Toxic Green

Tadgh Stopford, an NZ historian and teacher, wrote recently about how our macroeconomic problems are finding the sustainable real resources, not “funding the money.” Finding the money is never a problem … for a government. They create the currency. (Banks cannot legally create net “$” assets. If they did it’d be tantamount to counterfeit, or the more boring term, “fraud”.)

Arguing that the economy should have net zero tax credits in circulation is called Austerity. It is one fo the worst crimes against humanity, perhaps worse than a hundred genocides (the real costs of austerity far exceeding those of a genocide like Gaza).

These days I write less about MMT per se, and more about why one should bother to comprehend MMT. Because I find many who claim to know about MMT do not understand MMT. This is because they focus narrowly on the monetary operations. WHich is a god place to start. but no one with a moral conscience should stop there! This is why my definition of “MMT” is not the mainstream one, mine is from the GOAT, Mosler himself:

“MMT is an understanding the currency is a simple public monopoly and all the consequences thereof.”

Once you have this definition “all the consequences” are your moral obligation to deduce and explore and contemplate at the injustice that will soon be evident to you, if you have one ounce of compassion and concern for the poor.

Tadgh led with,

The question is not “Can We Afford It?” — It’s Who Controls Credit, Measurement, and National Direction.

No serious disagreement from me.

My comment to Tadgh’s article was this:

👍 May I add: To avoid triggering every other man & his dog who actually perversely likes those in power controlling credit, you can always lead with:— the question is, “Can we afford it in real terms?” — or more accurately, “Can we afford it [to employ an idel resource] in real terms? If so, it is affordable in government $ terms if the government is the employer.”

I made the mistake of exposing myself recently to the soundwaves from RNZ — also TVNZ, both (I was staying at a relatives who still watches “TV”🤣). Almost every story was full of toxic brainwashing spew, we are drenched in neoliberalism and monetarist macroeconomics daily, it’s worse than 1984 or MK-ULTRA. Far worse. I’d rather have the LSD. Every single story touched on macroeconomics, and got the story of our actual monetary operations completely backwards, even Chlöe Swarbrick given actual airtime, totally wasted it by spewing Thatcherite talking points, spewing Reaganite nonsense about the “billion dollar debt”, failing to point out that’s our non-government net savings, to the penny. We can do without the Greens performing the Neoliberal’s job for them every slim chance they get airtime on public media.

The problem is (𝙖) the debt is too low for the level of NZ household savings desires (the evidence is unemployment), and (𝙗) as both yourself and Chlöe would agree upon with me (if she had any actual factual knowledge of monetary operations) the government debt is horrifically maldistributed (all in the bank accounts of the top Ten Percent). That’s your source of unbridled unequal power and control. The reason I cannot get a decent public platform is that I do not have the government scorepoints to pay for the distribution of my particular advertising and propaganda. I have to rely upon slow gradual ratchet effect education, truth, honesty and many funerals plus no reincarnation of neoliberals.

BTW, it was almost comically tragic to recently hear news stories about cuts to the civil service and cuts to RNZ. Both those institutions were the cause of their own budget cuts, because they actually agree with the Tories that the “tax dollar” (presumably they think counterfeited by households or bankers) is funding the government. What if all RNZ staff understood MMT — that their salaries are funding the tax payer, not the other way around? Do you think it might change their reportage on their own budget cuts? Do you think?

There is no excuse for having unemployed journalists. If they are rubbish at the investigation and accuracy they can always be employed to write stories then throw them in the trash bin, if we cannot find anything else for them to do
(in other words if we were all braindead).