Macro N Cheese

This week, Randy Wray joins us for his fifth Macro N Cheese episode. As always, he brings loads of useful insights and factual information, both historical and of the moment.  While cable news and Democratic social media are jubilant with the ouster of Donald Trump, we know it’s a hollow victory. There’s nothing to celebrate. Randy and Steve look at the sobering facts. We stand on the precipice of country-wide evictions and mortgage foreclosures. Many jobs and businesses are lost forever. The optimists among us keep looking for signs, but at every turn, we’re confronted with evidence that the incoming administration has no intention of meeting the challenges.  In normal times (pre-pandemic), our paychecks are gobbled up by rent, health care, utility bills, and debt, debt, debt - leaving very little, if any, discretionary income. Now we’re faced with overdue rents and mortgages, overdue electrical, gas, and water bills. Student loans, car loans, and credit card debt haven’t gone away, and there’s no help in sight. Whatever relief numbers have been floated in Washington are woefully inadequate. Just like the Obama stimulus, our lawmakers are too timid to extend relief past the trillion-dollar line. Big numbers are so frightening!  When the global financial crisis hit, instead of punishing the financial institutions, the Obama administration ramped up the moral hazard by rewarding bad behavior, thereby guaranteeing it would continue unabated. So financial institutions went back to doing what they had been doing in the run-up to 2007. Since then, their behavior has gotten worse and financial fragility has grown. Randy refers to the theory of his professor, Hyman Minsky, to explain the trend.  When we look at government response to the pandemic, most of the focus goes to the individual relief checks. What tends to be ignored are the preemptive bailouts of financial institutions. Before they actually experienced a crisis, we began funneling funds to them, leading the mainstream press to marvel that despite record unemployment and a disastrous economy, the stock market keeps going up. It’s a miracle!  Randy says it’s hard to make forecasts about the real depths of the economic crisis because of the uncertainty of the pandemic.  The last one began as a financial crisis that then begot an economic crisis and high unemployment. This one is completely turned all the other way around where first it's a health crisis, then it's an economic crisis, and then eventually it's going to be a financial crisis. So there's lots of uncertainty about this, but I will be very surprised if we get through this without a major financial crisis.  This episode covers a lot of ground, like PAYGO and healthcare. Steve and Randy discuss the double disadvantage American workers face -- the low rate of unionization leaves them without representation on the job, and the lack of a US Labor Party means no representation in Washington. They talk about the Panama Papers and make an interesting case about inefficiency created through legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion. They look at the way the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in global supply chains and whether this might lead to changes in the way production is organized.  As liberals celebrate the Biden administration bringing us back into the international community’s efforts to address climate change, Randy offers a unique caution,  Remember the Democratic convention last time around? ...I was surprised to find out that Russia and China were enemies of the United States, according to the Democratic Party.  Building up to another Cold War contributes to the climate catastrophe, even if we don’t use the weapons and it is, of course, the opposite of cooperation. That just might be as scary as the climate crisis we face.  L. Randall Wray is a Professor of Economics at Bard College and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics  Institute.www.levyinstitute.org/scholars/l-randall-wray

You don’t have to be a Marxist to know the vital importance of labor. Workers hold the key to social change. They keep us fed, clothed, and provided for; they’re the only force with actual leverage over the ruling class. No wonder unions are such a threat.  Joe Burns isn’t just a labor lawyer and negotiator, he’s a student of labor history. He joins us to talk about the past, present, and future of the movement. For the challenges faced today, it is instructional to look back. For example, the gig economy is not so different from the early days of the auto industry, when employment was often temporary. The sprawling nature of trucking was used by employers as a barrier to organizing. When unions saw past those conditions, they were able to grow and achieve results.  Joe talks about the historical significance of national unions as we look at today’s international economy. Early unions were local or regional, but as transportation and trade developed, so did national manufacturing and product markets, so labor had to be organized on a national scale.   And I think if we fast forward to today, we're really in a similar situation where labor and product markets are global in nature. So it doesn't match the employers' structure and scale if we're still organized only on a national basis. Right? So we need a global labor movement that's able to confront global capital. Now, that's not an easy task. And frankly, the labor movement over the years has done a horrible job at it. For decades, the labor movement basically operated as an arm of the United States State Department.   When talking about solidarity, we don’t have to look into the distant past to see examples of it.  While working-class solidarity may or may not exist naturally, it can build rapidly through struggle. Joe brings up the “red state teachers’ strikes” of 2018, which sprang from discussions by a handful of teachers on Facebook. After sharing their grievances (as one tends to do on social media) someone suggested a strike, and it spread like wildfire. West Virginia teachers went out and, despite its illegality, they were granted concessions. Teachers in Arizona and Oklahoma followed suit; and then it spread to blue cities and states.  You can’t talk about labor without discussing class, and Joe briefs us on the two basic trends in the early years of organizing. There was class struggle unionism, represented by the IWW, International Workers of the World, and the business unions, typified by the AFL, American Federation of Labor. From the 1930s through the ‘60s, they achieved a grand bargain, gaining a little bit for a lot of workers.   But at the same time, we didn't really contest this control over the workplace and society, and employers got more and more powerful because they accumulated more and more profits. And then eventually they turn it against the workers. Right? And against our movement. So if we're going to revive the labor movement, we really have to look to socialist union theory. It's hard to envision a labor movement that doesn't actively contest the power of capital in the workplace and society succeeding.   Unsurprisingly there has also been a long debate about race among union organizers, with many believing they could talk about workers’ unity without involving race in the discussion, especially in the South. The leftist unions of the ‘30s and ‘40s confronted the special oppression of black workers head-on.  Throughout the episode, Joe continues to look to the past for understanding of the present and lessons for the future.  Joe Burns is a labor lawyer and negotiator. He is the author of “Reviving the Strike” and “Strike Back.” Look for “Class Struggle Unionism” in 2021.  Check him out on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/Reviving-the-Strike-168598319827846  Buy his bookshttps://bookshop.org/books/reviving-the-strike-how-working-people-can-regain-power-and-transform-america/9781935439240  http://www.igpub.com/strike-back/

When Steve Mnuchin announced a clawback of the CARES Act, the liberal media wasted no time before launching condemnations. Among our friends in the MMT community, wiser heads prevailed. Make no mistake, nobody denies Mnuchin is the Grinch who stole Christmas. But like a magic eye picture, if you change your focus slightly, a different image will form. This week, our friend, Robert Hockett, joins us to tell us why Mnuchin’s announcement can be seen as a gift in our stocking, not a lump of coal.  On the surface, the CARES Act appeared to be an acknowledgment that the Federal Reserve and Treasury had gotten it wrong in 2008-09. They had bailed out the banks, while ignoring the victims of those very same institutions whose obscene dealings had plunged the planet into crisis in the first place. This time they were extending a lifeline to Main Street, and to the states, regions, and cities bearing the brunt of the current crisis -- who are, in fact, first responders on the front lines of both the pandemic and economic devastation it has wrought.  The CARES Act was ultimately a smokescreen, making it appear as if Congress and the White House wanted to take serious action, while its performance was same old, same old. Mnuchin said the facilities established under CARES Act “achieved their objectives,” which apparently meant propping up Wall Street and enriching the elite.  As Bob wrote in his recent Forbes column, the Fed never needed the CARES Act in the first place. It can provide funds to strapped entities under provisions that already exist under the Federal Reserve Act. Meanwhile, he sees the creation of the Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF) and Main Street Lending Program (MSLP) as net positives  because they call attention to the possibilities for “spreading the Fed.”   This episode is packed with information on the workings of the regional Federal Reserve banks and their underutilized potential for meaningful aid to cities, states and territories (like Puerto Rico) and life-saving loans to small businesses. Whether the Fed will accept this role is a whole ‘nother question. It may never depart from its ostensible mission of shoring up the financial industry. Much may depend on the incoming administration. Which brings us to…  The final part of the interview is Bob’s assessment of Janet Yellen, Biden’s pick for Treasury, as well as speculation on the rest of the team of economic advisors, including potential roles for Stephanie Kelton, a long-time favorite of this podcast. He ends on a note of his irrepressible optimism. We wish we could agree. We hope he’s right. But we doubt it.  Robert Hockett is the Edward Cornell Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, Visiting Professor of Finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and Senior Counsel at Westwood Capital, LLC. He specializes in the law, economics, and philosophy of money, finance, and enterprise organization in their theoretical and practical, their positive and normative, and their local, national, and transnational dimensions. @rch371 on Twitter Check out Bob’s TWO new books!Financing the Green New Deal: A Plan of Action and Renewal https://bookshop.org/books/financing-the-green-new-deal-a-plan-of-action-and-renewal/9783030484491 Money From Nothing: Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying About Debt and Learn to Love the Federal Reservehttps://bookshop.org/books/money-from-nothing-or-why-we-should-stop-worrying-about-debt-and-learn-to-love-the-federal-reserve/9781612198569  His latest column from Forbes:https://www.forbes.com/sites/rhockett/2020/11/20/treasurys-gift-to-the-fed--and-to-our-states-cities-and-small-businesses/?sh=571e252564c8

Not all of our listeners are anti-capitalist but it’s safe to say that most of us object to the accumulation of massive wealth solely by virtue of inactive, unproductive ownership. Sitting on idle property is a particularly egregious way of accruing riches, often to the detriment of surrounding communities that are forced to tolerate eyesores in their midst for decades on end. Depreciation has been a windfall for the ruling elite.  Our guests, Joshua Vincent and Rich Nymoen, are proponents of the land value tax, or LVT, associated with 19th-century political economist and journalist Henry George. The term "Georgist philosophy" refers to the economic analysis and social philosophy he advanced.  Neither Josh nor Rich promote the confiscation of property. Value is derived by different means:  ...it's the rental value, not the actual land itself that belongs to the community. And most of that wealth is publicly created, is community-created. If you look at a city, almost all of its value - some comes through the location - but most of the value comes from the investments that have been made into that city: infrastructure, sewers, schools, fire protection, that kind of thing. And so I think it's our view that none of that wealth should be short-stopped by private operators, private players, rent-seekers.  In this country, property taxes fall equally on land and buildings. When landowners improve or develop their holdings, their taxes go up, serving as a disincentive to improvement. Josh and Rich explain how communities can use the land value tax to encourage productive use of property and collect revenue benefitting the locality. The LVT applies pressure to develop vacant or unused sites by dramatically increasing the taxes on these properties, while improved lots will see significant reductions.  Josh and Rich describe some remarkable successes, particularly in Pennsylvania, as well as the challenges they face when first attempting to introduce these concepts to recalcitrant officials. They find that they need to use both the carrot and the stick.  The LVT has supporters as diverse as Joseph Stiglitz, Milton Friedman, and our recent guest, Michael Hudson. The financial industry’s connection to land is of critical importance. Most bank lending is tied to real estate. Since people borrow from a bank in order to purchase land, they’re essentially paying the land rent to the bank.  So that's really how the 1% is being created: by all these land rentals and natural resource rentals being paid to the finance industry. Whereas if you were paying it to the community, it would be shared more equally than being funneled to the top. You may be aware that the board game, Monopoly was originally intended to teach these principles?  This interview contains a good balance of the micro- and macroeconomics of Georgism, some strategies for applying them, and the community benefits that ensue.  Josh Vincent is Executive Director of the Center for the Studies of Economics, a 501(c)3 organization dating back to 1926.  One of the group’s endeavors is the Center for Property Tax Reforms. urbantoolsconsult.org centerforpropertytaxreform.org @JoshuaRVincent @urbantools Rich Nymoen is the President of Common Ground USA, a 501(c)4 affirming that “all persons have equal and common rights in the earth and its resources.” He is on the board of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.  commonground-usa.net  schalkenbach.org  @rnymoen2  @Schalkenbach

At Real Progressives, we get daily messages from people who are still recovering from Bernie’s trouncing in the primaries. They remain distraught, disillusioned, and discouraged - convinced that he was robbed.  Last week Rohan Grey explained Rashida Tlaib and AOC’s Public Banking Act. This week we asked him to take off his MMT hat and talk to our wounded volunteers. To help them put the recent political past in perspective and move forward, they first must accept a sobering dose of reality. Rohan wasn’t surprised by Sanders’ loss.   ...I think at least for me, as someone who tries to be a committed leftist revolutionary, whatever, the odds are always extremely small. The odds are extremely small right up until the point that you win. And they continue to be very small the next day for the next thing you try to win. And I don't think that the history of progress is the history of always inevitably having a good shot. It's the history of very, very difficult things, somehow managing to eke through as much as it is.   The idea of continuity expressed above is repeated throughout the episode. He constantly suggests we ask ourselves what we’re going to do next. The social media battles for and against voting for Biden didn’t alter the need to fight for a Green New Deal and a job guarantee.  For those who may still be reeling, Rohan reminds us: political action neither begins nor ends at the ballot box. Electoral politics can play a role in a left agenda, but the size and scope of its importance will vary, and shouldn’t be exaggerated. We could use a more nuanced appreciation of it as a cultural and political institution among many, just as there are many legitimate roles and actions for any of us to undertake.   And most importantly, hopefully, you can develop a nose where you can say, OK, this opportunity is coming down the line, and it's one that has the potential to do something. Today we're out in the streets, tomorrow we're talking about a political candidate, the next day we're in the labor unions, the next day we're on social media, the next day we're writing a fiction novel that's going to spark a new social imagination. All of those are legitimate and valid. The only question is in what context and to what extent?   To be effective, we need to be informed. Ideas don’t arise in a vacuum; they’re shaped by material conditions, but they also have an impact on those material forces. Rohan’s advice echoes that of some other podcast guests, like Esha Krishnaswamy, who suggested we read theory, especially Lenin. Rohan, unsurprisingly, thinks those who care about economic issues should understand the history of political economy, how it’s handled in academia, and how those ideas get refracted back through popular culture and media. We should work towards understanding human and social psychology. Armed with these tools we’re more adept at assessing the value of political resources and the usefulness of various strategies and tactics.  The interview isn’t all advice and therapy, and it isn’t all Bernie. Steve asks about presidential politics because, well, we can’t help but be interested. Rohan calls it parlor gossip. After all, these are the celebrities of our time. He has an interesting take on the outcome of the election and suggests that a Biden presidency might be better for the left than the Obama years were or a Hillary Clinton victory would have been in 2016. His explanation might surprise you.  Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University, the president of the Modern Money Network, and a director of the National Jobs for All Network, whose research focuses on the law of money in the internet society.  rohangrey.net  modernmoneynetwork.org  @rohangrey on Twitter

On October 31st, Rohan Grey posted a 31-part Twitter thread about Rashida Tlaib’s and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s new Public Banking Act, which he helped craft. We immediately reached out and arranged for Steve to interview him, ending up with not one, but two episodes of Macro N Cheese. This week he answers our questions about the Public Banking Act. Next week he and Steve will venture into the swampland of politics. By the time the episode airs the election will truly - finally - be over. So, has anything changed? How does Rohan see the road going forward? But back to the Public Banking Act…   "It's long past time to open doors for people who have been systematically shut out and provide a better option for those grappling with the costs of simply trying to participate in an economy they have every right to—but has been rigged against them," Tlaib said in a statement. "The COVID-19 pandemic has also plunged city and state governments into a financial crisis unlike any other they've ever experienced—and public banks could offer a much more tenable option for dealing with their debts at a time when they need it most.” -- Newsweek   Instead of attempting to describe this interview, we’re going to let Rohan’s Twitter thread speak for itself:   First, some big picture comments about the bill  a) It does *not* create any new public banks. Rather, it *enables & encourages* the creation of public banks by establishing a comprehensive federal regulatory framework, grant programs, & supporting financial infrastructure.  b) It is designed to foster *state & local public banks*, not establish a federal public bank. In contrast to the federal govt, which issues the $US dollar, state & local govts face unique financial & monetary constraints that public banks can help alleviate.  c) It *complements, rather than competes with,* other progressive financial reforms, such as postal banking, FedAccounts, & eCash (on latter, see @RashidaTlaib’s #ABCAct). Together, they envision a new financial system that serves the people & promotes public purpose.  d) It does not make the mistake of treating public banks as an alternative to/substitute for federal spending & investment. Rather, it provides “top-down” support for “bottom-up” local initiatives, even while recognizing the critical need for more direct federal action.  e) Finally, it does not take a one-size-fits-all approach to the kinds of public banks eligible for federal support. Rather, it accommodates a wide variety of institutional structures and activities, from basic payments to consumer lending to public investment.  Okay, now let’s look at what the bill says...   The rest of the thread is published as an article on Real Progressives website. If you listen to Macro N Cheese on the website, don’t miss the EXTRAS section for each episode. This week it’s full of links leading to the complete text of the Public Banking Act, press releases, and articles. Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University, the president of the Modern Money Network, and a director of the National Jobs for All Network. His research focuses on the law of money in the internet society.  modernmoneynetwork.org/  @rohangrey on Twitter

Esha Krishnaswamy, host of the historic.ly podcast, joins Steve to talk about the frustrating political miasma of centrism. Centrism. So vapid and insubstantial, how does one grab ahold? It’s a wispy dandelion head (aptly named the capitulum) - one slight *poof* and it’s gone. But we’re not fooled. As soon as the left gets behind a popular policy or candidate, the center reveals itself to be a mighty, unstoppable force in the service of the ruling class. In today’s world, the US centrist home turf is the Democratic Party.  Esha’s jam is history and throughout the episode she calls on instances from the past, from John Locke’s justification of inherited land wealth to E. Belfort Bax on liberalism and socialism in 1890. Through the lens of historical materialism, events can be progressive or reactionary, depending on the conditions of their time. She likes reading Lenin because “he’s hilarious and insults everyone.” If he were around now he would be “the worst Twitter troll ever.”  She compares the DNC to Russia’s Constitutional Democrats and reads Lenin’s 1906 description, summed up nicely with:  They want to ransom themselves from the revolution. They long for a deal with the old authorities. They are afraid of independent revolutionary activity by the people. The more this party develops its public political activities, the more marked it becomes in its inconsistency and instability.  Steve and Esha talk about the failure of electoral politics. In the US we’ve seen Bernie-like suppression of progressive candidates like Eugene V Debs, Henry Wallace, and Jesse Jackson. Whatever our democratic achievements, they were not won at the ballot box, but through political organizing and strikes. Esha points out that class awareness existed in the US up until the 1970s or 80s, when somehow it vanished. In Venezuela and Bolivia, radical change occurred through elections, but only with the groundswell of massive popular movements.  Esha sums up her indictment of centrists: “Their entire grift is to convince you that if they had the power, they'd totally do it,” but their hands are tied because they have no power - “which is always a lie.”  Esha Krishnaswamy is the host of the historic.ly  podcast. She is a lawyer, writer, and media critic, whose focus is on history, foreign policy, and Modern Monetary Theory.  @eshaLegal and @historic_ly on Twitter  historicly.substack.com

This second part of Steve’s conversation with Warren Mosler was to be about the government response to the pandemic, but first Warren talks about disagreements with some in the MMT community. We here at Macro N Cheese believe in healthy debate and want to bring a range of viewpoints to our listeners.  The federal job guarantee is one area in which Warren disagrees with certain prominent MMTers. He sees the JG as a transitional program to be used during downturns in the business cycle with the goal of getting people hired by the private sector when the economy rebounds. A number of advocates see the job guarantee as a door to more spending on the public purpose. Warren’s position on public purpose jobs is simple: “if you need them, hire them.” We’re all in agreement that skilled workers shouldn’t be working minimum wage jobs, even at the more reasonable rate of a job guarantee minimum, but there’s a vast need for public services that won’t be met by private firms. Mosler says that some MMT proponents feel his position is politically naive; he goes so far as to suggest there’s an ideological war going on. We agree. Real Progressives is fiercely committed to radical systemic change extending beyond the seeming neutrality of MMT.  Whether it’s naive or not, Warren wants to rely on the democratic process and an informed electorate. Steve brings up the reality of fraud within the system and the overwhelming imbalance of power, to which Warren expresses optimism about electing better candidates and brings up his “60-40 plan” to take the money out of politics. This would dilute the power of the 1% but, of course, it would have to be passed into law… by those in power.  Warren is consistent in taking a straightforward approach to federal spending, and expresses skepticism about proposals to “mint the coin” or take advantage of swap lines through the Fed.  ...well yeah, that's fiscal spending and that's the realm of Congress. You know, if Congress wants to support full employment in Mexico or Bangladesh or Canada or New York, you know, they can do it. They don't need the Fed to come up with subterfuge of using swap lines for financial assets to get redirected into goods or services.  When the interview gets to COVID, Warren talks about the uniqueness of both the supply shock and demand shock we’re experiencing. They primarily involve non-essentials. Combine this understanding with the fact that the pandemic has resulted in a massive cut in our energy consumption, and there are lessons to be learned that should lead to significant changes in the way we live and do business.  Warren Mosler is an American economist and theorist, and one of the leading voices in the field of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Presently, Warren resides on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, where he owns and operates Valance Co., Inc. He is the author of “The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” and “Soft Currency Economics,” which are available on his website.  moslereconomics.com/  @wbmosler on Twitter

Talking to Warren Mosler reminds us just how far MMT has come since the days he traveled from conference to conference, peddling his intellectual wares. Well, they no longer laugh at Mosler Economics, AKA Modern Monetary Theory. It’s a well-known part of MMT history that Stephanie Kelton, fresh out of grad school, set out to disprove his assertions, point by point, and ended up making MMT her life’s work. Today, in Warren’s view, she’s arguably the most influential economist in the world, because all of the powerful economic advisors have read The Deficit Myth. Of course, he gives credit to Randy Wray, Bill Mitchell, Mat Forstater, and those who came after, but, he says, her book saved the world.  That we get this deficit spending is just great, you know, that we've had recently. You could say MMT has saved the world. Whether it knows it or not. There's no way they would have done three trillion and now talking another two trillion. And there hasn't been a single mention of a tax.  In this first episode of a two-part interview, Steve decided it’s a good time to revisit the money story. This podcast always has new listeners and, for those also new to MMT, who better to go to than Warren Mosler for the money story? If you haven’t heard how he flummoxed a tour guide in Pompeii, you’re in for a treat. To further illustrate the order of operations, he includes the tale of British colonists in Africa, imposing a hut tax in order to create - or coerce - a labor force for their coffee plantations.  Talking to Warren brings to light some of the differences among MMT proponents. They seem to be pretty much in agreement on the facts or core principles, although you might say proposals for the federal job guarantee are a significant departure from his “employer of last resort”. For the most part, however, Warren only expresses frustration with choices of emphasis, especially when it comes to the Fed’s inadequate analysis of some basics, like the rate of inflation.  What is the rate of inflation? Well, how is it defined academically? Academically, inflation is the continuous change in the price level that's happening right now. It's faced by people in the real economy. What's the continuous change in the price level they're facing right now? That they're dealing with? That's affecting their business, their purchases, their sales.  What the Fed doesn’t grasp is when they set interest rates, they are setting the inflation rate for the economy.  Throughout the interview, Warren details some of the most significant contributions of MMT, including a tax liability’s function, the national debt, and the cause of unemployment. He explains that the Fed’s use of “easing” (lowering rates) and “tightening” (raising rates) are exactly backwards. Even those who don’t understand the Federal Reserve’s operations should be able to see that when they raise interest rates, it’s mainly a boost of interest to the wealthy. Warren calls it a “basic income” for people who already have money.  Warren Mosler is an American economist and theorist, and one of the leading voices in the field of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Presently, Warren resides on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, where he owns and operates Valance Co., Inc. He is the author of “The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” and “Soft Currency Economics,” which are available on his website.  moslereconomics.com/  @wbmosler on Twitter

Bill Mitchell joins us this week to discuss a plethora of American misconceptions… perceived exceptionalism, obvious neoliberalism, and a dysfunctional electoral system, as we approach the culmination of perhaps the most absurd and disheartening presidential election in history. The interview covers the consequences of neoliberalism in Europe, the UK, Australia, and the US, both in the rightward march of political parties and the ticking clock of catastrophic climate change. They discuss the attraction to the Universal Basic Income by some on the left who can’t see its underlying agenda and the perils of turning us all into consumption units. Bill Mitchell is the guest we need to hear from as the ugly campaign season winds down. Our Australian friend’s vantage point, as well as his astute grasp of political economy, combine with his level-headedness to bring a message of understated optimism. When Steve gives in to a rare bout of despair about the future, Bill talks about the early days of the MMT movement, when Warren Mosler and the others would count the number of MMTers on their fingers. MMT is becoming mainstream. Everybody's hearing about it in the Australian press as regular articles now. I write op-eds in the Murdoch press about MMT. Critics or supporters are getting articles published regularly. Central bankers are talking about it. They're giving evidence before government committees about it. The financial markets are increasingly getting me to run workshops to teach them MMT - all around the world, not just in Australia - because they want to know about it, and they also now have finally worked out that an adherence to mainstream economics has cost them money. So I wouldn't be as despairing about the spread of the ideas just yet. Bill sees a cautionary tale in the subversion of Keynes’s ideas during the Great Depression. The mainstream economists hijacked his substantial insights into what’s called the neoclassical synthesis, which essentially watered his ideas down to only be applied in a special case. He sees today’s orthodoxy normalizing MMT within their own skillset when, in fact, the work of MMT economists has demonstrated the catastrophic failure of mainstream macroeconomics. He refers to the German physicist Max Planck, who said “Science advances one funeral at a time.” Bill adds that paradigms shift the same way. As for navigating through these final weeks of the US presidential election, Bill suggests we focus on and accelerate the education process and the organization of grassroots resistance. He says our challenge is to start rebuilding the sense of collective responsibility to society. ...And hope to hell that we've got some climate space that we can do that education, and that organization, and we can save the planet. But I'd focus on the positive and wouldn't get tied up too much in the dilemma you're facing with Biden and Trump. I mean, it's a no-win, isn't it? So try to move beyond that sort of angst, not tear yourselves apart about that, but move beyond it. And basically, I'm an optimist. I just, every day, get up and pursue the education agenda in hopes that little bit each day moves us in a positive way. It’s clear that with either electoral outcome we're not going to get a fantastic response to the climate emergency, new public infrastructure investments, and we’re certainly not going to fix our dysfunctional healthcare system, so if we're not going to get anything we want from either of these two, it’s time to move on. 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 also is a Visiting Professor at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and is on the management board of CofFEE-Europe, a sister centre located at that university. @billy_blog on Twitter http://www.billmitchell.org/ “Macroeconomics” ordering information on bilbo.economicoutlook.net/