You guys heaping scorn on AOC are missing the point.
The point isn’t that her proposal is realistic. Nobody cares about realistic - not at this point.
The point is that the GND resonates with the electorate. The Dems running for President have all done focus groups. AOC’s GND resonates. That’s the point.
At the most reductive level, the younger generation likes green, and they sure want a New Deal. The existing deal sucks so badly - a New Deal just has to be better.
Over in Europe, Salvini figured out that Italian people didn’t like the tidal wave of migrants landing like the Allied divisions at Normandy. The EU tried to keep going with the usual crap that had always worked before - the identity politics: “you’re a racist” if you didn’t like hundreds of thousands of migrants from some other culture taking all the lower-end jobs. Unfortunately for the EU, Salvini’s message resonated with the Italian people.
And now Salvini runs Italy. Salvini had the last laugh.
So. Since we know the GND resonates, what do we do with this information?
We can ridicule it - like the EU ridiculed Salvini. Or…maybe we can do better than a bunch of out-of-touch EU bureaucrats.
Chris and PP ask:
Where do we want to be when fossil fuels run out and how do we want to get there?The prevailing view among the Australian elites is that we will never run out of fossil fuels! Never! We have gigatonnes of coal just waiting to be dug up and used to save civilisation, this civilisation! The politicians are adamant! and admantine! and recalcitrant! Especially so are their advising economists and financiers! BAU! BAU! BAU! The public increasingly think otherwise. Have you seen Charles Hugh Smith's latest blog posting: What If Politics Can't Fix What's Broken? I think he's got a great point there. I do wonder at the noble but doomed aspirations and efforts of people like AOC and Bernie Sanders. IMO the system cannot be fixed; it can only fall over under the weight of its own self-contradictions. But then, won't the discussions we have about how to build a new and better system also amount to politics? Nice dilemma.
No wonder we also have a mental health crisis among youth.
Wait a minute, isn’t the American spirit we pride ourselves on is the “can do” attitude? Land of possibility?
I’m dismayed. Chris Mortensen, money does not need to be backed by energy (fossil fuels). Human energy and ingenuity, are also worth trading for.
Let’s get creative, and stop being"right" about how hard it will be.
https://medium.com/@calpba/sen-feinstein-this-is-how-to-pay-for-the-gree…
“It is always incumbent on the communicator to find the way to reach their audience.”
Here is a different perspective. For many years I tried to communicate with a sibling who was an alcoholic until a very wise person told me to stop trying and go to Alanon. Lesson learned the only person I, we, any of us, can change is ourself. Then a number of years later I tried to communicate with a person who was a narcissist. An extremely smart person who was sure they were right and the world pretty much revolved around them, empathy and compassion were a completely foreign concept. Communication became gaslighting, projection, and all manner of crazy making. For more information on Narcissism I refer you to Dr. Ramani Durvasula. She said that dealing with Narcissists is very much like dealing with Sociopaths or Psychopaths. It’s not the responsibility of the communicator to try harder rather it’s smart to know one can’t change disfunctional people. And I personally think the majority of people are, well let’s say have challenges. With the exception of you, me and all the intelligent readers and members of PP of course.
I think Gus Speth hit the bullseye with his quote. Without a spiritual transformation nothing will change.
AKGrannyWGrit
Doug-
When I read this it sounded like an echo from 2016. Of course, your tone is a bit patronizing, assuming the unwashed younger generation is desperate and profoundly ignorant of the realities of the world. To me that sounds exactly like those who voted for Trump in 2016. Some have said they were looking for disruption, someone who would upset the apple cart without any idea what that disruption would look like. Of course, now we know. Disruption looks like a train wreck with the conductor being the most pathetically ignorant, corrupt, misogynistic, autocrat wannabe imaginable. IOW, his voters got what they wanted, and if the completely bought and paid for Republicans are any indication, he could well be reelected.I did mention I was being "reductive" which should have provided sufficient notice that I was consciously oversimplifying. At least I didn't pull a Hillary by calling them "the Green Deplorables" or something stupid like that. (Ah Hillary, the gift just that just keeps on giving). I do stand by what I said. In general, they're green, and the current deal really does suck. Heck, I'm green in so many ways myself. Part of it comes from peak oil awareness, and another from the selfish perspective of maintaining my own health. And I too think the current deal sucks. I could probably fit neatly into my own reductive description. You saw it as patronizing, I saw it as simplifying, and applying to myself. I think Trump's voters definitely got what they wanted: someone who will try to keep the flood of low-wage worker competition from entering the country (just like the old-style pro-union Democrats), who will try to bring manufacturing jobs back (like the old-style pro-union Democrats), and who will pull us out of some of those expensive foreign wars (well that's a new one), and who will actually talk with North Korea in spite of his advisors telling him its impossible. I mean, all those things seem pretty reasonable to me. I know you view the world through the lens of politically correct labeling and name-calling, which sums to argumentum ad hominem. Your attitude and approach is much of what has driven me away from the Democrat party. I still haven't changed my voter registration, but I'm so totally over the incessant name-calling and politically-correct filter over everything. I'm really not sure what party I am anymore. I'm just guessing I'm not the only one in this position. Trump has lots of other things that aren't so good - doing nothing about getting us off fossil fuels is my biggest problem with him. And here we have AOC coming in from left field who will, hopefully, help to move the needle in some positive way. But if we don't get money out of politics, her only contribution will - most likely - be to provide cover for the existing crop of corrupt weasels - in BOTH PARTIES - to adopt MMT and use it to give their donors a big, inflationary payday.
Well, not really. They’re just an indicator of topic importance.
I’m guessing this is Troll 1.0. Note the missing articles, the mis-spelling of Chris’s name, other errors, the effort to “sound American.” When was the last time you heard an actual American talk about the American Spirit? Like, never?
No wonder we also have a mental health crisis among youth. Wait a minute, isn't the American spirit we pride ourselves on is the "can do" attitude? Land of possibility? I'm dismayed. Chris Mortensen, money does not need to be backed by energy (fossil fuels). Human energy and ingenuity, are also worth trading for. Let's get creative, and stop being"right" about how hard it will be.My guess: a non-native speaker employed by "someone" to pump the GND. Russian, perhaps? Chinese? "Maybe America will blow itself up by going off on this wild goose chase...let's encourage them to do it..." I actually don't mind Troll 1.0. It's Troll 2.0 that gives me some concern. And its coming.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ai-text-generator-fake-news-articles-misuse-dangerous-open-source-a8780686.html OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligence research group, said their GPT-2 software is so good they are worried it could be misused. The software generates coherent text, and can be prompted to write on certain subjects or in a certain style by feeding it paragraphs of source material. The algorithm was trained on eight million web pages and the results are far better than any previous attempt at computer text-generation, where odd syntax changes and rambling nonsense have been difficult to iron out. The success of the software has seen it dubbed “deepfakes for text”, and among the core concerns are that it could be used to generate unstoppable quantities of fabricated news or impersonate people online.
The content of your character speaks for itself.Econ teacher,feminist,environmental activist,shaping young minds,walking the talk.A life well lived.Respect…
Hey Chris
Have you tried to get one of the advocates of MMT to do one of your interviews/podcasts?
I’m very curious about the idea and would like to see it tested in such a discussion. I think the main criticism you have raised in a couple of places - that MMT doesn’t think about resources and real wealth - is misplaced. The material I have seen recognises these things and doesn’t confuse them with money.
Cheers
Matt
Matt-
It would be just awesome for you to include links to “the material you have seen” in your post, so we can all take a look at it. We like to read things for ourselves. Do you have any evidence to provide for us?
Hi Dave
i don’t have lots of references to hand. I have googled for materials and and read and watched videos by Warren Mosler, Bill Mitchell and L Randall Wray.
The concept of resources comes up most often when addressing the challenge that is often made around inflation. Resources are not dealt with in the same way as at Peak Prosperity, but then again, that’s almost universal.
Here’ a quote from Bill Mitchell:
“spending on capital works could easily be realised without a cent of debt being issued. Not a cent is required to allow a sovereign government to spend whatever it likes subject to goods and services being available for sale”
from http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=5762
cheers
Matt
Thanks for the link. It was very helpful. Here are the 3 key principles I extracted from your source:
1. The government shall maintain a reasonable level of demand at all times. If there is too little spending and, thus, excessive unemployment, the government shall reduce taxes or increase its own spending. If there is too much spending, the government shall prevent inflation by reducing its own expenditures or by increasing taxes. 2. By borrowing money when it wishes to raise the rate of interest, and by lending money or repaying debt when it wishes to lower the rate of interest, the government shall maintain that rate of interest that induces the optimum amount of investment. 3. If either of the first two rules conflicts with the principles of ‘sound finance’, balancing the budget, or limiting the national debt, so much the worse for these principles. The government press shall print any money that may be needed to carry out rules 1 and 2.Here are my observations: 1) Like most economic theorists, Lerner doesn't appear to acknowledge corruption as a dominant force in human affairs. (I believe corruption derives entirely from human evolutionary biology - being corrupt provides a reproductive advantage - so it will always be a constant in society). He assumes that government will make decisions aligned with the public interest. This flies in the face of millenia of experience to the contrary. More power to government = more corruption. [Note: the same thing happens with "big business" in control] 2) He also assumes that 12 people in a room can sort out what the "optimal" settings for the economy are. This, too, has been shown to be problematic in the real world. They just don't have enough information, nor are they wise enough. 3) Innovation happens at the fringes, not at the center. Smaller companies drive productivity - large companies (and government) do not. Centralizing decision making as to where investment should go will have the effect of increasing economic stagnation. Even if we assume low corruption and good will in government (a first in human affairs), they will simply produce the same-old same-old every time, because that's what large bureaucracies do - both corporate, and governmental. 4) MMT attempts to eliminate the business cycle. That's what "maintaining a reasonable level of demand at all times" means. What happens when you eliminate the business cycle? Bad ideas never go away. Bad companies never die. Bad investment decisions are never punished. It is recessions that clear away all the dead wood. Day and night, life and death, boom and bust, summer and winter - cycles are a natural phenomenon. There's a reason nature evolved cycles; cycles provide a force for evolution, improvement. Can you imagine if people never died? "Science advances one funeral at a time." Eliminating the business cycle is just a bad idea, tantamount to saying "we should only have daytime", "we should only have summer", "we should never have forest fires", "everyone should live forever", etc. 5) Handing government absolute power (and that's what MMT is - absolute power to decide how many resources the government has vs all the other actors) will result in them using this power to maintain their own status and position. Again, that's straight out of human evolutionary biology. Being at the top of the heap is a reproductive advantage, and seizing such an advantage, retaining it, and increasing it, is just built into our biology. Assuming this won't happen flies in the face of both history and common sense. Those are the issues I see with MMT. It will work, in the same way that Communism worked, but the unintended consequences are probably unfortunate.
I am so glad Peak Prosperity has you on retainer.
Your points seem quite valid concerns.
For point #2, twelve people, I’m going to posit that the solution is probably an NP hard problem even with limited inputs, and in fact the number of inputs is actually close to unlimited. As such, the solution method that is usually found is a relaxation algorithm: each person finds their own solution.
Relaxation algorithms are useful in finding heat transfer solutions: you evaluate a random node in terms of its neighbors and adjust it some percentage (maybe ten to twenty percent) towards its optimum correct answer.
Then you pick another random node and repeat.
In terms of human behaviors, that is how we often behave: we maintain the status quo until we can’t – and sometimes even past that, then we under-adjust.
So this is how I see an uncontrolled economy approaches IT’S best attempt at a perfect answer… which answer isn’t going to be perfect, but will be pretty good.
Good take down of MMT. I’m not sophisticated enough to fully evaluate, but your analysis seems more consistent with economics as I understand it than the notion that debt doesn’t matter. Without the discipline required to address debt, we lose control of the mechanisms of the economy. Of course, we aren’t doing such a hot job of controlling them lately.
Re: our earlier exchange:
Behind the paywall on this subject, travissidelinger wrote:
A simple energy solution would be to add a 10 cent tax on every barrel of oil every month from now to infinity. Thus, in 1 year a barrel of oil would be 1.20$ more. In 10 years is would be 12$ more. The tax would be gradual, but the writing would be on the wall. We'd need to do something simliar for natural gas and coal. The revenue collected should be used to subsidize rail and public transpuration projects.You do realize this is exactly what caused the tipping point in France that ignited the common folk to revolt in the Yellow Vests movement, right? The latest incremental increase in the French fuel tax (imposed in order to save the world from climate change) was the seemingly small straw that broke the French camel’s back. You and many here have suggested incrementally increasing taxes on carbon, energy and other things as a way to gradually bend the behavior of individuals, corporations and therefore the whole economy to discourage certain behaviors and resource consumption while simultaneously using the revenue raised to to build out our “green” new future. Others like AOC have been in favor of much more drastic and immediate action, comparing the forced changes they require as similar to a national mobilization like was done for WWII.
Apparently, she has a puppetmaster. This will help put things into perspective, but still not solve our predicament.
SS