers finally own the means of production, we can collectively decide to or decide not to use blockchain as an important decentralized institution for keeping track of other things that we may want to do.TBS lays out the difference between smart contracts and legal contracts and goes over their potential uses. He also explains the concept of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and how it could change the banking system, for better or worse. He and Steve discuss imposing expiration dates on cryptocurrency to encourage spending and disallow hoarding.It is hard for MMTers to understand why libertarians would want to impose artificial scarcity on cryptocurrency, as if Bitcoin were digital gold.It's really heavily based on this commodity theory of money, and especially the libertarian view that the best type of money can be abstracted away because it's backed by a commodity which has objective value -- as if gold is really objectively valuable. So I think part of the issue is that a lot of these first cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, were designed intentionally with this hard money view in mind. They encoded hard money into Bitcoin. It does not have to be hard money.Ultimately both the right and left have objections to the way the government handles money. Whether you think it is spending too much or too little, the whole process is undemocratic. Bitcoin is not the solution, but there is a lot more to digital currency than Bitcoin, not all of it a rightwing tool. This episode provides just a taste – we recommend following the Blockchain Socialist for a real education.The Blockchain Socialist is a blogger and podcaster whose work can be found on his website, theblockchainsocialist.com.Support his work at patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist.@TBSocialist on Twitter

It's one thing to understand the US government will not protect us from certain types of abuse by corporations. We see it in the weakness of labor laws as well as environmental and consumer protection regulations. We know the government has no problem sending poor and working-class men and women into harm's way to protect corporate interests overseas. But how much farther will the state go to protect the interests of global capitalism?Ray McGinnis doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he’s here to remind us of the questions that need to be asked. The title of his book says it all: Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored.It took a year for George Bush to decide on forming a commission to investigate 9/11. He appointed Henry Kissinger as chair. This was ironic (and outrageous), given Kissinger’s connection to that other 9/11 -- the September 11, 1973, coup in Chile to overthrow the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. Henry Kissinger was responsible for atrocities as far back as the carpet-bombing of Cambodia and was known for keeping secrets from Congress and the people.A group of women from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee visited Kissinger to voice their concerns. As Kissinger served them coffee, one woman got straight to the point:“Dr. Kissinger, we just want to make sure you don't have any conflicts of interest. You don't have any business clients by the name of Bin Laden.” At that point, Doctor Kissinger pours the coffee all over the table, partway falls off the couch, blames it on a fake eye, and resigns the next day.It was clear from the start that Congress had no will for this investigation. McGinnis reminds us that up to $80 million was spent investigating the Clintons in the ‘90s; the 9/11 Commission was given $3 million. Chairman Thomas Kean was on the board of a corporation with interests in building a pipeline across Afghanistan. George W. Bush had begun his presidency with plans for regime change in Iraq. The outline of the eventual Commission report was written before any evidence was examined.For 20 years, thousands of the 9/11 families have been pressing for an investigation into Saudi complicity in the attacks but have been stonewalled by the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. In April of 2020, Attorney General Barr and a representative of the NSA appeared before a judge to argue against releasing documents regarding a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, claiming it would harm American state secrets and national security.The families are scratching their heads: how is our lawsuit to find out if there was Saudi Arabian complicity in the attacks on September 11th possibly going to harm American national security and state secrets? What state secrets would those be?What secrets indeed? It’s been 20 years since the events of 9/11. For those of us fortunate enough not to have lost a friend or family member, some of our questions may have faded. Ray McGinnis brings the inconsistencies back into focus and adds some new ones.Ray McGinnis was educated in political science, religious studies, and history, and graduated with a B.A. from the University of Toronto. He also earned a Diploma in Christian Education from the Centre for Christian Studies. He was an educator with the United Church of Canada, working at their national office for 9 years. He subsequently worked at the Naramata Centre in rural British Columbia. From 1999 to 2020 he taught writing workshops. He is the author of Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry. McGinnis is interested in the stories we tell, the ones we ignore, and how this shapes our worldview.https://unansweredquestions.ca/@RayMcGinnis7 on Twitter

Do you think of colleges and universities as protected islands of intellectual activity, ivory towers where the world’s problems are contemplated and debated? Steve Grumbine’s guest is here to tell us otherwise. Davarian Baldwin, of Trinity College, is an urban historian and social theorist, whose work examines the landscape of global cities through the lens of the African Diasporic experience. His most recent book is In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities.Baldwin describes how institutions of higher education are the largest employers, healthcare providers, and landlords in cities and towns across the US. They leverage their massive financial and real estate holdings to displace the most vulnerable communities across the US. Their tax-exempt status does not result in savings for the local citizens, but puts a greater burden on everyone else’s property taxes.The conservative and mainstream media still maintain the pretense that campuses are a hotbed of radicalism, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Corporate partners sit on universities’ boards of trustees and shape the curriculum to reflect the interests of capital. The Koch brothers and other corporate entities are funding “innovation centers” and entrepreneurial institutes to fit their own needs.The powerful thing about higher education is the myth of the schoolhouse -- that it's just a place where we conduct classes and conduct pure research. Teaching classes has become a side business in higher education. There's so much more here that goes on in ways that either generate or manage capital that have nothing to do with teaching classes.Most colleges and universities maintain a substantial policing apparatus. According to Baldwin, “75% of public and private schools have police departments. Not public safety units -- police departments. Nine of ten are armed, and about 85% of these police departments have jurisdiction beyond the main campus. They police regular residents.”And so the irony of this phenomenon is that the biggest crimes on campus, sexual violence and substance abuse, are not policed. They do a horrible job. While some people might say capacity. I say intent, because schools -- predominantly white schools, I'm going to be clear -- are not going to want to say that they have a campus full of white criminals. This undermines their brand. So the policing is all outward facing into the poor, black and brown neighborhoods around the campuses, to say to investors, to say to students, to say to families, and to say to everyone else that we are open for business and we are safe. These police units, their job is to protect the brand.Baldwin gives numerous examples of different schools around the country and their outsized effect on the communities they reside in, their poorly paid employees, and, of course, students. He suggests specific reforms and asks that our listeners follow New Deal for Higher Education, Scholars for Social Justice, Cops Off Campus, and other organizations that are working toward change.Davarian L. Baldwin is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College, and is a historian, cultural critic, and social theorist of urban America. His work largely examines the landscape of global cities through the lens of the African Diasporic experience.Author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities Co-editor with Minkah Makalani, Escape from New York: The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem Author of Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life Series Co-Editor, Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy @DavarianBaldwin on Twitter

Michael Albert is one of the creators of participatory economics (parecon) and has developed a vision for a post-capitalist world that includes participatory governance. His new book, No Bosses, A New Economy for a Better World, goes into detail. From Noam Chomsky’s endorsement:*No Bosses* describes and advocates a natural and built Commons, workers’ and consumers’ self-managing councils, a division of labor that balances empowering tasks among all workers, a norm that apportions income for duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor, and finally not markets or central planning, but instead participatory planning by workers and consumers of what is produced, by what means, to what ends. It makes a compelling case that these features can be brought together in a spirit of solidarity to establish a self-managing, equitable, sustainable, participatory, new economy, with a rich artistic and intellectual culture as well.Albert recently spoke with Steve Grumbine about these concepts. His critique of what he calls “20th century socialism” is a rejection of centralized management. He and Grumbine discuss the MMT proposal of a Federal Job Guarantee which, though centrally funded, is locally managed, allowing communities to determine their specific needs and values. While Albert might be opposed to central funding (and all currency?), local management is consistent with his beliefs. He is concerned, however, with replacing the 1% with the 20% - the “coordinator class.”He also differentiates between reform and non-reformist reform, a concept we value at Macro N Cheese. Albert says, “What makes something more than just a desirable reform is partly how we would fight for it, and to an extent, what it is proposing.” He uses several examples, like the fight for a livable minimum wage and for replacing the use of fossil fuels with clean, green energy. Winning any of these things would be great, but then what? We're back to the system that we have. Or you can do it in a way which is constantly raising the need for innovation, the need for new social relations, the need for a new system, but recognizes the need to get these things done now. So one approach is reformist, the other approach is, I think, revolutionary.Albert’s post-capitalist vision includes self-management, diversity, equity, solidarity, and sustainability. Whether or not you agree with him on all fronts, you’ll find plenty to think about in this episode.** Each episode of Macro N Cheese has transcripts and an Extras page with links to additional information and resources. Go to realprogressives.com/macro-n-cheese-podcastMichael Albert is a veteran writer and activist of the left. He co-founded South End Press, Z Magazine, ZNet, and the Z Media Institute. He has written over 20 books and hundreds of articles. Along with Robin Hahnel, Michael is the co-developer of the post-capitalist economic vision called participatory economics (parecon). Michael runs a popular podcast called RevolutionZ and founded the School for Social and Cultural Change.@michaelalbertz on Twitternobossesbook.com

**Reminder** Each episode of Macro N Cheese is accompanied by a transcript and an “Extras” page with links to related material and resources. To access, go to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast.In one sentence: the winners and losers of the 21st century are the countries that attract young people.Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor and best-selling author of numerous books on globalization, migration, the info-state, and the future of the world order. In this episode, he speaks with Steve about his newest book, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us.Most people who pretend to understand globalization reduce it to the rate of world trade growth. Khanna says we need a broader and more nuanced view, even though there are aspects that cannot be quantified. In his work he takes a multi-dimensional and systemic approach.An earlier book, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization, was about the functional geography of infrastructure and supply chains. Its “punchline” is that connectivity is destiny. The recent book, Move, looks at how these ever-greater volumes of infrastructure affect the evolving distribution of population across the world.Human geography, Khanna explains, answers the questions: Who are we? Where are we? What are we? It is not simply a matter of the number of people inhabiting the planet, but what is our demographic composition - the distribution of age and race?Most people agree both climate change and economics are global in nature. They know the price of goods in one country can be affected by various phenomena in other parts of the world. Likewise, the impact of climate change is dramatically different from region to region.Because climate change is so much more extreme and occurring at a much faster pace than we previously acknowledged, it means that adaptation is as important as mitigation. This is a huge theme in the book and, quite frankly, an open door, a big hole that I'm trying to drive a truck through because I'm beside myself with rage.For all our concern about climate change, the focus is skewed. According to Khanna, only 6% of climate-related funding goes to adaptation.Meanwhile, people are dying every single day. You got your rising sea levels in Bangladesh and people dying in floods and heat waves, droughts and cyclones -- all these climate related phenomena. Every single day hundreds, if not thousands, of people are dying. The number of climate refugees in the world is greater than any other category of refugees. Climate migration will soon exceed all other drivers of migration, and yet we don't have a collective discourse on adaptation.Khanna describes the US as “second world,” by which he means it is both first and third world at the same time. He finds lessons in the history of the rise and fall of past civilizations. Societies collapse when their brittleness is exposed by their vulnerability to complex supply chains and structures they haven't fully grasped or untangled.Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. Parag's newest book is MOVE: The Forces Uprooting Us (2021), which was preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019). He is author of a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also the author of Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012).Paragkhanna.com@paragkhanna on Twitter@drparagkhanna on Instagram

Dirk Ehnts, an economist from Berlin, joins us to talk about his book, Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics. In addition to discussing the current situation in the Eurozone, he helps us understand the similarities and differences between the Eurozone and the US, especially regarding the relationship between the individual states and the central bank.So in the US, whatever happens in your state ... you always have government spending coming from the federal level. So that's going to pay for the military installation, that's going to pay for the pensions. It's going to pay for some of the public federal infrastructure. And that means that whatever happens in your state, the federal government is always there. And you also have these institutional mechanisms to ensure that states which do not have a lot of employment can somehow make bargains in the political process and basically trade votes for jobs. And that's the main difference.The Eurozone has both the European Central Bank (ECB) and national central banks for each EU nation.We have this problem, that there's going to be a lack of government spending when it really matters. And there's no institution to address this kind of shortcoming. So the Euro was always incomplete, and it was kind of the idea that once it is in place, it can be completed by having a Euro Treasury. But we've been in this kind of mess now since the global financial crisis, and it's not clear where we are going.Ehnts also addresses the question of how countries within the EU make fiscal policy and get programs funded. He talks about causes of the disparity between northern and southern European nations and Steve brings up the race to the bottom we see among US states. Not only are there differences in the political economic strengths of individual EU countries, but within each there are states or provinces with their own strengths and weaknesses.The episode covers austerity policies, the changes from pre- to post-GFC eras, and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s enough about money creation, interest rates, and bond sales to satisfy the wonkiest among us.Don’t forget to check out the episode transcript and Extras pages! If you’re listening on a podcast platform, you’ll have to head over to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast to find them.Dirk Ehnts is an Adjunct Lecturer at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, the Speaker of the Board of the Pufendorf Society for Political Economy and author of Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics.@DEhnts on TwitterWebsite (in German or English): dirk-ehnts.de