Deficit Owls Newsletter - Modern Money Theory Makes the Big Time

Introduction

Welcome to the October 2018 edition of the Deficit Owls Monthly Newsletter. Our hope is to keep you updated on the latest happenings in the world of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT): the best articles, videos, podcasts, events, and more over the past month.

MMT presents a coherent alternative to orthodox macroeconomics, the latter of which has proved to be a disastrous failure ultimately bringing us to this era of slow growth, stagnant wages, and virulent political anger. The proponents of Modern Money hope to upend the status quo with a new theory that can explain how we can create shared prosperity. If you are new to MMT, here's a quick explainer.

It's been a while since we've spoken and a lot has happened, so let's get into it!

BUT BEFORE WE GET INTO IT, we're putting out a call for volunteers. Deficit Owls is looking for 2-3 helpers to aid us in creating this newsletter every month. The ideal candidate is somebody who likes to stay current on MMT blogs and media, and is a decent writer. Let us know if you'd like to help out by replying to this email!

Modern Money Blog Highlights

As you probably know, the 2nd International Modern Monetary Theory conference took place in late September, with many MMT leading lights speaking. Over at the New Economic Perspectives blog, the text of Professor Randy Wray's remarks are posted, where he discuses how he came to MMT, and how he defines it. A must-read. Over at the Billy Blog, some highlights include Professor Mitchell's reactions to the MMT Conference (and their follow-up), and a summary of his meeting with John McDonnell, a prominent UK Labour Party official. There's also a new MMT-related blog from the UK, created by Alan Hutchison, called Matches in the Dark.

Modern Money in the Media

The big news was undoubtedly the MMT Conference, and there's been a lot of coverage. See reports from The Intercept, Bloomberg, Positive Money, as well as this piece in Sojourners connecting money to a religious perspective.

The second biggest story of the month was probably when NPR devoted an entire episode of Planet Money to Modern Monetary Theory. Also in public radio, the program Marketplace had a brief quote from Stephanie Kelton.

In addition to the above, MMT got quite a lot of attention in Bloomberg in the past month, publishing a short overview of MMT, a debate on deficits between Stephanie Kelton and Noah Smith, a commentary on changing attitudes towards deficits in Washington, a piece on Warren Mosler, and the first in a series by Stephanie Kelton. We were also mentioned in this piece on bond yields, though the author got a few things wrong. In a unrelated but alliterative media outlet, Barron's also interviewed Kelton.

A new think-tank oriented around Modern Money has just launched in the UK, known as the Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies. If you haven't yet, check out their website.

The latest issue of Rethinking Finance features an essay by Rohan Grey entitled "What Is Money?" (starting on pg 18). This is an extremely clear analysis of the MMT worldview, a great read. And in the world of celebrity endorsements, science-fiction author and blogger Cory Doctorow has come out in favor of MMT. MMT's ideas about "taxpayer money" are also featured heavily in this long piece on healthcare and left politics, from a long-running blog The Polemicist. And in local news, longtime MMT-er Geoff Coventry (creator of the Modern Money Basics video and website) got published in the Kansas City Star decrying endorsements of the "Pay-Go" rule in the US. (P.S., you should write to your local news outlet too! If you get published, let us know and we'll include it in this newsletter.) Videos If you're looking for an in-depth,16-hour MMT intensive, check out this series of videos of Professor Randall Wray from the Instituto de Economia da Unicamp. Think of it as MMT bootcamp... If your attention span isn't that long, a few conference attendees put together a little sketch illustrating MMT by analogy. Professor Kelton continues to make the media rounds, and this month she spent a lot of time with Jimmy Dore. See her on the Jimmy Dore Show... and the Jimmy Dore Show... and also on The Young Turks, talking to...Jimmy Dore.... I really hope he picked up on some of this...

On a more formal note, Professor Kelton also spoke as part of the Presidential Lecture Series at Stony Brook University.

Here's a quick interview with Pavlina Tcherneva, who talks about the Job Guarantee-like program in Argentina, courtesy Geoff Ginter of Real Progressives at the MMT Conference. Speaking of the Conference, we're told that the video editors are working furiously to get the streams out in polished form, but while we wait for the official content, you can find some unofficial coverage, much from Real Progressives, by searching on YouTube.

Podcasts The MMT Podcast from Reknr has out interviews with Steven Hail and Richard Murphy. The Money on the Left podcast put out an interview with Professor Colleen Hooper, who is researching public funding of the arts and dance. Outside of the usual MMT outlets, Stephanie Kelton was interviewed on Le Show with Harry Shearer.

The Latest from Deficit Owls In our newest video, Stephanie Kelton, appearing on the Jimmy Dore Show, breaks down what Alan Greenspan considered to be the real issue with Social Security: not that it could run out of money, but that our economy might not be able to generate the goods that people would use their money to buy. (At least, that's what Greenspan said when he was under oath!)

Stephanie Kelton explaining the conversation we should be having about Social Security.

Modern Money Meme Week Winners The voting is officially concluded for the official Modern Money Meme Week competition! Many thanks to all who participated, but we're proud to announce that the winners are William Beyer, Darin Brown, Mark Fabian, and Tim Youmans!

They will be receiving free MMT T-shirts. Meme Week was a huge success this year, and we hope it will be even bigger and better next year! And for even more monetary memes, join the Modern Money Theory Dank Meme Stash, and follow Modern Money Memes on Facebook and Twitter.

Upcoming Events

The 1st International European Modern Monetary Theory Conference has been announced, and will take place February 1-2 in Berlin. (The call for papers will be open until November 30th.) A few weeks later, Kelton and Professor Mark Blyth of Brown University will be participating in an anti-austerity roundtable at the New School on February 19th at 4:00 PM.