Macro N Cheese

“People talk about campaign finance being the problem as to why ‘progressive’ politicians can't get elected. But that's more of an effect of this rather than the cause, because let's say, Citizens United, the court ruling which now allows corporations to pretty much give unlimited donations to candidates. That's just the most recent evolution of a system which precludes all possibility for radical change.”Our guest this week is 1Dime, a content creator on YouTube and the podcast, 1Dime Radio, and a graduate student in political science. The interview is another stop on Steve’s journey to find the intersection of Modern Monetary Theory and Marxism. 1Dime is one of the few socialists – or democratic socialists – who accept MMT.Our audience understands that capitalism is antithetical to democracy. 1Dime suggests that the US is unique in that it is very liberal in what it allows its citizens to do in the private sphere, or civil society, without allowing for real political power, which he defines as the ability of a social class to actualize its interests. Steve and 1Dime compare the political history of the US with parliamentary democracies, discussing what that means for the working class. Agreeing that elections have limited value for American socialists, they look to alternatives. Tony brings up the idea of dual power: establishing power within the state while engaging in revolutionary actions outside it, building media institutions as well as organizations that can reach out to labor. Tony runs the YouTube channel "1Dime" and the podcast 1Dime Radio. On his main channel, 1Dime does video essays and mini-documentaries that involve the political economy, history, geopolitics, leftist theory, and various socio-political topics. 1Dime is known most for his videos involving MMT and Marxian thought, such as "The Problem With Taxing The Rich" and "Why Billionaires Prefer Democrats." His most recent video series was on the History of Post-Soviet Russia and the Putin regime. Each video serves as both an educational analysis of a different topic and a unique artistic experiment. Check out his YouTube channel, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@1Dimee ">1Dime</a> and his podcast, 1Dime Radio, on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/1dime-radio/id1570750518">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0yQRX2YMFFsCMekReE9toW ">Spotify</a>, and most podcast platforms. @1DimeOfficial on Twitter

Is the US a failed state? Well, with a paralyzed economy, debt deflation, and a ruling elite waging class warfare on labor, what else should we call it?Economist Michael Hudson often writes and talks about the US role as a global force bending the rest of the world to its will. Or trying to. This week he and Steve bring the focus home, looking at the state of affairs in the US; breaking down the causes and devastating effects of the massive transfer of income and wealth from the working class to the 1% — specifically the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors.Michael slices through false promises of re-industrialization after half a century of brutal policies by both Democrat and Republican administrations.“America cannot re-industrialize without reversing this whole philosophy of post-industrial society as a class war against labor. You can't have both. You can't have a class war against labor and re-industrialization, with the labor unionization that goes with it. That's the conundrum.”It’s well known that the people want public spending on healthcare, student loan forgiveness, and other social programs. The episode looks at the complementary roles of both parties in opposition.“The pretense is that the government has to borrow from bond holders. Because the bond holders decide what is economically worthwhile. Well, what does this ignore? That the bond holders are the 1%, and what they find economically worthwhile isn't using the government to benefit living standards, benefit labor, and to provide social services.”Should either party feign to support a policy and pass legislation benefiting the people, the Supreme Court is there to stop it in its tracks, citing the original intent of the Constitution.“Because the Constitution was drafted by authors who feared democracy. Who said that we have to make sure that we have enough checks and blocks, so that the mob cannot rule and take away the power of we, the bond holders, and landlords, and slave owners.”There are certain themes Michael Hudson visits again and again, strengthening connections and adding nuance to a comprehensive class analysis and global political economy. If you’re lucky, he’ll pepper it with a few snarky observations as well.Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Support him at <a href="https://www.patreon.com/michaelhudson/posts">patreon.com/michaelhudson</a>Find his work at <a href="https://michael-hudson.com/">michael-hudson.com</a>

In this episode, David Correia and Tyler Wall, co-authors of Police: A Field Guide, lead a webinar about policing in the US.The common narrative about the police is intentionally misleading. Without a class analysis and an understanding of history, it will remain a problem with no solution. Policing isn’t a side-show to capitalist political economy. It’s part of the main stage. Far from engaging in enforcing the law and fighting crime, the police are a coercive force, with origins as slave patrols, colonial militia, and strike-breakers.Addressing possibilities of reform or abolition, the point is made that attempts at reform only serve to further maintain the legitimacy of the police. Reform does not address the monopoly on violence — a violence that is non-negotiable and non-reciprocal. Reform feeds into the myth that we hold the police accountable. Abolition, on the other hand, does not mean absence; it looks at possibilities for a different kind of world. Can this be done within the capitalist system?David Correia is a professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico. He writes about violence, law, and race under capitalism.Tyler Wall is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His areas of interest include critical police studies; state violence and racial capitalism; law &amp; society, race and class.Correia and Wall are co-authors of Police: A Field Guide (Verso)

If you’ve recently chatted with a well-informed liberal – the kind who reads the NY Times or watches PBS NewsHour – you’ve heard encouraging things about the economy. You’ve heard that Biden’s doing a good job. Unemployment has gone down, wages have gone up. Why can’t you be happy about it all?To celebrate all this good news, we brought back our friend, Yeva Nersisyan, associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College, research scholar at the Levy Institute, and frequent collaborator with MMT OG Randy Wray.Yes, unemployment rates are lower, but we know those numbers don’t tell the true story. Or have you already forgotten our episode with Pavlina, just two short weeks ago? Yes, wages have gone up. But so has inflation. And in the race between inflation and wages, inflation is winning. Speaking of which, our Macro N Cheese family knows that one thing worse than inflation is the Fed’s cure for it.In this episode, Steve and Yeva look at the disconnect between the ongoing immiseration of the working class and the rosy scenario painted by politicians, pundits, and economists. At least one of those groups should know better. They discuss the looming student debt crisis, and the effect of the Fed’s interest rate hikes on student loans.When discussing MMT-informed solutions, Yeva warns:“You have to be consistent — whether it's the Trump tax cuts, whether it's the social security question. And you have to consistently say: the question of taxes and government spending, it should not be about deficits, should not be about debt, it should be about: is this the right thing for the economy? Is this what the people want? Is this what the people need? That's what you need to start with. And just because you want to raise taxes on the wealthy, which I do too, but I don't want to tie it to things like social security, because I think that's just a losing argument, and that's just not true.”MMT points toward answers, if anyone is asking.Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

It’s always interesting to get the insights of someone whose job places them near the beating heart of the imperial behemoth. Especially when they’ve begun to pull back the curtain and take a hard look at reality. Paul Gambles lives in Thailand where he specializes in emerging markets with MBMG Group.Paul and Steve talk about the clarity that MMT provides. The public is kept intentionally misinformed by a mainstream narrative purposely obscuring the power relations of the capital order.Paul describes capital flight in developing nations and how the US gains and maintains economic control through dollar hegemony, international institutions like IMF, and military aggression. The western system imposes itself on emerging markets as if drawing them into a warm pool of water, a step at a time. Once they are in the system, they find it is shark infested.The discussion covers conditions that led to the banding together of BRICS to create an alternative pathway to the US-dominated system. Paul warns that western hegemony is not going to surrender easily and is practicing economic terrorism against emerging markets trying to disentangle themselves from dollar hegemony.“I don't believe that anybody can hand on heart say that there's no connection whatsoever with the BRICS attempts to disentangle themselves from Western commercial, economic, and currency hegemony and the actions that we've seen in terms of American geopolitics in and around the Ukraine and in and around the South China Sea ... I think we're seeing it move into a geopolitical and into a military sphere, and I think that's terrifying.”Just like old-fashioned colonialism, the US is engaging in a form of value extraction and will use all the means at its disposal to continue the plunder.Paul Gambles is the Co-Founder of MBMG GROUP and a Director and Chief Investment Officer of MBMG Investment Advisory, a SEC regulated investment advisor. Find Paul’s articles on https://mbmg.substack.com/@PaulGambles2 on Twitter

When economist Pavlina Tcherneva was last on this podcast, we were a few months into the pandemic. She and Steve talked about nationalizing payroll and the heightened need for a federal job guarantee during a time of crisis.In this episode, the neoliberal approach to unemployment comes under scrutiny. Pavlina explains the inadequacy of official unemployment data. She looks at the problem from several angles, including geography, demographics, and of course, economics.Pavlina and Steve discuss MMT, the politics of NAIRU, and the debt ceiling. They look at a job guarantee as an automatic stabilizer, similar to entitlements like social security and unemployment insurance, possibly shielding it from shifting political tides.Pavlina tells Steve about her collaboration with the Democratizing Work Initiative, a group of academics who are organizing around the principles of democratizing work, decommodifying labor, and decarbonizing the planet.Pavlina Tcherneva is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College, the Director of OSUN’s Economic Democracy Initiative, and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute, NY.  She specializes in modern money and public policy. Find her work at pavlina-tcherneva.net@ptcherneva on Twitter

“We've all got that cop in our head that wants us to see a world full of threats and emergencies.”Steve’s guest, David Correia, is co-author (with Tyler Wall) of Police: A Field Guide. Listeners to the podcast probably understand the role of police is to protect capital, not ensure the safety of the citizens.“...from the railroad strikes of 1877 to the anthracite strike of 1902, it was just this unruly world of labor asserting itself, demanding higher wages, refusing to go back to work, and progressives were among the most effective political force in developing a new order. And that new order required a different cop.”Despite occasional protests and demands for reform, we always end up with more police and more police brutality. Police reformists prioritize law and order over justice, which is why they fear abolition. David asks us to define what order and disorder is. “Because usually cops produce the disorder that they then resolve.” The very language of reform legitimizes the police.David Correia is a writer and professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of a number of books, and co-author, along with Tyler Wall, of "Police: A Field Guide." He is the recipient of a Ford Fellowship, a Henry Belin du Pont Fellowship, and a Lannan Residency Fellowship.

Dr. Yan Liang joins Steve to talk about China’s role in the global economy and the concept of “de-dollarization.” It’s refreshing to hear a discussion of these issues without hyperbole, but you know that already; that’s why you come to Macro N Cheese.Countries of the global south have suffered chronic debt and financial crises due to the neoliberal regime of the US and its allies. After the 2008 financial crisis, China has been diversifying its foreign exchange reserves and establishing currency swaps with more trading partners. The goal is to dilute the power of the dollar and temper US hegemony with a more stable and development-friendly system.Yan and Steve consider the loss of jobs in the US – a consequence of perpetual trade deficits. She maintains that the competition is not between domestic and foreign production, but between high financial returns and real productive capacity.The episode looks at China’s future role in global trade and finance, and how it might provide support and relief to developing nations. The conversation also touches on the flaws of the Western-led multilateral lending system and the need for alternatives.Dr. Yan Liang of Willamette University specializes in Post Keynesian-Institutionalist approach to international trade and finance, financial macroeconomics, and economic development with a regional focus on China.@YanLian31677392

Dr. Lin Zhang talks with Steve about her book "The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy."Her book includes stories of individuals who transformed themselves and their lives to take advantage of this new global economy. She tells of Min, a former prisoner...“I think Min's story in a way captures the sort of imperative of entrepreneurialism in which we are all still living. The contemporary capitalist economy. The need to kind of keep reinventing oneself to adapt to the constant changes, but also the kind of contradiction generated on personal and collective level. So, the coexistence of opportunities, risk and frustrations. So this is, I think, what I try to document in the book, the everyday labor of entrepreneurial reinvention.”Dr. Zhang and Steve discuss the support provided by the state, which is no small matter. It makes entrepreneurism in China different from that of the US, or from India or developing countries of the global South.Zhang also talks about the roots of Chinese nationalism in China's socialist anti-imperialist history, which are reinforced by recent American sanctions and containment of China.Zhang argues that the US tends to view China through a simplistic lens of authoritarianism versus democracy, while the majority of Chinese people do not see their relationship with the party state in such terms. She provides a more nuanced picture of the Chinese state, discussing the competing demands of the central government to maintain economic development, social equity, and national security, as well as the discrepancies between central and local states.Dr. Lin Zhang is an assistant professor of communication and media studies at the University of New Hampshire. She graduated from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, with a PhD in Communication, and MA from NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. She is the author of The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy, one of the first multi-sited ethnographic accounts of the rising entrepreneurial labor in urban, rural, and transnational China since tech innovation had accelerated in the country after 2008.https://linzhangweb.org

It’s been almost two years since we’ve had German economist Dirk Ehnts on the podcast. This episode can be seen as part of Steve’s ongoing look at “dedollarization” and what it means to be the world’s reserve currency. They turn the MMT lens toward the Eurozone, comparing governments’ responses to the pandemic, inflation, and the treatment of labor.“So of course the labor laws are different in Germany compared to Italy, to France and so on. If the French workers go on strikes, they burn stuff. It's always amazing for us Germans to see it happening, but their productivity is even higher. So maybe German workers should burn stuff when they go on strike. So that increases productivity.No, I'm just joking. I never said that!"Dirk talks about changes in regulations on deficit spending and his belief that the ECB understands MMT, as evidenced by their support of national governments during economic crises. When monetary sovereignty was returned to Eurozone countries over a four-year period, “the results were pretty good.” They now have a lower rate of unemployment than ever before. It’s still high... but not as high as before. He thinks inequality is not quite so bad as in the US and explains why this is.Steve and Dirk discuss how Europe is affected by the US Fed’s raising of interest rates. “So it's just giving money to people who have money like Warren (Mosler) always says.” But ultimately, “the net effect is that we have roughly zero growth in the European economy.”Dr. Dirk H. Ehnts holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oldenburg and a diploma in economics from the University of Göttingen. A heterodox economist, he is one of the leading proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  He has taught classes on macroeconomics, money and currency, European and global economics, and the origins of political economy at a number of institutions. Every summer since 2016 Dirk has held a course on Modern Monetary Theory at the Summer School of Maastricht University and has published numerous articles in specialist journals and daily newspapers.https://www.dirk-ehnts.de/en-us/@DEhnts on Twitter

New Zealander Bijou Smith is a longtime friend of Steve and the podcast. His story, in brief: “I was a physicist. I love physics, theoretical physics, but when I learned a bit about economics—I was always interested in economics from a sort of dynamical systems analysis perspective. It's kind of interesting mathematics. Even the neoclassical stuff is interesting for a little while until you realize it's a joke. But then when I heard about MMT, a lot of the pieces clicked into placed and it's like, wow, this is really the struggle.” MMT is a bell that can’t be unrung.Steve and Bijou talk of popular concern about the petrodollar, and how economic illiteracy distorts its importance. The role of the US dollar in global political economy is poorly understood without the insights of MMT.Smith criticizes the false psychology that views currency as a finite resource and is locked into the image of fixed exchange rates. He argues that this creates mental models that are not true but are still played out as if they are. He distinguishes between false conceptions of dollar hegemony and the very real struggles that countries face when they are indebted to the IMF and believe the imposition of austerity is the only way out.The discussion looks at the way foreign exchange rates affect and do not affect national economies. Smith explains that this process does not have anything to do with confidence in a particular currency. It is a market-making activity.Those who follow us know that Steve has long been searching for a way to bring the understanding of MMT to the left. This episode is a continuation of that journey.Bijou Smith has lectured and taught general physics, magnetohydrodynamics, undergrad mathematics, statistics and IT. He now devotes most of his time to independent research in theoretical physics and studying implications of Modern Monetary Theory. Check out his blog, Ohanga Pai, at bijou.substack.com@MathWillSuffice on Twitter

If you’re one of the lucky ones who attended our webinar, RP Live with Clara E. Mattei, then you’ve already heard this episode. Or you may have watched the video of that event. This podcast episode is the audio version, but we’re asking you to play it anyway. It never hurts to hear information a few times, and by playing it, you’re also helping us grow Macro N Cheese. Because algorithms.On Tuesday, May 2nd, Professor Mattei will be joining us for the first of two sessions of RP Book Club on The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism. There’s still time to register using the link at the bottom of this page.At the end of The Capital Order Mattei writes:"This book has detailed a set of influential economic patterns that are pervasive across the globe and that shape our daily lives. Contrary to what the proponents of austerity would have us think, however, the socioeconomic system we live in is not inevitable, nor is it to be grudgingly accepted as the only way forward. Austerity is a political project arising out of the need to preserve capitalist class relations of domination. It is the outcome of collective action to foreclose any alternatives to capitalism. It can thus be subverted through collective counteraction. The study of its logic and purpose is the first step in that direction."Join us for RP Book Club, May 2nd and 16th. To register, go to https://realprogressives.org/rp-book-club/Clara E. Mattei is an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department of The New School for Social Research and was a 2018-2019 member of the School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Her research contributes to the history of capitalism, exploring the critical relation between economic ideas and technocratic policy making.@claraemattei on Twitter<a href="https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-198-the-trinity-of-austerity-with-clara-mattei/">https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-198-the-trinity-of-austerity-with-clara-mattei/</a>

Carl Zha brings us his knowledge of China, the US, and global political economic relations. He also brings his exquisite sense of the absurd.Exactly one year ago, Carl and Steve recorded their marathon discussion of Chinese history, resulting in three episodes about Mao. This time, they have Taiwan in their sights. Just like Joe Biden.Official US policy on Taiwan is just ambiguous enough to allow plenty of shenanigans, despite recognizing “one China” since the 1970s.“We know how the Cold War 1.0 played out. We isolated the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc. We cut off all the trade and then eventually the Soviet Union collapsed. This is how we won the Cold War 1.0. So we'll just play the same playbook to win Cold War 2.0 against China. But this is crazy talk because China is nothing like Soviet Union of the yester years; China is the world's largest trading economy. It has trade not just with United States and Europe but also has a huge trade with the global south. So, what the US is doing in its attempted decoupling from China, actually it's cutting US off from the rest of the world.”The United States has gone from being a major industrial power to being a service economy with a neglected, crumbling infrastructure. China is building economic relationships around the world “without tanks and nuclear arms and planes,” says Steve. “China has been working in a much more cooperative way and people are lining up to say, ‘sign me up. I don't want the US having its hands on me.’”The conversation covers the economic and political implications of this reversal of fortune. With their massive exports to the US, China has accumulated vast amounts of US dollars. The 2008 financial crisis supplied impetus for China to seek new uses for their dollars reserves. Carl explains the Belt and Road Initiative and its multifaceted benefits.Carl Zha hosts Silk and Steel, a weekly podcast discussing history, culture, and current events of China and the Silk Road. Support him at patreon.com/silknsteel. His YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/@CarlZha.@CarlZha on Twittert.me/CarlZha on Telegram

It’s been two years since Bill Black was last on with Steve. We’ve invited several guests to talk about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, so it only makes sense to ask our whistleblower friend to weigh in. Bill and Steve discuss what it means to be too big to fail. When an institution is too big to fail, the creditors get bailed out, but then, Bill says, “really really bad things have happened.” “...they hold the economy hostage. And nowadays they hold the global economy hostage. And if you hold the global economy hostage, you hold global politics hostage. So that needs to be fixed. And the way to fix that is not to allow such institutions, right? Duh,” The episode looks at the capture of government by the financial industry. Bill talks about his experience during the savings and loan crisis and the transition from somewhat effective regulatory apparatus to a fully cock-blocked system. (Our words, not his.) 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 The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.

Author Dan Kovalik talks to Steve about his recent book, Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention and Resistance. His perspective includes his own experiences in Nicaragua and the personal connections he made there.From the 1910 occupation and eventual ouster of US Marines, through the dictatorships of several members of the Samosa family, the conditions for revolution were ripe. Dan describes the 1979 revolution as a David and Goliath story. The Sandinistas inherited a country steeped in poverty, with no infrastructure. The US-backed counterrevolution began almost immediately. Ronald Reagan and the Contras are just a small piece of it.Dan grew up believing the US was the beacon on the hill, committed to spreading democracy and freedom. His first trip to Nicaragua changed his politics and his life.Dan Kovalik is a labor and human rights lawyer and peace activist. He teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the author of several books, including The Plot to Scapegoat Russia and Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention and Resistance.@danielmkovalik on Twitter

C. Derick Varn is a poet, teacher, and “arm-chair theorist” (his words, not ours), but Steve called on him for his deep knowledge of history, specifically the history of revolutions.Varn takes a realistic and nuanced look at some of the popular myths about the brutality of key figures, like Stalin and Mao. He suggests placing them in the context of historical geopolitical economic conditions.I'm also just going to remind people that both the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chinese Revolution, in particular, come out of the context of world wars. They happen when they happen during the world wars for a reason. You have highly traumatized societies where the power has been broken because of the consequences of world war, even when the powers at hand are actually allied with the winners.Steve asks whether one should excuse abandoning civil liberties in order to protect the gains of a revolution against very real internal and external threats. “What civil liberties?” asks Varn. Some revolutions never even got rid of their monarchies.The episode considers Bolshevism, Trotskyism, and fascism. Varn talks about why both socialists and capitalists were attracted to fascism, looking, again, to the conditions of the time.C. Derick Varn is a poet, teacher, editor, podcaster, and broadcaster. He is the host of VarnVlog and co-host of Gaming Materialists. According to his Patreon, Varn Vlog is a podcast and YouTube channel dedicated to delivering high-quality interviews and analyses on philosophy, art, political economy, culture, geopolitics, pop culture, and history. Support his work at patreon.com/varnvlog@skepoet on Twitter

When you learned of the run on Silicon Valley Bank, did the image of George Bailey come to mind, facing the mob demanding full withdrawals from Bailey Building &amp; Loan?“You’re thinking of this place all wrong, as if I had the money back in the safe. The money’s not here. Why, your money’s in Joe’s house that’s right next to yours. And the Kennedy house and Mrs. Maitland’s house, and a hundred others. You’re lending them the money to build, and they pay it back to you as best they can. What are you gonna do, foreclose on them?” (It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946)Steve’s guest is Brian Romanchuk of Bond Economics, here to break down the conditions and events leading to the collapse of SVB. Spoiler alert: there’s no Jimmy Stewart, no uplifting message, no sentimental tears.Brian explains how the American banking system is unusual relative to other developed countries. In Canada, where he lives, the Big Five banks are an oligopoly, but they’re diversified. They deal with all the nation’s banking needs.SVB is a relatively small bank, specializing in venture capital. This focus affects expectation of profits and the decision to invest in long-term Treasurys. When the Federal Reserve, fighting inflation on the backs of the working class, raised interest rates, the ultimate result was the bank’s collapse.Brian and Steve discuss how the Fed’s policies have led to a decrease in savings and an increase in debt, leading to greater inequality. They touch on Credit Suisse as well as pension funds in the UK, and try to clarify our understanding of bankruptcy and “bail-outs.”Real life is more complicated than it’s presented in movies. Don’t expect any angels to get their wings.Brian Romanchuk is the author of several books, including Modern Monetary Theory and the Recovery. He is the writer and publisher of bondeconomics.com. His writings can be found in his substack, The BondEconomics Newsletter.@RomanchukBrian on Twitter

Steve always says the beauty of MMT is “it takes the most convoluted spaghetti diagram and turns it into a straight line.” When it comes to banking, the financial industry, financial technology, and privacy, has the MMT community developed that straight line yet? Today’s guest, Raúl Carrillo, thinks we can get there:“I don't think we quite have, but I think the straight line flows right through everything else we've done. Just as we don't want banks to be heavily involved in the public provisioning process... We have to pay just as much attention to Silicon Valley, and then start thinking about what it looks like to actually build a democratic public money system that operates on MMT principles.”It’s been two years since we’ve had Raúl on the podcast, but the conversation is continuous, and it includes our episodes with Rohan Grey and Brett Scott.Steve and Raúl discuss Raúl’s recently published white paper, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4354085">"Seeing Through Money: Democracy, Data Governance, and the Digital Dollar."</a> It is essentially an intervention in the discussion about the future of money. It includes analysis of the way government agencies use financial technology today and how it is linked to a broader public money story and an MMT story. Currently, banks are intermediaries between the public and the state. In other words, banks are part of the plumbing. But what’s to stop the government from using financial technology for the public purpose and cutting the middlemen?Today, however, it’s more than just the banks.“The inclusion of new technological partners in the plumbing changes many, many things. If a Silicon Valley firm – whether it's a big stablecoin firm like Circle or PayPal – gets a master account at the Fed, we're living in a different terrain for MMT analysis ... I think it's just very important that we keep an eye on Silicon Valley in this sense and take the time for self-assessment when we talk about what kind of public money systems we're building.”The conversation goes into privacy issues where, again, the lines are blurred between the private sector and the government. Or maybe “blurred” is the wrong word. Their lines of communication are not necessarily visible to the public. What has been blurred is, in some cases, the distinction between left and right.Some take-aways from the episode. Financial surveillance can have extreme consequences. Think of a state with draconian anti-abortion laws. If the government can’t get a hold of your medical records, they can simply track your payments. After the Dobbs ruling, some suggested using cryptocurrency to pay for abortion, but guess what? It turns out blockchain is not private in the way most people think it is. That’s another take-away from the episode.Whatever the idealized intentions of the early developers of digital currency (remember how it would address the racial wealth gap?) it has mutated into a world of grifters and fraud. As Raúl says, “It’s not a cool party anymore, if it ever was. When you’ve got the cops and the bankers there, it’s time to leave.”Raúl Carrillo is the Deputy Director of the LPE Project (Law and Political Economy) and an Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School. He is on the board of Modern Money Network and the chair of Public Money Action.@RaulACarrillo on Twitter

Austerity is a potent weapon of class warfare. Political economist David Fields talks with Steve about the ways austerity serves to discipline labor, as it has been doing since the Bolshevik revolution. They touch on the reasons capitalism cannot risk full employment, as explained by both Karl Marx and Michal Kalecki.David wants people to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations or The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Even Smith, the father of the “invisible hand,” said government is instituted for the security of property — for the rich against the poor.The discussion touches on the current inflation, comparing the true causes to the mainstream narrative.“There's been a very coordinated, calculated campaign with well-known economists. Call it neoliberalism. Call it what you want, financialization... The concepts, terms, economic principles that we take for granted are not value-neutral.”We are embedded in a system of winners and losers and we’re meant to believe there’s no other way. Workers must be prevented from understanding the trifecta of austerity – fiscal, monetary, and industrial.Bio: David M. Fields, Political Economist, Utah. From a critical realist &amp; genetic structuralist ontology &amp; epistemology, David's scholarly work centers on the intricacies concerning the interactions of foreign exchange &amp; capital flows with economic growth, fiscal &amp; monetary policy, and distribution, whereby attention is paid to the nature of money and international political economy. He has published in the following journals: Review of International Political Economy, Review of Political Economy, American Review of Political Economy, the Review of Keynesian Economics, and the Review of Radical Political Economics. Additionally, he has provided book chapter contributions to The Encyclopedia of Post-Keynesian Economics, The Encyclopedia of Central Banking, and the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization. David received his graduate degree from the University of Utah; his bachelor's from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.@ProfDavidFields on Twitter

Dr. Fadhel Kaboub was recently appointed Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development of the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC), an international intergovernmental organisation founded by countries from across the Global South. In honor of Fadhel’s new position, we’re releasing Steve’s very first interview with him from back in the day when we live streamed onto Facebook. Steve thinks his questions are very different today — more disciplined. Some of us can’t get over how young he sounded. It was only five years ago!Fadhel and Steve discuss the spectrum of monetary sovereignty from full sovereignty to completely non-sovereign. Fadhel explains the structural debt traps developing nations find themselves in. They have deficits related to lack of sufficient food or energy production, forcing them to rely on imports.“Those are things that, no matter what you do as a central bank, you're not going to eliminate those structural issues unless as a country you start investing in renewable energy so that you don't have to import fossil fuels anymore or you invest in a sustainable agricultural policy to let you have food self-sufficiency.”The hole in their trade deficit leads to depreciation of their exchange rate.“And then the next morning or the next month when you as a country try to import food or fuel, you're going to import it at a higher price. So you'd be importing inflation into your domestic economy ... The inflation is related to a weakness of the productive capacity of the domestic system plus the imported inflation that happens because of the depreciation of the exchange rate.”Fadhel and Steve also discuss the devastating effects of unemployment and the potential of a Job Guarantee Program for developing countries.Dr. Fadhel Kaboub is Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development of the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC). He is an Associate Professor of Economics (on leave) at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.@FadhelKaboub on Twitter

Historian Harvey J. Kaye joins Steve to talk about the complicated legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Kaye acknowledges many points in our criticism of FDR but goes on to discuss what Roosevelt was up against, and why he should be respected.“Because Gramsci, I think it was, said, when you judge the past, don't forget, you too shall be judged. I'm paraphrasing … When socialists start winning elections, then they can start telling me about how inadequate FDR was.”Them’s fighting words! But speaking of socialists – or rather, social democrats – and elections, the episode also includes discussion of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, and the lessons Bernie could have taken from FDR. After all, they both faced serious opposition within the Democratic Party.At a time when the American capitalist class were enamored of Mussolini, Harvey lays out FDR’s achievements and maintains that those policies prevented a revolution. Listen to the episode and see whether you agree.Harvey J. Kaye is a Professor Emeritus of Democracy and Justice at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, and an award-winning writer who has authored and edited 18 books, including Thomas Paine and The Promise of America, Take Hold of Our History, FDR on Democracy, The Fight for the Four Freedoms, and The British Marxist Historians.@harveyjkaye on Twitter

Recent episodes of this podcast have looked at the many ways in which the US attempts to maintain global hegemony through the deep state, the banking system, NATO, and the unholy trinity of the IMF, WTO, and World Bank.This week, Steve talks with Daniel Conceição about the possibility of a supranational currency for Brazil and Argentina. Daniel points out some potential benefits, but it’s hard to avoid comparisons to the Eurozone and the crippling loss of monetary sovereignty. Nevertheless , if successful, such an agreement has far-reaching implications not only for these two nations but potentially throughout all of Latin America, helping promote greater economic integration while providing increased stability.Steve and Daniel revisit the issue of the petrodollar. Traditional MMT wisdom would say it’s no big deal; it’s merely a numeraire. Daniel suggests there’s more to it, “because when we claim that taxes are the main driver of currency acceptability, what we really mean is that necessity is the main driver.” Just as taxes put us in need of the currency,“...in the exact same way, if there's a commodity that is hugely needed for your economy to function—everyone needs to purchase it—and if that commodity is only purchasable in a particular currency, then it also necessarily will give acceptability to that currency.”The episode considers the accuracy of books such as ‘’Confessions of an Economic Hitman.” Daniel points out that mainstream economics is a tool to preserve the interests of the ruling class both domestically and internationally. It’s a mistake to think the economic hitmen are working to secure American interests. Just as we’ve heard from Aaron Good, Michael Hudson, Clara Mattei, and other guests, it’s not a case of country against country, but of a ruling class working against the interests of everyone else.Daniel Negreiros Conceição did his undergraduate studies in Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and his postgraduate studies at UMKC (under Professors Wray, Kelton, et al). He is a professor of macroeconomics and public finance at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He helped create the Institute for Functional Finance and Development (iffdbrasil.org), where he currently serves as president, and he helps run the Brazilian Modern Money Network (https://mmtbrasil.com/) aimed at producing more easily accessible material for teaching MMT to the wider public.@stopthelunacy on Twitter

We revere venture capitalists, don’t we? Without their brave acts of derring-do — AKA investing in uncertain ventures — how would society achieve progress? Just kidding.If you are a regular listener to this podcast, you’ve heard guests speak about the horizontal contradictions within the ruling class. Industrial capital and finance capital can each be affected differently by foreign, domestic, fiscal, and monetary policies. They may sing from the same hymn book but sometimes their interests diverge.Steve’s guest, Dr. Julia Ott, teaches the history of capitalism at the New School. She and Steve focus their discussion on venture capitalism and its implications on policy changes, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. They explore how venture capitalists have been heavily involved in lobbying for capital gains tax breaks, leaving them more to invest and pass on to their children, exacerbating the extremes of generational wealth and generational poverty, especially for people of color.They also observe how venture capital is assumed to create a virtuous cycle by reinvesting in multiple new companies. Historically, however, the state has been more consequential to economic growth and job creation than venture capital. For all the anti-government rhetoric flying around, especially during conservative or laissez faire periods (hello, Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher), the federal government is heavily involved in capital markets and infrastructure. Far from interfering, the state is a willing and consistent facilitator in the amassing of private wealth.Dr. Julia Ott is Associate Professor of the History of Capitalism and Co-Director of the Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies at the New School for Social Research.

If Macro N Cheese wasn’t committed to spreading MMT to the activist community, we might have been a history podcast. Nothing excites Steve Grumbine as much as listening to 50 hours of lectures on the French Revolution or the Black Plague. This week’s guest, Aaron Good, checks a lot of our boxes. What he brings to the table is history with a solid class analysis.Aaron is the author of American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. American exception should not be confused with American exceptionalism; think instead of the concept of laws applying to everyone EXCEPT one nation or one elite group.During World War II, the US oligarchy saw the opportunity to replace the western European colonial powers with a new empire. They planned and created institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, the CIA — all designed to launch and support this new era of US domination of global capitalism. Imperialism required its own strategy:“To do all of this, they need to have the capitalist world all marching to America's beat. And so the Cold War is more or less ginned up and anti-communism becomes the principle around which the US empire is organized. So it's an empire, but it's not an empire that says ‘we are an empire and we're going out to rule the world.’Instead, it is packaged as a defensive response to a terrible threat. And so communism is the perfect foil because you can basically castigate any left-wing idea that you don't like as being part of this global communist plot, whether domestically or around the world. And they use this to legitimate, really, an attack on the whole world and also on the US population.”Aaron and Steve go on to discuss more of the history of US hegemony, elite criminality, and anti-democratic forces. They look at ruling class manipulation of institutions like academia, politics, and media. They critique Scandinavia as an example of democratic socialism (or social democracy?) with capitalist rule and explore the complicated legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt.Aaron Good holds a doctorate in political science from Temple University. He is the author of American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, and host of the American Exception podcast. Support him on patreon.com/americanexception@Aaron_Good_ on Twitter

When you realize the national debt is little more than a bunch of interest-bearing savings accounts, you will have effectively neutered the politicians and pundits who wield it like a weapon to keep the people in line and tame the working class. Every year in the US, the debt ceiling alarm is rung right on schedule. Just like Halloween.Interest-bearing Treasury bills are not available to most of us. (Do you have an account with the Federal Reserve? No? Exactly.) Rohan Grey is back to explain how these things work for the select elite. Not only do the rest of us handle money differently—we think about it differently. The words we use have different meanings.“The average person might think money is the opposite of debt. Well, that's not how the financiers think. That's not how the bankers think. That's not how the hedge fund managers think. For them, cash is debt. Debt is cash. It just depends on what they're talking about.”We’re supposed to believe the US is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Every time a Treasury bill comes due, we should hold our collective breath and pray the government has the funds to pay down another installment of the “debt.” Rohan takes us through the day-to-day buying and selling of Treasurys. The financiers, bankers, and hedge fund managers aren’t worried. At least not about US insolvency. We can exhale.Steve and Rohan talk about the trillion-dollar platinum coin and the law that makes it a ridiculously simple solution. If only the ruling elite didn’t have a different agenda.The Macro N Cheese official Rohan Grey cultural references spotter flagged The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a Beatles song (Taxman, of course), Better Call Saul, Seinfeld, and Kaleidoscope, Natasha Lyonne’s new Netflix series. Chuck E. Cheese and McDonald’s pop up as well.Chuck E. Cheese and McDonald’s show up as well.Rohan Grey is an Assistant Professor of Law at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and the founder and president of the Modern Money Network. MintTheCoin.org@rohangrey on Twitter