Macro N Cheese

Marianne Garneau is a labor educator and organizer with the historic IWW, Industrial Workers of the World. She’s the publisher of the website <a href="https://organizing.work/">Organizing.Work</a>.According to Marianne, real-life examples of workers taking successful action anywhere, inspires, empowers and emboldens workers everywhere. The crucial tactic our labor movement currently lacks is the ability to exercise the muscle of collective action, acting in an organized, harmonious fashion, building coordinated disruption that defies authority, while spreading trust, preparedness and the very habit of defiance.Labor has undergone enormous changes from the days of worker-powered assembly lines and shop floors, when workers could engage in day-to-day refusals. One tactic was “whistle bargaining.” The shop steward would blow a whistle, bringing production to a halt. The workers formed a circle around the foreman and voiced their grievances. Another blow of the whistle could send everyone back to work.Steve recounts the “work to rule” he engaged in as a member of CWA. By fastidiously following every regulation, every safety procedure, the workforce was able to slow things down to a crawl.Today labor has been reorganized and decentralized, so strategy must adapt to modern conditions. It all comes down to workers understanding the workflow and the ways the employer depends on them.The need for workers to communicate is as essential as ever. The means of communication are corporate-owned and can be heavily monitored and censored, again requiring creative adaptation. Marianne describes a tactic used by workers for a food delivery service in Canada. They couldn’t contact each other through the app, so they organized the old-fashioned way, person-to-person, identifying each other by company logo and approaching the vehicles.Marianne and Steve talk about the history of organized labor and the significance of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935....a lot of people in the left and in the labor movement still look back on that as a triumph for labor, which in some ways it was. But it was also meant to really regulate and tame the labor movement.For a movement to build capacity, it must come from the bottom up. To survive, it needs to grow roots, so it is never dependent on individual leaders. Real power comes from mass collective action. Marianne Garneau is an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World, a labor educator, and the publisher of Organizing Work (<a href="https://organizing.work/">organizing.work</a>) <a href="https://twitter.com/OrganizingWork">@OrganizingWork</a> on Twitter 

When Bill Black introduced us to Patrick Lovell and Eric Vaughan, they were just wrapping up production of their documentary series, The Con, about the 2008 great financial crisis. More than a year has passed and we’ve become partners on a podcast and video series, The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files. Both series have a second season; TNU’s is five episodes in, and season 2 of The Con is not yet scheduled for release. Stay tuned.The episode opens with Steve telling Patrick and Eric about the responses to both series. Everyone was affected by the GFC, but many are still struggling to understand it. Eric jumps in to warn we must stop thinking of it as a past event. Just look out your window. We can expect an epidemic of homelessness with the coming spate of evictions and foreclosures.Patrick and Eric originally came at The Con from opposite directions as each sought to unravel the process. Patrick had been looking for the culprits at the top of the food chain – the CEOs and their ilk. Eric was interested in the victims, who, as we have learned, meet very specific criteria and are just as necessary to the process as the corrupt executives and absentee regulators.Recent news reports are full of stories about upcoming evictions as the COVID-era moratoriums are coming to an end. Congress has provided $47 billion in rental relief assistance, of which only about $3 billion has reached the people who need it. Patrick compares this to the ‘08 mortgage crisis when, after the trillions spent to prop up the banks, $50 billion was provided by the federal government to prevent foreclosures, to allow homeowners to modify their loans, to prevent foreclosures. Similar to rental relief, most of the money never reached those who needed it, due to a tricky process involving insurance and middlemen. The end result is the same, a corporate entity comes in and vacuums up all the foreclosed properties on the cheap.Regulators are cops. Fraud and predation are crimes -- some on the books, some not. When it’s legal, it’s a result of the revolving door between the financial industry and politics. Changing the laws to ease up on corruption is itself corruption.This episode lays out the fraud recipe step by step, from the top of the chain to the bottom, as fees generate fees. It’s not a narrow path. To make it work, they need assessors and underwriters who are willing to sell their souls. Patrick and Eric explain the whys and hows of liars’ loans and documentation fraud, among other practices.When you see how strategic and cunning the predators had to be to entrap entire poor and minority communities, you must question why anyone would call the victims irresponsible. Yet we continue to hear it. Eric talks about our culture of victim-blaming, which allows us to point the finger at Addie Polk instead of Angelo Mozilo. What regulation we have is aimed in the wrong direction.And so, we have regulators whose only criminal referrals are coming from the banks against private citizens. And we're not getting criminal referrals from those same regulators because they're looking at the banks, I would term that systemic victim-blaming.As cynical as many of us have become, whenever we hear stories about the extent of the elite control fraud and predation it still makes the blood boil. THE CON will be available September 21st on Amazon, Apple TV, and XBoxPatrick S. Lovell is a 30-year veteran of media production. He is co-creator of Real Progressives’ series, “The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files.” Patrick is producer and protagonist of the documentary limited series: THE CON.Eric S. Vaughan is an award-winning commercial director/producer with extensive experience in leading-edge media production from narrative films to VR/immersive experiences. THE CON is his long-form documentary series directorial debut. Eric is co-creator of Real Progressives’ series, “The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files.”@PatrickLovell1@TheConSeries@UntouchablesNew

Esha’s last visit to Macro N Cheese inspired Steve to read Lenin’s What Is to Be Done and John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World, igniting a new interest in political theory and revolutions. This, in turn, lit a fire under others on the Real Progressives’ team. In the past half year, we’ve been learning about the Russian, French and Haitian Revolutions. (If you haven’t yet heard last week’s episode on Haiti with Pascal Robert, what are you waiting for?)Esha’s Historic.ly podcast aims to decolonize history and debunk myths and misinformation taught in school and on corporate media. She has now added “Late Nights with Lenin” and “Soviet Summers” to her programming line-up.This week Esha is back to lead us through 1917. The Russian Revolution often focuses on individual players: Tsar Nicholai, Kerensky, Lenin. In fact, Russia’s fate was inextricably entwined with and affected by massive geopolitical shifts as the 19th century division of the world amongst the imperial powers of France and Britain was threatened by a late-bloomer, Germany, and unrest in Russia.In reality, the object of the struggle of the British and French bourgeoisie is to seize the German colonies and to ruin a competing nation which has displayed a more rapid rate of economic development. And, in pursuit of this noble aim, the “advanced” democratic nations are helping the savage tsarist regime to strangle Poland, Ukraine, and so on, and to throttle revolution in Russia more thoroughly. - Lenin, “War and Russian Social Democracy”Esha compares the players to those on the global stage today and constantly reminds us to question the old narratives. After World War I ended, 14 nations conspired to attack Russia, yet it’s called a “civil war.” Why? American and British newspapers published puff pieces about the Tsar Nicholas, while portraying the Bolsheviks as brutes and tyrants. Why? Whose interests were served by perpetuating such myths?Esha’s enthusiasm and delight are infectious. She describes events as if she had been there and people as if she knew them. It is hard to avoid finding heroes and villains in history. We learn to discern propaganda so we can study history and theory and consider how to shape the world we want to build.Esha Krishnaswamy is a writer and media critic whose focus is on history, foreign policy, and Modern Monetary Theory. She is host of Late Nights with Lenin and Soviet Summers. Find her work at historicly.substack.com@eshaLegal@historic_ly

In the US we are taught history from the point of view of the colonizers. The heroes are the victors, and the victors are the ruling class - the oppressors and exploiters - reconfigured to appear dashing and noble. When truth falls outside of this heroic narrative, it’s distorted or buried.Our guest this week, Pascal Robert, pulls back the curtain to reveal the story behind the myths of the Haitian Revolution. His work appears in Black Agenda Report and many other publications, and he’s co-host of the “This is Revolution” podcast.The Haitian Revolution was an earth-shaking event that changed the course of history. It was the first successful slave revolt, resulting in the first Black republic. The stakes were enormous: the 13 colonies of the British empire combined brought less value than Haiti brought to France. Because of its sugar, rum, coffee and tobacco, pre-revolutionary Haiti, called Saint Domingue, was possibly the most valuable colony in the western hemisphere, giving a clue as to why the plantation system was so brutal.American exceptionalism extends to believing slavery in the US was the most brutal and vast in the world, but Robert’s evocative descriptions of the brutality of the plantation system are beyond imagination. When the revolution arrived, the liberation fighters were well-prepared and motivated.Robert is a riveting storyteller with a potent message. His take on “white supremacy,” provides a taste:A large part of how I view the history of slavery, race, and racism comes from the fact that I am Haitian … I come from a country where slaves destroyed the three greatest European empires at the peak of their power. I don’t see white people as supreme at all. I'm not mystified by white power in any way.The history of Saint Domingue is riddled with class and racial strife that carries forward to modern day Haiti. Robert explains the roots of those divisions, the material conditions that created them. He tells us why he considers Mackandal’s Rebellion - three decades earlier - the opening salvo in the revolution. He debunks the glory of Toussaint L’Ouverture and shows Jean-Jacques Dessalines to be the true hero. Robert brings us vivid tales of military strategy, geopolitical missteps, and voodoo.However much you think you know about the Haitian Revolution, this episode will excite and enlighten you.Pascal Robert is an essayist and political commentator whose work covers Black politics, global affairs, and Haitian politics. His work has appeared in the Washington Spectator, Black Commentator, Alternet, AllHipHop.com, and The Huffington Post. He is a regular contributor to the online publication Black Agenda Report and is the current co-host of the THIS IS REVOLUTION PODCAST, which is live streamed via YouTube and relevant social media on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9 pm eastern standard time and Saturdays at Noon. Pascal Robert is a graduate of Hofstra University and Boston University School of Law.@probert06@TIRShowOaklandyoutube.com/c/thisisrevolutionpodcast

 On Macro N Cheese, we often focus on economics - how society organizes real resources, and human life in general. We always seek ways to get our message out, to capture people’s imagination and motivate them. This week Steve talks to the director/producer of The World is My Country, a documentary about Garry Davis, who inspired and motivated millions of people as founder of the World Government of World Citizens.Garry Davis was a song and dance man on his way to becoming a success in show business until the US entered World War II and he was drafted. He served as a fighter pilot, dropping bombs on Hitler’s armament facilities with enthusiasm. When he was ordered to bomb a city of civilians, the realization hit: "Oh, my God. Why am I killing people in their homes and schools and factories for no other reason than they're on the wrong side of an invisible line? I look from my airplane. I can't see this line. It's imaginary. There's an imaginary line. I'm killing people for being on the wrong side of an imaginary line."Davis created a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and set up the World Service Authority to issue world passports, world IDs, and world birth certificates. More than four million of these documents have been issued and over the years they've helped numerous stateless refugees escape from terrible situations.As Arthur recounts Garry’s story, sometimes it’s hard to separate his own beliefs from Garry’s. No matter. Truths are truths. Nowadays any war - even a small, tactical war -  means ecocide.And now we have just a semblance of democracy. But it's not a real democracy. It's not what anybody wants. All the things that are happening in the world, nobody wants. Nobody wants us to be heading toward nuclear war. Nobody wants climate disaster. Nobody wants rising waters, floods, storms, tornadoes. Those are ecocide. Those are crimes, folks. This isn't happening because of some accident of nature or something.Garry found it ridiculous that our political system is stuck within the electoral tools and traditions of the past - before telephones, computers, internet - when the way to run a government was to send representatives by horse and buggy to represent the citizenry. Now we can all be in a room, virtually, via synergistic Zoom meetings, and could be more directly involved and represented. It was part of Garry’s design for a “People Powered Planet.” Arthur Kanegis is President of Future WAVE, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to shifting our culture of violence to a culture of peace. He is the Director/Producer of "The World Is My Country" and has written and produced numerous other works.  Arthur has also been a radio host, journalist  and visionary writer --  on a lifelong mission to use the power of film to help inspire the world toward a peaceful and positive future.Check out his work at theworldismycountry.com 

L. Randall Wray is a founding father of Modern Monetary Theory and is always a welcome guest on this podcast. This is his SIXTH episode of Macro N Cheese. Our community recently celebrated Congressman Yarmuth’s statement in support of MMT and his shout-out to The Deficit Myth. Randy tells Steve he was invited to speak to Yarmuth and his staff in 2019. He had planned to make a presentation on the data to show deficit fears have never come true. And so I sent them a bunch of slides and they said, "Yeah, this is good, but we really want you to talk about MMT. This is what Yarmuth wants. And he said that we're all talking about this and the Democratic side is pretty much on board, they really do want to hear the explanation." Sounds promising, but we’re far from out of the woods. We’re facing multiple pandemics in addition to Covid - the pandemics of racism, inequality, climate catastrophe are but a few, each linked to each other. The climate crisis has caused a pandemic of fires, of heat, of oceans rising, all of which lead to a pandemic of refugees. They must be tackled simultaneously. The private sector has proven inept at solving these problems, partly because addressing such massive issues requires a carefully coordinated and centrally planned effort. In the case of the climate, only a global effort will do. Major economic powerhouse countries like the US, China, and Russia need to take proactive roles in addressing our environmental crises, as they have the fiscal ability to mobilize resources on a mass scale, AND they’re the nations most responsible for the climate emergency. Steve asks Randy to talk about and look at the current push for universal single payer health care in the US, and explain why a state by state approach cannot work. On the state level there are a series of interrelated problems that cannot be avoided. Certain programs - like healthcare, unemployment compensation, or a job guarantee - require open-ended spending. If someone meets the requirements, the service must be provided. During an economic downturn, a state’s tax revenue is shrinking while the demand for services is expanding. Necessary programs providing jobs and healthcare, must be federally funded; there’s no way around it. Randy reminds us that careful analysis shows how Medicare for All is going to significantly reduce the number of resources needed to devote to health care. So it’s not just that the federal government can afford it, there’s really no credible argument against it. The episode looks at the problems causing migration from rural areas to urban centers, while neglect of infrastructure causes flight from the cities into the suburbs. As always, Randy brings clarity to these complex questions. Be sure to check out the Transcript and Extras pages in the Macro N Cheese section of our <a href="https://realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/#fwdmspPlayer0?catid=0&amp;trackid=0">website</a>. 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

Cory Doctorow’s bio says he is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He’s also a podcaster, blogger, Tweeter, and that rarest of birds, an MMTer. We invited him on to Macro N Cheese because of his article The Rent's Too Damn High: A Human Right, Commodified and Rendered Zero Sum. Steve talks to him about the multiple and complex causes of the pandemic housing bubble. Perhaps because he’s a novelist, Cory communicates in a compelling way, describing not just the causes, but the social implication of the housing situation.The US made homeownership one of its two primary means for class mobility and intergenerational wealth transfer and intergenerational mobility. So the US historically had a labor pathway to social mobility where if you got a better job than your parents, you could live a better life than them. And then it had an asset pathway where an asset that you or your parents bought might appreciate so much that as generations went by, if you were able to hand it down, that each generation would be more affluent than the last.The employment path to a rising standard of living vanished by getting rid of unionized employment, and with it a check against the concentrated power of capital when negotiating with the diffuse power of labor. The imbalance has also resulted in a loss of defined pension benefits.And so now if you want to survive into your dotage without forcing your children to give up their most productive labor years to take care of you, you have to either get unbelievably lucky with your 401k - and again, empirically, American 401ks are not and will not be sufficient to carry them through a dignified retirement - or you have to liquidate your family assets.Cory talks about the effect of reduced incomes on the rental market and the paradoxical effect on housing values, the dissolution of tenants rights, and the way all of these elements are connected to zoning, transportation, and the quality of public schools.The personal responsibility doctrine made popular by Reagan and Thatcher conveniently replaces our identities as workers and citizens with that of consumers. It also requires that we no longer conceive of problems as being systemic and think of them as being individual. Steve and Cory discuss the gigification and Uberization of the economy, and the possible path forward. Cory reminds us, “with so many technological questions or policy questions, we can ask what something does, and that's important. But it's also really important to ask who it does it for and who it does it to.”A science fiction novelist’s métier involves imagining different scenarios for the future. Some of Cory’s might give us a bit of hope.Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist. He is a contributor to many magazines, websites and newspapers. He is a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties.@DoctorowFind his blog, podcast, newsletter, books and more atpluralistic.netcraphound.com

Real Progressives is on a mission to bring Modern Monetary Theory to the layperson. We don’t assume you’ve studied economics, only that you’re open-minded and curious. Once the MMT light bulb goes on, it reveals a myriad of implications, making it a powerful tool for political activists and organizers. It’s almost impossible to think of a political agenda unaffected.Some Macro N Cheese episodes can be difficult for newcomers, but it’s worth sticking with us. All will be revealed!Steve’s guest this week is Warren Mosler, the man who created (discovered?) MMT. Many of our listeners first learned the basics from him and whenever he comes on the show, he and Steve spend at least part of the interview going over the money story. This episode is no different. They discuss the dollar as a tax credit and what it means to say the government is the price setter. Warren explains why “every MMT proponent starts off any inflation discussion by pointing out the reminder that the currency is a public monopoly.”Looking at the current situation in the US, Warren notes that early in the pandemic we saw the reduction of harmful emissions by around 50% as a result of eliminating non-essentials.Now, after a year or so, as the economy has come back, now we're starting to perform these non-essentials again. Emissions are back to where they were, and we're talking about massive new programs with real resources, funding multiple tens of trillions to stop emissions going up and maybe bring them down to where we got to the first week of the crisis by eliminating non-essentials. Does that tell you something?Warren goes through the economic results of the pandemic, discussing what has been going on with personal consumption and private debt accumulation and whether we’re facing the threat of inflation, as well as potential actions of the administration and the Fed. Warren gives us his take on banking regulation - rather, deregulation - and the mortgage crisis. They even touch on one of Steve’s favorite paper tigers, the petrodollar.We mustn’t neglect to mention Representative Yarmuth, Democratic Chairman of the House Budget Committee. He recently <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?512625-5/washington-journal-rep-john-yarmuth-d-ky-discusses-president-bidens-fy-2022-budget-request">appeared on C-Span</a> where he explained, “The federal government is not like any other user of currency, not like any household, any business, any state or local government. We issue our own currency, and we can spend enough to meet the needs of the American people. The only constraint being that we do have to worry about inflation.” He proceeded to give a shout-out to <a href="https://realprogressives.org/books/the-deficit-myth/">The Deficit Myth</a>. That sounds like a victory for MMT.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

It’s customary to think of growth as something to aspire to and celebrate. It’s one of those words with positive connotations, like progress. Growth represents our progress as a society. The MMT community has called this into question by exposing the underbelly of the most celebrated measure of economic growth, the GDP. The costs of clean-up after a man-made or natural disaster, like an oil spill or hurricane, represent an increase to the GDP. How twisted is that?Steve’s guest this week is Lorenz Keyszer, a master’s student of environmental systems and policy in Zurich. His paper, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9">1.5° C Degrowth Scenarios Suggests the Need for New Mitigation Pathways</a>, co-authored with Manfred Lenzen, attempts to subvert the positive meanings associated with traditional concepts of growth.In the face of ongoing climate catastrophe, Lorenz sees the need to dig deeper and ask which things we really want to see increase and which things which we want to decrease. In other words, we must ask ourselves which sectors, which areas of life should we prioritize and which areas could be reduced.I usually use the ecological-economic definition, which sees degrowth as a process of an equitable downscaling of energy resource use in an economy which is coupled to GDP. gross domestic product. So GDP is likely to decline or stagnate in such a transition, but societal well-being should be maintained or secured in such a transition. So this is sort of a prosperous descent scenario which really tries to decouple well-being from GDP growth and focus on the things that matter directly, no matter what this means for GDP growth.Referring to the 2017 IPCC report and its 12-year timeline, Lorenz warns of the dangers in discussing this in terms of deadlines. We’re already seeing climate change causing real harm to people’s lives as numerous catastrophes are being substantially worsened.Lorenz talks of the need for the state to take an active role, directing massive investment programs into renewable energy. as well as regulating the fossil fuel industry. A ‘just transition’ is possible if we provide universal basic services and a federal job guarantee. Such policies would minimize the fear of losing livelihoods as we dismantle the exploitative and extractive entities that currently provide us our means to access necessities like food, housing, medicine and, of course, energy. A key point of the degrowth agenda is that we can secure livelihoods and access to the goods and services people need, regardless of GDP, if we change how our economy functions and choose different things to prioritize.Steve and Lorenz discuss GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) as an alternative to GDP for measuring economic health and stability. Unsurprisingly, the ‘richer’ countries with high GDP seem to lag behind in GPI numbers.Lorenz also touches on the Decent Living Energy Scenario, which estimates the minimum amount of energy required to provide decent standards of health care, transportation, housing, and our other needs. It’s a massive reduction compared to today, and will take a pluralistic approach through technological revolution and waste reduction.This episode takes a deep dive into a subject we cannot afford to ignore.Lorenz Keyßer is a master student of environmental systems and policy at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. His research focuses on climate mitigation scenarios, post- and degrowth approaches to socio-ecological problems as well as strategies to address them, such as the green new deal.@LorenzClimate on Twitter<a href="https://www.luebbe.de/luebbe-life/buecher/politik-und-gesellschaft/ohne-flugzeug-um-die-welt/id_7694443?etcc_med=Slider&amp;ver=LUELIF&amp;etcc_cu=onsite&amp;etcc_cmp=Ohne%20Flugzeug%20um%20die%20Welt&amp;etcc_var=Aus%20unserem%20Programm&amp;etcc_plc=Startseite&amp;ir_name=Startseite%2FL%C3%BCbbe%20Life">Around the World Without a Plane</a>, by Giulia Fontana &amp; Lorenz Keyszer<a href="https://blogs.ethz.ch/ETHambassadors/2018/10/11/grounded-from-zurich-to-sydney/">Grounded from Zurich to Sydney</a>, by Giulia Fontana &amp; Lorenz Keyszer

To unpack the confusion around the push for state-based vs federal programs, it’s necessary to understand the race to the bottom. So this is where Steve Grumbine begins his interview with Bill Black and Fadhel Kaboub. The inequities among the Eurozone nations have their parallel in the US. At both the global and national levels, the race to the bottom affects labor standards, environmental regulations, tax rates, and basic services. To understand this, we always turn to the MMT explanation of the difference between a currency issuer and a currency user.The federal government can afford to provide healthcare, infrastructure, environmental protection, childcare, and other necessary services. When it abdicates its responsibilities, it shifts the burdens to individuals who can't afford them as well as to states and municipalities who, by definition, don't have the resources and must compete with each other to attract businesses like fracking companies, pipelines, Amazon headquarters, or whatever they can get. When a state needs more revenue, as it inevitably will, raising corporate taxes will drive these businesses to a “friendlier” location. Ultimately the end result is neglect of community needs and full-bore pain for its citizens. Lost opportunities and negative consequences have been compounding over decades of the neoliberal project.Virtually every state has a constitutional or statutory requirement either limiting or prohibiting running a deficit. However, even without these restrictions, states can’t run substantial deficits without experiencing a sharp increase in the interest rates on their debt and, of course, cannot issue currency to pay those interest rates.Because of vastly different tax bases and competition between the states, the guests make clear that the progressive agenda will be hobbled if we try to apply it piecemeal. Funding major programs like health care at the state level is not only impossible for the majority of US states, but counterproductive to the national Medicare for All movement. The federal government can “wait and see” as state-based initiatives inevitably fail, all of which gives ammo to the “we can’t afford it” argument, and ultimately hurts everyone.Some American progressives have become beaten down with despair, losing hope that such comprehensive plans can ever be achieved. In desperation, they are mobilizing for state-based healthcare programs. Even if these are achievable in a few states, it is not the solution for most and is dissipating the energy that should be focused on a comprehensive agenda.The episode closes by honoring their work while offering specific suggestions for effectively mobilizing targeted action at the local level capable of uniting rather than fracturing the movement. By organizing, educating and empowering people to fight for the right policies, we can consolidate the efforts of the state-based groups across the country into a unified voice for universal health care and other massive programs, funded at the federal level, in lieu of 50 groups fighting separate battles.Bill Black is a professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) and the Distinguished Scholar in Residence for Financial Regulation at the University of Minnesota Law School. He is a serial whistleblower and authored <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1144371.The_Best_Way_to_Rob_a_Bank_Is_to_Own_One">The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One</a>.Dr. Fadhel Kaboub is an Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.global-isp.org@FadhelKaboub@WilliamKBlack

If you’re a crypto-phobe, or simply bored by fintech and all those “coins,” don’t let it stop you from listening to this episode. Rohan Grey places these topics within the context of our history, political economy, the law, MMT, policy, and today’s progressive movement. The fact that technology changes the world is nothing new. It affects everything.You can look across history and say, look, it mattered when we created the written word and stopped building societies around oral communities where they passed things down through word of mouth. It matters when we had the printing press and created a system by which information could be developed, stored, mass-transmitted to large numbers of people. It mattered when we built the telegraph in the 19th century and started to connect the Atlantic to the new world and to be able to send wires across the world in a matter of minutes that used to take months to send through ship messages … So if you start from that point of view and look at that long history of different kinds of technology, obviously law and money play a big role in. It matters who funds these things.Once again, technology is changing the landscape. Railroad and oil barons are being replaced by the Elon Musks of the world. There’s a blockchain consortium in Congress, ensuring that their needs are met. The conversation around defining money and establishing the boundaries of public digital financial infrastructure reflects the ideologies and the interests of all kinds of people. Who will protect our privacy?When seeking a force powerful enough to transform society, we turn to the working class. It, like everything else, is undergoing a transformation.They said in an industrial age it was the common identity of being a factory worker that really built the industrial proletariat consciousness. You're sitting there doing the same thing as people next to you. And you're like, hey, we're pretty similar. Nowadays, 70 percent of Americans are in debt for one of three or four creditors. And that kind of relationship creates a different kind of class identity. But so does the fact that everybody has a damn cell phone.While there’s plenty of discussion about bitcoin and financial technology, Steve and Rohan constantly bring it back to MMT and the progressive movement. The questions we face as leftists are far-reaching and consequential. It’s not too soon to begin asking them.Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, the founder and president of the Modern Money Network, and a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.https://modernmoneynetwork.org/@rohangrey on Twitter

Professor Bill Mitchell was our very first guest on Macro N Cheese, and now here he is, 122 weeks later. Episode #1 was <a href="https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-1-putting-the-t-in-mmt-with-professor-bill-mitchell">Putting the T in MMT</a>. This week Steve asks him to discuss the single policy prescription at the core of MMT - the Federal Job Guarantee. The discussion goes into the parameters and nuance of the FJG and the pitfalls of a Universal Basic Income as a competing possibility.Bill asserts that implementing a UBI to deal with unemployment and poverty would be capitulating to the neoliberal claim that government is helpless in the face of unemployment - as if it’s a natural phenomenon. MMT shows us the federal government can buy and utilize the excess unemployed labor force the same way it guarantees a stable price floor to agricultural surpluses. In each case these are resources the private market didn’t need.Steve and Bill delve into some details of the FJG advocated by leading MMT experts. This is not some ‘dig a hole, fill a hole’ make-work charade, but a federally funded, locally administered program that aims to fill in crucial resource gaps in communities the private sector neglects for a reason. These jobs don’t generate profit, but they are some of the most valuable services, such as the arts and education, or care for children, the elderly, and the environment. The job guarantee directly addresses unemployment and poverty, unlike the UBI.Steve brings up the automation bogeyman. “The robots are coming for our jobs!” Bill reminds us we are still in charge.Well, this comes down to this sort of myth that has evolved in this neoliberal era, that the market is supreme. And somehow the economy is beyond us now. And that we have to serve the economy, not the economy serve us, and that we have to pull our belts in and sacrifice and whatever in the name of advancing the economy and the market. Now, I mean, it's an absurd proposition when you think about it. All of these constructs are our constructs, our legal and conceptual constructs. The economy is our concept. And the idea that we've just got to lie down and be whipped by the market is just nonsensical.Bill further elaborates the FJG is multi-dimensional. In the short run it solves poverty and income insecurity, but in the long term, it will help evolve the concept of 'meaningful work.' Jobs don’t need to be soul-crushing, but can actually be personally fulfilling and beneficial to society at the same time. We are only limited by our imagination.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.Enroll, support and donate to MMTed at mmted.org@billy_blog on Twitterhttp://www.billmitchell.org/“Macroeconomics” ordering information on bilbo.economicoutlook.net/

Steve Keen can be counted on to bring a unique and controversial perspective. This time he turns his critical gaze toward what some feel is sacred in Marx’s legacy. The interview takes a dive into complex theory, which we won’t even attempt to summarize here.Keen says Marx’s philosophical thinking ultimately transcended his own labor theory of value which asserts that all surplus value derives solely from labor. In the Grundrisse, he acknowledges the role of machinery in the production process showing that, with its input into production, machinery can be a source of surplus value.Keen believes this disproves the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Therefore, socialist revolution is not inevitable. According to Keen, however, after contradicting his own basis for scientific socialism, Marx refused to give it up.Let's get one thing clear... I regard Marx as one of the greatest intellects in economics, probably the greatest. So I put him above Keynes, comparable to Schumpeter. I regard Schumpeter as an incredibly original thinker. And if I want to see my pantheon of great economists, it starts with Richard Cantillon, leaps to François Quesnay, jumps over Ricardo and Smith, and lands on Marx.At one point in the interview, Grumbine brings up the necessity of a future built around green energy. Keen goes into the laws of thermodynamics, the transition from high frequency energy to low frequency energy, and the law of entropy.Grumbine reminds Keen of his last visit to Macro N Cheese, when he called attention to the breakdown in the global supply chain during the pandemic. This gets them talking about the need for, in Keen’s words, “a symbiosis between central control and distributed control.”There’s so much more to this episode. We said we wouldn’t attempt to summarize it, but we’re providing plenty of resource material in the “Extras” page. If you’re not listening on the Real Progressives website, be sure to check it out. There’s a transcript of the interview as well. You may need it.Professor Keen is a Distinguished Research Fellow at UCL and the author of “Debunking Economics,” “Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis?” and his latest “The New Economics: A Manifesto.” He is one of the few economists to anticipate the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, for which he received a Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review. His main research interests are developing the complex systems approach to macroeconomics, and the economics of climate change.@ProfSteveKeen on TwitterHe has plenty of free content on Patreon. Subscribe: patreon.com/ProfSteveKeenbookshop.org/books/the-new-economics-a-manifesto/9781509545285bookshop.org/books/can-we-avoid-another-financial-crisis/9781509513734

Mike Figueredo and Steve Grumbine have a lot in common. Both are on a journey toward radicalization. Both recognize the importance of MMT in this process. Steve was recently Mike’s guest on The Humanist Report in an episode that was part MMT primer and part discussion of their mutual anti-capitalist awakening. This week, Mike comes to us.When we activists and non-economists first learn MMT, we experience a chain reaction as one shibboleth after another is toppled. The insights strike us as both profound and profoundly obvious. Of course it can also be both exciting and depressing at the same time. Mike tries to ward off despair as he acknowledges the stark implications:We're staring down the barrel of a gun right now. Climate change. What is it the IPCC says? By now we have 10 years to act to avoid catastrophic climate change? Tweaking around the edges, it's not just insufficient, it's literally deadly at this point. And nobody is willing to say that in DC. Nobody is willing to frame it with the urgency that's needed.It’s no longer about mitigating climate change. It’s about adapting to its reality. By the time we decide to build a seawall it will be too late. Besides, as Mike says, “when we talk about a seawall in 15 years, then it's ‘well, you know, the deficit is really getting high.’”Steve points to recent comments by Janet Yellen about the need for fiscal responsibility. It would make sense for Biden to actively encourage this deficit fear porn; with these bogeymen as well-planted distractions the administration has plausible deniability. We need not bother to expect success.Returning to the gun metaphor, they speak of austerity. Steve says:People associate the gun with murder. They don't associate the policy with murder. And so when I see this play out, I'm not seeing it like some benign thing. I see this as a legitimate gun to the head of anyone that is not flush with cash. So many died unnecessarily in this pandemic. And I don't see any path forward. You said the people have to be angry. They can't just vote. They've got to organize. The problem is they don't know that there is a legitimate war going on right now against them with this austerity narrative. That's like a sanction against the American people.Steve and Mike delve into the #MedicareForAll conversation, specifically, the currently trending, but fatally flawed idea of state-based single payer. As MMT shows us, US states are currency users and need to generate the revenue through taxation or borrowing, unlike the currency-issuing federal government. The state-funded health care system is not only doomed to fail because of an impossible revenue deficit, but as Mike notes, the failure could be used by the political elite as a false representation of the failure of #M4A.Like many on the left nowadays, these two independent media hosts are finding the more they study capitalism, the harder it is to imagine a future for it.Mike Figueredo is the founder and host of the Humanist Report. Support and follow them:Website humanistreport.comPatreon patreon.com/humanistreportTwitter @HumanistReportYouTube goo.gl/E5D8gG

Robert Hockett is back to share his irrepressible optimism as he and Steve review Biden’s first 100 days. They both admit the administration has done more than they expected, but then again, they weren’t expecting much. When Pramila Jayapal awarded the president an A, she must have been grading on a curve.Bob isn’t confident predicting what the coming months will bring, but he expresses both his hopes and fears around a number of issues. How will Biden navigate the shoals of very shallow Democratic support in the Senate? What are his choices and what are their potential consequences? With two more big spending bills in the wings, there’s a lot riding on Congress. To some extent, Bob sees Biden’s fortunes aligned with our own: successful and popular domestic policies would translate into votes expanding the Democratic majority in the midterm elections.Perhaps it’s unfair to judge an administration on the achievements of the first 100 days. Just consider FDR:So one of the things that we tend to forget about the New Deal is that it wasn't really just one big enactment and it wasn't even like three or four big enactments. It was literally scores of distinct pieces of legislation rolled out sequentially over about a 13-year period . . . and the way it was sequenced, it was done in such a way as to ensure that FDR kept winning reelection and each time he won reelection, he could do even more.On the international front, we’re witnessing a revival of America as agonist. This administration has no qualms about amping up a new cold war against Russia and China. The US uses tariffs and sanctions as a means of wielding power over other countries. Steve asks about the use of the payment system to lock them out.Bob thinks China is playing a very smart game. As long as they remain an export-led growth economy, they benefit from the dollar's dominant position in the global monetary system. But China is moving towards a domestically generated demand-focused economy, at which point the dollar’s position as reserve currency will no longer serve their interests. In Bob’s view, they’re taking advantage of the current arrangements while wisely getting their ducks in a row. Meanwhile, they’re making advances towards becoming one of the most important global players in digital currency and finance.There’s much more to this episode, from elite control fraud in the financial industry to the effect of the pandemic on the powerless. Agree or disagree, an hour with Bob Hockett is sure to engage, inform, and probably amuse you.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 Twitterhttps://bookshop.org/books/financing-the-green-new-deal-a-plan-of-action-and-renewal/9783030484491https://realprogressives.org/books/money-from-nothing-or-why-we-should-stop-worrying-about-debt-and-learn-to-love-the-federal-reserve/https://www.forbes.com/sites/rhockett/?sh=d551a2fe54a0

This week our guest is the fearless Jen Perelman, host of JENerational Change and recent challenger to establishment sweetheart Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Jen and Steve have a genial conversation about electoral politics, revolutionary action, and the path forward.Jen talks about her campaign against the notorious DWS, and how inherently flawed and exclusionary our current political framework is. We will never vote our way to revolution. Significant change will only be born of a huge labor movement willing to engage in a general strike.She refers to the Chris Hedges statement about fighting fascists not because we can win, but because they’re fascists.I don't know another way to do anything and I'm not going to just do nothing. Right? So this is the menu right now. How do you sleep better at night? Do you sleep better knowing that you're working on the side of justice, or do you want to just say we can't win, so forget it?They discuss some of the roadblocks to building a movement, especially when we live in an echo chamber. With electoral politics, we have people who are bought and paid for, standing in the way. Tribalism appeals to our need to be on a team, with an identifiable enemy. Jen feels this society is lacking some serious critical reasoning skills.Many talk of building bridges. Jen builds spiderwebs, each thread connecting people to herself and to each other, by taking on the issues that touch their lives. Her organization JENCorps, is one way she continues to serve her community. Check them out on the website jenerationalchange.com.Jen Perelman ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Florida's 23rd Congressional District, but lost to Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the 2020 Democratic primary. Her show, JENerational Change, is available on YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes.@JENFL23 on Twitter

This week, Kirsten Mullen and Sandy Darity join Steve to talk about their book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century.In recent years the debate on reparations has gained some momentum, though not for the first time, as Mullen and Darity point out. “40 acres and a mule” was among the first promises made (and broken) to black Americans since the end of the Civil War. While white families benefited from the homestead act and have continued to receive aid and preferential treatment at every level, assistance to African Americans has always been portrayed as undeserved government handouts. The abolition of slavery created new opportunities for exploitation. Our listeners are well aware that private companies utilize prison labor for pennies on the dollar.Mullen and Darity provide examples of the racist discrimination and disenfranchisement that have poisoned the US since its founding. At every crossroad, every opportunity to do the right thing, this country has made the wrong choice, sometimes subtle, often brutal and vile.In making the case for reparations, they focus on the staggering wealth gap. At the top of that chasm sits the wealth of corporations built on the backs of slave labor. Mullen:You have Lehman Brothers, which began as a cotton brokerage in Alabama, for example. These were a family of brothers who initially were involved in retail trade, but they quickly realized that the real money was in buying and selling cotton. This leads to the cotton exchange in New York City. Tiffany, the iconic jeweler in New York City, was a slave owner. Most college and universities, the early ones, the elite ones, all of them benefited from donations of money from individuals who own and traded slaves or who donated land that they were able to acquire because of the slave trade.While some reparations proposals are systemic and encompass a broader demographic, Mullen and Darity target African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved in this country. They have calculated a dollar amount to rectify the loss of inter-generational wealth that could have been created had the early promise been kept.After you listen to this episode, we urge you to buy the book. From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century is the recipient of the inaugural 2021 Book Prize from the Association of African American Life and History and the 2020 Ragan Old North State Award for Non-fiction from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.A. Kirsten Mullen is a folklorist and the founder of Artefactual, an arts-consulting practice, and Carolina Circuit Writers, a literary consortium that brings expressive writers of color to the Carolinas.William A. (“Sandy”) Darity Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter @SandyDarity

This week, Steve catches up with Brian Romanchuk to talk about his latest book, Modern Monetary Theory and the Recovery. Brian was last on in episode 16, two years ago. A lot has happened since then.From his blog, Bond Economics:This book discusses the causes of slow growth in the developed world after the early 1990s from a Modern Monetary Theory perspective. Policy proposals from MMT proponents that aim to rejuvenate the labor market without causing a resurgence of inflation will be examined.Brian says the book goes through the basics of MMT before addressing the sluggish recoveries since the Reagan-Thatcher years. Why were previous recoveries after recessions slow and how can we change it going forward? How do we prevent a long period of underemployment like we’ve seen in previous decades?The modern era has been a constant move away from state control in favor of letting market forces guide the economy. Throughout this interview the discussion frequently returns to labor. As Brian says, it’s really a labor market story.The present spending bill, while larger than expected, is still inadequate. Basically, the money is all flowing into rent, groceries, and settling debts, because it’s replacing a broken income flow resulting from the pandemic.Well, governments around the world threw a huge slug of spending as big deficits. And to be honest, not that much of a bounce. And the reason is all it did was allow people to continue their existing patterns, which is great, but it's also keeping landlords afloat. So that's one reason why it was relatively popular because it was basically the landlord bailout.Brian tells us his next book will be about inflation and takes some time to describe and compare various theories. Finally, he takes criticisms of MMT, finding very few to be in good faith.Brian Romanchuk was a fixed income quantitative analyst in Quebec. He is the author of a number of books, including Modern Monetary Theory and the Recovery, published in March of this year.His writings can be found on his blog: www.BondEconomics.com@RomanchukBrian on Twitter

Even a very dysfunctional system is beneficial to somebody. And that's the reason why changing course is difficult.Economist Marco Cattaneo joins us this week to talk about “fiscal currency” and how it could provide a partial solution to the economies that haven’t fared so well from the adoption of the euro, the currency being used by 19 of the 27 countries of the European Union.The shared single currency has proven to be too strong for some and too weak for others, making it difficult to set up interest rates and trade relationships that work well for all of them. But more consequential are the restrictions placed on fiscal policy, forbidding EU nations to generate deficits beyond established thresholds. Thus, they are deprived of a valuable governing tool. Each country has been forced to reduce public investments, including public health expenditures, causing a deterioration in the quality of health systems throughout the European Union. This has been reflected in the handling of the COVID crisis.Fiscal money is basically a financial instrument or security, which can be used by citizens to offset their tax obligations. In explaining it, Marco reminds us of one of the basic principles of Modern Monetary Theory -- that money is a tax credit. An EU nation, like a US state, is a currency user. Italy cannot issue euros....but nothing prevents us from issuing tax credit certificates, which can be used in order to support income, to support expenditures, to fund public investments, and to basically recover the amount of economic policy flexibility which will be needed not just in order to recover the political impact of COVID, but to recover all the damages that neoliberal policies taken under the euro created in the countries such as Italy.While Marco believes it was a mistake to create a single currency for the EU, he recognizes that discarding it is a political improbability. It will be easier to garner support for fiscal money.For a deeper dive, we recommend the articles linked below. Both are in English. You’ll find another example of a parallel currency in our episode <a href="https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-80-unis-for-all-with-ben-wilson-and-scott-ferguson">Unis for All with Scott Ferguson and Ben Wilson</a>Marco Cattaneo is an Italian economist and co-author of La Soluzione per L'Euro. His blog is Basta con L’Eurocrisi.Follow his blog  http://bastaconleurocrisi.blogspot.com/@CCFCattaneo on Twitter

Steve Grumbine welcomes the uncompromising and incorruptible Richard Bowen to the studio to discuss the intricate web of deception and fraud more commonly known as our private banking system. Having been at Citigroup during the mortgage crisis, he had an insider’s eye view of the stranglehold the large banks have on our country. The financial services industry is one of the largest contributors to political campaigns and there’s a revolving door between the regulatory agencies and the institutions they’re supposed to be regulating. He can only conclude that the banking lobby controls the government.In early 2006, when Citigroup consolidated its diverse mortgage operations, Richard was given a huge promotion to the position of chief underwriter. Citigroup was purchasing $90 billion worth of mortgages a year - mortgages they did not originate but purchased from other banks and mortgage companies. He was responsible for making sure  these mortgages met Citi’s  policy guidelines.And that basically was the overall job. Now Citigroup, when they purchased these mortgages, immediately turned around and sold most of them. And when they sold them, they gave their representations and warranties. They basically gave their guarantees that these met our policy guidelines ... And, yet I was finding that 60 percent were defective. They did not meet our guidelines. So, silly me, I started issuing warnings. I thought it was my job.Being a whistleblower is neither a glamorous nor rewarding position to be in, and as Richard tells his students at the University of Texas, one will pay a dear price for “blowing the whistle.” It takes a real toll professionally, personally, and physically. The most heroic acts are often thankless, and as demonstrated by our recent history regarding the treatment of whistleblowers, no good deed goes unpunished. But it must be done.Citigroup’s handling of Richard Bowen was a story in itself. He came under surveillance and was frankly terrified, afraid to start his car without looking under the hood first. You’ll have to listen to the episode for the story. He was led a merry dance by the SEC enforcement division, who feigned interest in his reports, and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, charged by Congress to investigate the financial crisis. If they find evidence of criminal wrongdoing, they are to send a criminal prosecution to the US Attorney General. This sounds like a slam dunk, given the treasure trove of documents he had submitted to the SEC.But if you go down that list of all the witnesses, Steve, you won't find the name Bowen. That is because the congressional commission decided that all of my testimony, everything I told them behind closed doors, everything I gave them, everything they got from the SEC, everything including my original written testimony, it all needed to stay confidential. So it was sent to the National Archives with instructions that it could not be read for five years.Why five years? Funny you should ask. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the statute of limitations for fraud is five years?Richard Bowen was a senior vice president at Citigroup who blew the whistle on the mortgage fraud that helped trigger the subprime mortgage crisis. He is currently a professor of accounting at the University of Texas at Dallas. His story has been featured in the docuseries, The Con, the podcast, The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files, and the 60 Minutes story, “Prosecuting Wall Street.”www.richardmbowen.comOn Twitter: @RichardMBowen

Real Progressives recently created a series on fraud and the great financial crisis. To further understand the economic underpinnings of 2008 and other financial crises, Steve turned to Eric Tymoigne, inviting him on to talk about the book he co-authored with Randall Wray, The Rise and Fall of Money Manager Capitalism: Minsky's Half-Century from World War Two to the Great Recession.Alan Greenspan called the financial crisis a “once in a century tsunami,” a huge shock that occurred to the system that had been very unlikely, but, Oops, it happened! And we were not prepared. The Minsky narrative is the opposite. It's a very tiny shock that blew up the entire system. And why? Because over time, the system becomes more fragile, weaker, less able to buffer against even small adverse shocks on the system.Minsky's theoretical framework is really not about the crisis, it's about the process that leads to the crisis. That's where financial fragility comes into play. As Tymoigne explains, the financial crisis wasn’t caused by irrational behaviors, but by the very mechanics of capitalism itself. Milton Friedman said, basically, if you want to understand capitalism, you don't need to understand money. You don't need to understand corporations. You can simply visualize a small peasant economy based on barter in order to grasp the mechanics of exchange within the economic system. You’ll have a decent understanding of capitalism.  Not so, according to Minsky. You have to put finance immediately in the analysis and recognize that capitalism is a monetary economy that has long-lived capital equipment. And so that means that you have to have views about the future regarding the ability of this capital equipment to perform over time and to generate high enough monetary return.Tymoigne talks of the different degrees of financial fragility: hedge finance, speculative finance, and Ponzi finance. These different states relate to expectations of future monetary outcomes. According to Minsky we must consider the role of money, linking it to the future to see how a capitalist economy moves progressively from periods of relative stability with hedge finance, when people are able to pay their debts, to periods of Ponzi finance, with no expectation for the debts to be serviced without forcing a sale of the assets. This brings us back to the mortgage crisis.After listening to this episode, be sure to check out The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files. It’s like a case study of what you’ve heard here.Eric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis &amp; Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His areas of teaching and research include macroeconomics, money and banking, and monetary economics.On Twitter: @tymoignee

At the start of the pandemic, Thomas Fazi wrote an article entitled “Could COVID-19 Vanquish Neoliberalism?”  It was in response to the optimistic analysis, especially coming from the left who saw in the state’s reaction a deep crisis of neoliberalism.In fact, some were predicting the death of neoliberalism and the rise of a new regime, one characterized by greater state intervention and greater state regulation of markets, more active fiscal policies and greater attention to the needs of societies, mostly brought on by the emergency, not due to sudden change of heart on behalf of elites...In this episode, Fazi explains that neoliberalism is often misconstrued as a political strategy of curtailing the state and empowering the market, but in reality, neoliberalism has been and continues to be characterized by an extremely active state intervention in the economy.  He asserts that neoliberalism isn't about getting rid of the state, it’s about elites - and especially big capital - taking control and using the state to favor its own interests, where the needs of society are subordinated to the functioning of the market. The most obvious examples are the privatized energy and water systems.Part of the facade of neoliberalism is convincing the people that the state doesn't have any power, because what better way to stop people from demanding their basic necessities - like healthcare, jobs, and housing - than convincing them that these aren't things that aren’t technically achievable.The pandemic has proven, among other things, that the argument in favor of the euro, and the European Union in general, is without merit. There was supposed to be strength in numbers when in practice we’ve seen smaller countries like the UK handle the pandemic much more efficiently than the hulking bureaucracy of the EU.After loosening the purse strings, most countries are now reverting to type.Our leaders continue to say, yeah, well, but we can't spend too much to save people's lives because Italy has a very big public debt. So the European Union has told us that we have to go easy on spending. And so that's really the situation we're in. And again, this crisis has really proven to an even greater degree, just how tragic it is for a country, especially an advanced country such as Italy - that would have huge scope for maneuver if it had its own currency - just how tragic it is for a country to renounce its monetary sovereignty.Steve asks Fazi to speak about the so-called “great reset,” the latest boogeyman lurking under our beds. Rather than entertain the more outrageous predictions, he talks about crisis capitalism. Anyone who has read “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein, knows it is not a paranoid fantasy. In Italy, the vast number of small restaurants that suffered from the pandemic and are now in danger of being gobbled up by huge corporate firms. Neoliberalism, business as usual.Thomas Fazi is a journalist, writer, and translator. He’s co-director of Standing Army, an award-winning feature-length documentary on US military bases featuring Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky, and author of The Battle for Europe: How an Elite Hijacked a Continent – and How We Can Take It Back. His latest book, Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World, is co-authored with Bill Mitchell.@battleforeuropehttps://thomasfazi.net/https://unherd.com/2020/04/could-covid-19-vanquish-neoliberalism/

This week Steve talks with Dan Kovalik, a labor and human rights lawyer, who recently wrote a book aptly titled Cancel This Book. The episode is more conversation than interview; Dan and Steve both have a lot to say about cancel culture.Dan tells the story of Molly Rush, an 85-year-old peace activist who once served time in jail for participating in a protest at a nuclear bombsite with the Berrigan brothers. Molly went on to help found the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, one of the oldest peace and justice centers in America. During the BLM protests last summer, Molly reposted a meme of MLK, expressing the effectiveness of his nonviolence. The board of the Thomas Merton Center circulated a letter severing the 50-year relationship with her for posting a “racist meme.”Dan and Steve share their journeys from solid conservative Republicans and describe their radicalization. They talk about the perils of organizing without class-consciousness and the importance of reaching out to people who don’t necessarily agree with you. They recount the attacks against Jimmy Dore for agitating for Medicare for All and Stephanie Kelton for meeting with conservatives in Japan. They discuss the hawkishness of liberals who once were reliably antiwar. Dan introduces the term “the narcissism of small differences,” wherein people with much in common become polarized over the slightest areas of disagreement.This isn’t an episode about macroeconomics. It takes another path and looks at how we communicate with each other, and how we must do a better job of it.Dan Kovalik is a labor and human rights lawyer who served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers Union near Pittsburgh for 26 years. He teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.  He has contributed articles to CounterPunch, Huffington Post, and TeleSUR, and is the author of several books, including Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture.@danielmkovalik on Twitterbookshop.org/books/cancel-this-book-the-progressive-case-against-cancel-culture/9781510764989

This week Steve talks with Arthur Wilmarth, fresh off his appearance in our current series, The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files, which dovetails neatly into the subject of Art’s latest book, Taming the Megabanks: Why We Need a New Glass-Steagall Act.Art takes us through the original Glass-Steagall, adopted at the start of the Roosevelt administration as an early part of the New Deal when it became clear that allowing banks to get into the securities business and sell high-risk securities to investors around the world played a very large role in creating the conditions for the Great Depression. Congress saw that banks won’t be objective lenders or impartial investment advisers if they're taking loans and packaging them up into securities and selling them. They become biased and inclined to take lots of risks, which is not what banks should be doing. The act also prevented non-banks or “shadow banks” from engaging in the banking business.And so there was a very strict wall of separation created between banks and the capital markets, which operated very effectively, and helped maintain a very stable financial system from 1933 at least into the 1980s. There were no major systemic financial crises during that period. There were problems, but the crises that happened tended to occur within particular sectors and they could be contained because you didn't have banks exposed to what was going on in the capital markets.Art points out that the stock market crash of 1987 didn't affect the banks because Glass-Steagall was in effect, preventing the banks from being involved in the stock market. After a series of liberalization from the late 1980s through ‘90s, Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, removing the firewall between banks and the capital markets. When the next boom and bust cycle brought global financial crisis, it started in the shadow banking area in the capital markets and spread very quickly to the banks.From the global financial crisis through the pandemic crisis, there’s been a continued expansion and explosion of all types of debt. We had a record amount of corporate debt by 2020, including an unprecedented amount of high-risk corporate debt. Much of that debt involved companies borrowing trillions of dollars to finance stock buybacks, serving only the interest of insiders by driving up their stock price. Meanwhile, we’ve had a continuing run-up of consumer debt, particularly in things like car loans, student debt, and credit card debt, all exacerbated by the pandemic.Art reminds us we’re doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result - the very definition of insanity. We're continuing the system that churns out debt, protects Wall Street and then bails out Wall Street when the crisis comes. We keep giving them incentives to take on more risk. They think they won't fail.Art says they will fail. Eventually, they'll get to the point where the government can't bail them out.But I think the pandemic crisis, in my opinion, confirms everything that I argued in my book: that we're in this global doom loop, I say, where the central banks and the governments are backing up the universal banks and the shadow banks on Wall Street, and everybody is churning out more and more debt without any understanding of how we could make that sustainable over the long term.Art’s prescription is a new Glass-Steagall, ending bailouts for every hiccup in the capital markets. “Markets are supposed to be where you take risks - and if you lose, you lose. If you win, you win. If we keep bailing them out, they're not markets anymore. They're just one-way gambles on the federal government and as I say, they're crony capitalism.”Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Law at the George Washington University Law School and author of Taming the Megabanks: Why We Need a New Glass-Steagall Act. He has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress and the California legislature on financial regulatory issues.

In this extra edition of Macro N Cheese, Steve talks with Romteen Farasat, Incident Commander of Austin Needs Water.We all saw the news photos of Texas under a blanket of snow and ice. The freeze occurred the night of February 14th, yet two weeks later, people are still living without water. Public water has returned but private water lines are still off. They serve apartment buildings and housing complexes, so tens of thousands of residents are still going without.When government fails to step up, the people step up. But the people have very limited resources. Romteen tells Steve the enormity of their needs and reminds us this is happening under a Biden presidency. Those who celebrated the ousting of the orange monster must now concede that candidate Biden was truthful in his campaign pledge that nothing will fundamentally change. Crises continue to engulf us, inaction remains the same.The city of Austin doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle this disaster, but as MMTers we know that the US government has the money. Sending dollars is the easiest thing in the world, yet the residents haven‘t seen a single dime. Where is it?Without a functioning government, it falls to us to care for our neighbors. Water, food, and monetary donations are needed, as well as volunteers on the ground.Austin Needs Water is led by volunteers from BASTA, WDP, UPO, Austin Urban League, AFA, DSA Austin, Foundation Communities, Austin Mutual Aid, Street Medics Austin, and many more local organizations.To donate: AustinNeedsWater.com@RomteenF on Twitter