Thank you Michael & Nate. I've been in this "Game" since 1971 (1971 is not a typo:), and your discussion here is in the TOP TEN Best Presentations on what I call the socio-eco-econ-ethical Crisis I've ever heard. KUDOS, from an Environmental Geographer. p.s. to Nate: also in my Top Ten are one of your interviews with Simon Michaux and one with Tom Murphy. Thanks for all your work.
This is the second time I have listened to Michael Every when I last listened to him on Adam Taggerts's old channel, Wealthion. Again, I am deeply impressed astonished, and dismayed, not by his clarity of thought, but by the awful predicament he so eloquently describes. We are a planetary monetary species, but we seem to not understand the implications of those actions on our common environment. His voice of reason must resonate with worldwide power brokers, but how is it that only Trumpian political players appeared receptive to his evaluation of global economic risk? Curious...
Wow--this is a great discussion. One of the best, and much appreciated. Finance is the mechanics of the BAU economy, and it is good to hear from a 'mechanic' who questions the machine itself. There's a lot to learn and unpack from this podcast. Thanks again.
A brilliant man, Mr Every, and a brilliant conversation, Nate. I think it is possible to invest too much in what we read, no matter where. Humans have never before faced the meta, or poly tragedy of destroying most of what makes the planet blue-green, i.e., (mostly) multi-cellular life, and oxygenated water in the sea. We all need to be in communities small enough to encounter in our daily lives the reality that nature is not an "externality". All powerful tools can do powerffully moral, and/ or powerfully immoral things. Such is human nature, and how it is treated from its genetic underpinnings to its manifestations in our social connections. Morality is not an external constraint around our wrists, It is foundational in human nature. Mr. Every's description of amoral economic shining lights having deathbed flashes of wealth having a meaning that transcends money reminded me of Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich".
That requires not having citizens of nowhere and mass migration to destroy our long-cherished communities. It also misses the fact that the industrialised world will half by the end of the century and in many cases by mid-century regards the wording age population. This will more than blow the climate targets (I don't agree with as they have this all wrong) out of the water. Climate is not an issue right now, it is catastrophic population and therefore systems collapse. The climate story is over, the cleanliness of the ground and sea however, isn't. That needs a lot of work.
Another hit out of the park! The discussions with guests who speak on economics topics are consistently excellent and so illuminating. It's a combination of the quality of the thinkers Nate invites on TGS, and Nate's own ability to ask insightful questions grown out of his diverse intellectual background. Really, I find TGS discussions one of the best uses of my "screen time". Thanks, Nate, for doing this interview! At timestamp 1:06, Every is talking about how the free market allocates investment and sets rates (silly app ventures being advantaged over boring food ventures), and it reminds me of Nate's conversation with Iain McGilchrist: our culture is dominated by "the Emissary" part of our brain, and "the Master" -- which would reign-in bad economic decisions and instead use wisdom and cultural values to set priorities -- is missing. And from what Every says, it sounds like economist Schumpeter had a similar insight at the end of his life, about the "free" market needing Catholic values (or really, any non- "efficiency-centric" values), as has Angus Deaton. Interesting to see so much overlap in the conversations in TGS...
One thing people forget about MMT, besides the fact that it is a descriptive, as opposed to a prescriptive, theory, is that we are already "doing" MMT. Our government has been freely spending money into existence and running defecits almost all the years since 1971. The question is, what is that money being used for? Further, we also have the capacity to tax those dollars back out of existence if we run up against inflationary pressures. We can, if need be, gain ourselves more fiscal space, disincentivize spevulation and incentivize productive investment by raising the taxes on the upper brackets the way we did during the 1940s and 1950s. We can also shift a lot of that foreign military spending back home to retool infrastructure and literally get more bang for our buck by nationalizing the defense industries, thus eliminating the incentives for defemse contractors to make highly expensive, maintenance intensive, ineffective weapons systems in favor of far cheaper, more reliable, and more effective systems.
Really enjoyed that episode and Micheal is articulate and clear. On the MMT debate, isn’t is always based on the supply side. MMT explains double entry booking how money is created, if you don’t understand your capacity MMT won’t work. Always comes back to how we want to organise as a society, we have lost our way.
There is an old addage which says, you can't have an economy based on theft. This is what happens when greed is the "good" motive that underlies the economy. Anyone who has played the game monopoly, can realize why wealth accumulates or redistributes to the players who can earn money rapidly using other money. The more money a greed based investment accumulates the more that new wealth is invested in other greed based business activities. The wealth accumulates, not based on work, or creativity, it accumulates based on the money already accumulated. It grows on itself, rather than the efforts of the person who owns the wealth. Eventually the game ends when all the wealth is funnelled to one player, and everyone else is bankrupt. In effect, the economy of the game collapses from a deflationary collapse. This always happens in monopoly, and on a larger scale, its happening to the global economy now.
In what sense is the collapse deflationary? Nor does it seem to be historically accurate, since the U.S.'s rise to industrial dominance took place in a period of constant deflation, from 1865 thru 1897. ( with real or lawful money. ) The prices of the commodities produced by the "robber barons" consistently fell, while the purchasing power of the dollar increased, and in the case of oil, that went from $16/12 brrl to less than $1. and stayed there until the trust was busted in 1909, which is considerably more than can be accounted for from the 95% inflation that resulted from the civil war and its recovery to pre-war levels in 1897. If one accepts that inflation/ deflation is strictly a monetary phenomenon...which doesn't begin to emerge as a commodity ( coins ) until 600BCE, early credit systems always resulted in the accumulation of wealth by those in charge of the system, and the increase of debt for everyone else. Wealth extraction via rents, interest, taxation, fees, etc., are non-productive activities...and the use to which this revenue is directed must be appropriately allocated and efficiently managed. In this sense, the interests of the authority and the system itself are directly opposed to that of the general public...as both the misdirection and inefficiencies of the system leads to increases in costs and the expansion of government. Real ( commodity ) money sends signals of this imbalance much sooner...and is a hindrance to government ambitions, so its elimination is a necessary step in the continuation along this path...and what better vehicle than "magic money"...to accommodate it. Unfortunately, this accelerates the effects...and the consequences. ( and you are here. )
I've never heard that saying. Greed is good is a govt. sanctioned message. Monopoly only exists because of a finite amount of money, this doesn't exist in todays world. All the debt based money paid back would mean zero money in the world, same as all to one person, which is impossible, even the 1% of which we are supposed to be of the world, even if the 1% hold all the paper value it doesn't stay in their accounts, it get's loaned out just like your money. They are trying to pump as much money in as they can because it's all debt based and they get a return. The only reason poor people don't have money is they can't get into debt, half the world lives like this, Africa is on the cusp of growth like the west had over the last 80 years in the next 80, the total amount of money in the world isn't going to decline or be cut off is it? Sure the 800% growth the west had over 200 years might be coming to a settling but the economics are different .
Every’s thesis is that “MMT works, but the newly created money has to be invested into the supply side of the economy.” So here’s a question, where does the money flow to? There’s a multitude of energy technologies, do the legislators invest 50% into solar, 25% into nuclear, and 12.5% into wind, and 12.5% into geothermal? What about companies, what companies get a hold of the money and what don’t? What about production, how do we know the money being invested is actually producing something of value? What about volume, if MMT applied “correctly” is a good thing, then what’s the difference between monetizing a trillion dollars into the supply side versus a hundred trillion? How can a consortium of highly intelligent people allocate resources in a long term value producing manner compared to a dynamic free enterprise system? In 1968, The Club of Rome was telling the world that we would run out of oil (or face unaffordable prices). By 1998, oil prices collapsed to $10 a barrel. Why…because oil is a commodity, and when the price goes up, capital is invested into the industry, resulting in an oversupply which brings prices back down. If Michael Every was a public legislator in 1980 when oil was $35 ($129 a barrel in 2023 dollars) a barrel, would he have legislated the investment of billions into oil and gas industry? Also, what’s the opportunity cost? If it takes 100 billion in capital to bring oil from $35 a barrel to $10, at what point does the law of diminishing returns activate; meaning the capital is utilized more effectively by a different enterprise? So I ask you, who can honestly answer any of these questions?
Turns out "greed-ism" is the metacrisis, b/c we've finally reached the emerging limits to growth...and growth oriented only to extraction and waste is bottom line profit only is "greed-ism" which will always collapse a society, now the world. Economy based primarily on greed which we benignly call the free market measured by GDP.
@@richardlane5498 My comment is about how “supply side modern monetary theory” will inevitably fail because it can’t dynamically allocate capital. What does this comment have to do with that?
MMT works it just might not work FOR YOU. Right now the current system is working just fine if you are part of the 001%. There is no need to change it.
@@DoubtfireClubWGPowers Money is energy because everything you buy with it requires energy. I’m assuming you like myself trade are time for money, so you can think about it in terms of joules of energy captured per hour worked. MMT doesn’t play by the same rules you and me play by. If money is energy, then MMT says there’s a special group of people that have access to unlimited energy (by the way, your energy) at no cost. Does that sound moral, ethical, or progressive to you?
I'm glad someone is saying this that has a platform. It's basically greed is why capitalism cannot work. Humans would have to evolve beyond the level of greed.This is why we are doomed.
Our tendency to look for patterns in past behavior helps us plan for an array of future possibilities. It doesn't serve us to treat the patterns we find as if they constitute an absolute and infallible Oracle.
It's a lack of resources why capitalism won't work. the ability to consume whatever you want just because you hold money can't continue and you can't buy your way to a better planet if people can consume what they want, If this constraint wasn't in place then greed wouldn't matter. What do you mean doomed? People are mostly ignorant, emergent response once options are available, or even once they aren't as ignorant would mean different responses to what they then perceive as reality. It might be money is doomed but let's imagine we go forward 200 years and it is equal to times 200 years ago, energy wise, life wise, horses etc and we can take the best of what we have now with us, it might be life is better. We really do only need to supply people food and shelter and medical care, switching from profit to need, surely is going to be the result of any metricises coming true. Once humans realise we only need to do 10-20% of what we do and we could raise general wellbeing for everybody, once we look all the way along the system to the central banks and what they mean to how society is allowed to flow, in the background of everything we do, I think once society realises how much of their lifes efforts are being taken for granted, are being taxed in dollar values of 50% of their working lives, at least. I think there is a groundswell of people understanding this issue more now with the internet. I'm not sure what is being taught in schools about the debt based system and how or if it changed after going off the gold standard but any slow down if it was 30-100 years in the future won't mean we are doomed, it will mean we will evolve, because there will be no choice.
Yes, but it's neither can pure socialism. The key issue is that it is never binary and the devil us in the detail. I.e. the right answer is always balance between the 2 extremes.
I think the answer is in game theory and particularly the Nash equilibrium. We are stuck in the system and attempted change lessens our position and therefore the ability to change it ! The resolution of the problem is to start a new game in parallel with a new rule set that produces the result we need. That result is restorative activities that balance the consumption.
Michael described what many marxist have said and theorized. Local production is a key part of socialist/communist economics. You need a base of productivity to give returns to your citizens. Not to mention the environmental benefit and stability of reducing the supply chains. By producing things in your own country and by giving the labor ownership in some form, whether through co-ops or nationalization, you reduce inequalities. It may also be the only way to limit the exploitation of resources. This is all theoretical though. I'm sure we'll nuke ourselves before we see another major country have a marxist revolution,
The fed doing QE or QT has nothing to do with MMT. MMT is a theory that describes how money originates and functions. Governments spend money into existence and tax it back out again. The dollars do NOT originate from taxation. The dollars originate from spending and always have for thousands of years since the invention of money. This is true regardless of whether the government runs a deficit or a surplus, whether it engages in QE, which is in effect the government converting its less liquid treasury bond financial instruments into more liquid dollars by buying its own bonds or private sector bonds, or whether it does QT by reversing that process by tying up a greater proportion of bank reserves by issuing a higher proportion of treasury bonds, thus reducing the quantity of dollar holdings in bank reserves. MMT just describes how money works. It is not a policy program. People who talk about such things as the government engaging in "MMT stimulus" are confusing MMT with Keynesian fiscal policy.
At eight minutes, your guest mentioned keeping the world healthy by paying attention to the whole forest. So much of the human doing involves violation of global health. Basically, living a western lifestyle with a high standard of living cannot be reconciled with supporting a thriving "forest". I am interested in what will come next on this conversation but I fear that while true that narrowing ones focus misses the variety of "trees" , broadening attention brings one the conclusion that collapse of the dominant human enterprise is the logical, inescapable and all too near future. Thank you for providing a guest with such high intelligence and integrity.
Wonderful podcast. One of the best. One thing missing ( given the interviewee works for a bank ) is the role of Banks in credit money creation for speculation. The GFC saw Governments bailing out the Finance sector and subsequent paying Banks interest on reserves. The whole issue of whether fiat money creation requires bonds to be issued ( debt ) is also not covered. Plus Steve Keen has never described himself as an MMTer and he has specifically made the point that while he agrees with MMT mostly he thinks they have it wrong on the matter of imports and exports for the reasons discussed. Excellent discussion.
Think of everything this guy says with this one analogy (it fits perfectly with each topic covered here): You have a long, rough piece of iron that needs to be flattened and smoothed. You have two John Henry’s at each end with a nine-pound hammer. One John Henry hits the iron on one end with his hammer, it causes the piece of steel to go up on the other end. So, the John Henry at the other end hits the metal at the other end. The piece will just keep doing that as long as the two John Henry’s keep doing exactly this. After a while, it dawns on one or both that maybe they could make progress if they hit the metal in other places, with different force - sometimes at different times and sometimes, at the same time. They figure out that John Henry 1 hits the piece at his end with a certain force, John Henry 2 hits the steel a third of the way from his end with lighter force. Then, John Henry 1 hits the piece a third of the way from his end. Then, John Henry 2 hits at the very end at his end, while John Henry 1 moves to the center and hits there. They repeat til the iron is smooth and flat. (Then, they go to the tavern and get drunk and sing songs - but, that’s another story). This analogy fits everything from two countries with either different or the same monetary systems as trading partners, to supply and demand within one economy, to apply different interest rates to different parts of the economy. It also fits well with if Trump is elected and raises tariffs, lowers taxes and increases manufacturing - it all depends on what other nations do at their end (and who Trump picks to be the John Henry of US trade). Maybe economists should be required to take a course in blacksmithing for one semester.
This is how two robot arms, with Artificial Intelligence, machine-learning, can now roboform metals like aluminium and titanium into amazingly complex shapes, apparently at speeds ahead of computer virtual model simulation! The robot arms work with ever-changing feedback loops adjusting the software through real reality feedback. This is about to create a factory revolution for complex structure manufacturing.
Thanks Nate for this interview! I've heard Michael Every on other pods but your particular focus has encouraged a deeper exploration of the macro landscape.
An interesting discussion. I felt there was a bit of a gap in the explanation of MMT in relation to inflation around where taxation fits into the picture. Money creation through state investment under MMT will only cause inflation if the money is left in the system after it has done its job and there is no longer the resource to match it. Under MMT, we'd normally remove this excess money supply out of the system through taxation and other mechanisms in order to manage the inflation risk. In this system, taxation destroys money and state investment creates it. Inflation is a lagging measure of the balance between money supply and resource. Taxation should be the tool we use to manage it as it can be targeted. Steven Hail gives one of the best explanations of how this could work in our context that I've heard to date on the Planet Critical sister podcast: ua-cam.com/video/GR0HVW0Ktmo/v-deo.htmlsi=asEDhH-RCBxs_s4i
The best defense of any country would be a highly educated and well treated happy people that would therefore be freely willing to defend their peers and way of life.
'Left' supporters of MMT are all about creating supply for social well-being. 'Right' supporters have always been about military spending, creating supply that is mostly useless for social well-being. One look at Congress answers the question of where we're "doing MMT" and where we're "worried" about "debt".
A headline and a sentence from CNBC today (Apil 11, 2024): Fed likely to cut rates before ECB blinks. "It seems the European economy is for now stabilising in low gear." As I have been saying for over a year now, some of the European leaders are actually thinking about how to manage their economies as they contract. This is a major paradigm shift. Macron is the leader in this, even though he is still behind the curve. Sanchez and Scholz seem to have a grasp too. All three countries are not moving fast enough of course. By the way, economic contraction is NOT degrowth, which is a nonsense term. It is similar to deflation vs. disinflation. Disinflation is a reduction in the speed of inflation, while deflation is a contraction in the money supply. Degrowth is based on the false premise that we can have a sustainable economy if we manage it better - i.e. more centralization. Contraction means GDP goes down.
What happened was tha the US pushed Nato to another war, but US is pulling out of their Ukraine failure and are leaving the naive EU liberals in a very very bad situation. Macron et. al gambled EU future on their combative behavior, and without Russian energy, EU is finished as a global Capitalist psycho..
More and more, the future is taking shape from these discussions. And the things people are arguing about have nothing to do with it! I'm thinking the logical conclusion is a rude awakening.
Sorry to interrupt the comments on this fascinating conversation with this note -- Follow the Transcript stops at 1:24:44, just as Nate refers to Every's "financial system architecture"...
Good conversation, but most of the discussion on MMT was inaccurate. For example, a core precept in MMT is the job guarantee. That's putting people to productive work on the supply side. S. Kelton most certainly discusses the tie between inflation and real resources. No one in MMT advocates endless money "printing." That's a straw man. Despite all this, it was worthwhile. I loved the ending about Catholic Economics and couldn't agree more on the vital role of morality in society.
U.S. goods and services trade deficit in 2023: $773.4 billion. That's a lot of USDs ending up in the rest of the world. The US gets goods & services, the world gets dollars. Who is getting the better deal?
"You can screw the poor for generations and they just get drunk and angry and sing songs" is an accurate assessment of our current naive indifference to global inequities. But...
At 42:50 Michael implies that MMT is already in use when he talks about the stimulus checks. Good show! What I have been saying for a couple of years now is that the Green New Deal will never happen because de facto MMT has been used since Reagan to fund the US government. As Dick Cheney once said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
So you should have no problem answering the question: 1.) How much is enough? 2.) What is the primary directive of LIFE? 3.) Which of the following characteristics do you think contribute to the success of a species? a.) acquiring just enough resources. b.) acquiring more than enough resources. ( a.k.a. profit, empirically. ) 4.) How can one determine what is enough when the basis for that measurement is not assigned to a physical commodity? ( whose value fluctuates within a range determined by circumstances beyond the control of any of the systems participants. ) Finally, since history demonstrates system "collapse" of many societies, again and again...irrespective of the culturally accepted subjective morality present...while "wealth" has always been unequally distributed to those in control of society...and has always been unstable by virtue of accumulated DEBT...( see Graeber and Hudson )...how does one determine logically reasoned "causes and effects" when the terms employed as descriptions avoid any objective definition? ( i.e. profit, GDP, greed, free market, measurement, etc. )
The power generator lighting the Russian Roulette scene in the Deer Hunter choreography - burns money far more than all the money exchanged playing that Russian Roulette game - combined. Michael Every et al drift in analysing how the choreography goes internally. They need to question - who is running the Power-Generator and from where the fuel is coming fuelling it. The Russian Roulette is actually a reflection of a bigger ongoing Peak Oil Musical Chairs Game. Gaza, turned to ruins in a few months, is actually a clear manifestation of that ongoing Peak Oil Musical Chairs Game. Gaza will widen and expand to cover all the oil-rich Middle East, the more the oil reserves deplete to the ground over time. The time has come to acknowledge the world is indeed in an ongoing Peak Oil Musical Chairs Game - beyond Minsky, GDPs and you name it of other fake empty expressions. "The Many -Isms of the Metacrisis” - should be translated to a movement of "I am scared" - where people-players worldwide are given the platform to bid against each other for how long a civilian will last alive in a Peak Oil Musical Chairs-impacted geography - Gaza for example - probably similar to what we've seen in the Deer Hunter. At least, that will help the general consciousness to realise how essential is to reduce fossil fuels consumption rates voluntarily. Finite fossil fuels are dangerously hypnotic to humans, their consciousness, reasoning and mental capacity. Humans were not ready morally, ethically and intellectually to start mass extraction of fossil fuels with the advent of the steam engine 300 years ago. The Magna Carta requires now overhauling - adding to it the right for humans to understand what Energy really is - before any other commandment; "In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future"(2017).
The reference I fall back to is the movie "War Games" where the computer runs simulation after simulation and realizes that all potential outcomes of nuclear war have no winners. How will the people and systems currently running things get to the point where they realize continuing as we are will result in no winners? Only then may they decide to change from the current way things are done.
Love THE GREAT SIMPLIFICATION! Great work and thinking Nate Hagens. This one has been a great broad Meta-Analysis to provide nice context to a lot bot previous episodes. So valuable! Thanks!
I like the criticism of neoclassical economics, which of course is very seriously flawed. The observations of this guest seem very spot on for the current situation. However, it should be obvious even to economists that a bag of potatoes is worth more than a computer if there is a shortage of food. If we don't stop consuming junk and start investing in sustainable technologies and cultures, all of this is going to be a moot point, because crop failure. Refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. All economies are agricultural economies. The biophysical reality is NOT going to stay stable for decades. No economy is going to be able to "grow' its way out of this. The only possibly successful strategy is cooperation on every level. The invisible hand does not exist and never did. Also, I would really like to know why people who work in jobs whose main point is skimming money off the middle class, like to insult middle class jobs.
Stephen Fry describes myths emerging naturally over time, beginning from lots of individual small stories to try and explain how the world works collated into a larger story. You can’t simply start a myth. Myths in the age of science won’t start. If, for example, you look at past myths, there are Gods/creatures/etc that represent a natural phenomena or object. Currently we generally have an explanation for why a lot of these previously mysterious/‘magic’ things happen. I suppose what you might be getting at is we need a new religion? I propose a socialist movement, one that has a manifesto enough people agree on that will be attractive enough to overthrow this destructive, callous capitalist regime. Either way, if we don’t find an alternative soon, this world is going to get a whole lot worse when the collapse is in full flow.
@@TennesseeJed organically! That’s the word I was looking for. Moloch would work, because we’re technically sacrificing children… as well as the vast majority of life on the planet. Maybe we’ll get extra brownie points for that?
I am reading the idiot by Dostoyeffsky, he made the point that the economic system has no moral belief guiding it, so will not serve us well... resonated with what your guest said..
Meta crisis was first popularized in 2019 across multiple different climate and sociological research papers and platforms come all of the term appears several years earlier in places.
Everybody's talking 'bout Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m All we are saying is give peace a chance
I'd love to hear Nate interview an economist from the Austrian school of economics. Bob Murphy perhaps. They are also critical of the current crony-capitalist system and debt-based monetary system, albeit for very different reasons than those MMT folks.
Nate, thanks once again for a good discussion. If the goal is war utility for the whole world, human and non-human life, like we can move towards achieving that by restoring planetary health by trying to restore, ecosystems as well as possible to make them as productive as possible Through intensive management. So if we try to convert financial wealth into the education of young people and laying the foundation for local communities to become self-sufficient and restore ecosystems, we can provide a pathway from the financial system to evolve away from GDP into more appropriate matrices by which to function. State based actors are already obsolete. Perhaps the key lies in persuading the very wealthy people that an inconsequential portion of their sequestered capital can best serve their self interest through Le down some runway, to buy some time for the financial system to transition in an orderly fashion, avoiding a crash and burn scenarioseemingly inevitable on the current trajectory
7:15 sounds exactly on point - self actualization when, what? There is not self? Sure. But what's my contribution? What, from my one and unique life, do I see that I can bring to the table(, etc?)
1:00:20 are you kidding me?! We went through ALL of that, just to get to: 'Our economic systems can't work unless we include moral distinctions' ??? Really? I must be missing something...
...morality in economics... it always makes me laugh that in the one place in Wealth of Nations that Adam Smith uses the term 'Hidden Hand', it's a restraining argument for agents in a society, bound by their morality towards their nation and the people of that nation, to not make decisions which will damage the country. The Hidden Hand as Smith argued it was a moral bias, not a blank cheque. I get concerned with saying 'catholic economics'. No disrespect to modern day catholics, there are many good people under that wing, but historically they've already had their chance. De Civitas Dei gave us a millennia of darkness, of eyewatering corruption, slavery, repression of rights, repression of knowledge, of divine right and original sin, inquisitions and heretical burnings, and even in more contemporous times the Reich Concordat is indefensible. Religion isn't required for morality to exist, simple human empathy and awareness are, and I am deeply concerned by any model for the future which grounds itself in a decision procedure based on 'faith'. The greatest achievements of mankind were built on the foundation that faith simply isn't enough to get to the truth of something... and one of the primary weaknesses of economics as I see it, comes from how dangerously often 'faith' in it working fairly is used as an excuse. Keynes was a fan of Newton, and Newton was devout in his belief... but Newton was a Deist... he believed God existed, but did absolutely nothing, had no agency in the world. God set up the rules, but didn't define the outcome. Unlike his contemporary Leibniz who believe the world as it stood then 'was the best of all possible worlds', because God was perfect and would have made a better world if he could, Newton believed if you want to make the world a better place, you need to go make the world a better place. Leibniz was a catholic, Newton... was something else entirely.
RE: "But they're saying that the DEI component that the White House insisted on, which was really, really stringent for every one of these factories, makes it so expensive and impossible to meet the criteria in some cases. You have to employ X number of people who simply don't exist, you can't do it. If you're ..." "they're saying" gives me pause. Can we be sure that's the real reason or just one that plays into certain political views? It's my understanding that there is a real issue of finding qualified staff for these jobs, which require certain educational backgrounds and technical experience. We as a country have not invested in the educational and training needs that would produce a workforce to employ at these and other high tech facilities.
I do agree that we need something like "wearing a bracelet of morality, saying what "Would Jesus do with this money" " It's a wonderful intent but honestly needs a much clearer understanding of just how natural systems handle their growth to then turn to perfecting what growth and it's natural growth limit of expert self-control.... Please honor me with a short conversation. We have so very much, both of us long and experienced deep divers into the complexity of the systems of the economy, **powered by following rules for multiplying profit (capitalism).** It's that those rules have COGNITIVE BLINDING EFFECTS that is the trouble. It's not immoral social or personal bias, except on occasion, that allows our whole **good-willed expert and engaging professional community** to organize around the world's accelerating suicidal impact growth plan. Please
The voters play a role in wanting certainty about their economic prospects. We assume government administration experts are working towards calibrating policies roughly based on a collection of “isms” and economic theory in order to satisfy these (oversimplified) expectations. The communication of the underlying uncertainty and complexity is a political negative and so is attenuated to the point where the voter becomes quite stupid and confused as to the actual underlying complexity and tenuous nature of economic models. I suspect this can only get worse as voters and politicians become desperate to satisfy expectations that are moving increasingly outside the physical reality of ecological scarcity.
29:52 #ISMs: A partial answer -- Create a whole-systems framework through which to invite, engage, and challenge the best theorists and die-hard defenders of every ISM to prove the accuracy, morality, value, and viability of their preferred ISM, and to transparently & vigorously debate with others out to do the same. I'm working on such an infrastructure & framework.
The channel 'geopolitical economic report' here on YT debunks most of the western Capitalist religion. It features michael hutchins, desai and Ben Norton as channel host. There's also the channel 'new economic thinking' that also invites lots of critics..
An enlightening, understandable and disturbing discussion on economics, finance, market vagaries. covering some contentious and complex issues, Meta and Polycrisis, MMT, heterodox economics. Regards closing remarks, think it doubtful ‘Michael Every’ or yourself Nate will be able to effect in time any socio-economic changes sufficient to stave off forthcoming access to and ultimately loss of Flammable Fossils (FF), in particular Oil, so needed to sustain a global population of at least 8 Billion, unless that is a completely new form of sustainable energy equivalent to FF’s energy density and portability is found (hopium), but then that in itself would heighten an already looming ecological disaster. Todays rebuildables, sorry renewables don’t come anywhere near to meeting present human’s energy wants and needs. The road to natural sustainability won’t be painless, view:- “Jack Alpert - Civilization's “Running Out of Gas” Story” The term “Gas” refers to Gasoline not NG for those not familiar with American terminology🤔
23:00 "are they building technological wonders to share with the world, or are they building tanks and aircraft carriers?" - well of course, they're building all of the above 😸.
Hi in NZ we had an economy like that up until the mid eighties so wasn't rampant consumption.Cars were expensive imported goods generally were expensive. I have Friends who bought houses and raised families on a single income impossible for the majority now .I feel it produced a better quality of life .
Tiptoeing through the garden of ecocide to where words fail. How are we doing with using language to explain money, energy, and the limits set by ecocide? Please get neuroscientist Peter Sterling on your show. His brilliant book #WhatIsHealth is contains perspective on 'externalization' of memory leading to boundless information outside of individuals. P.129 and all of chapter5.
No proof that money can be arbitrarily allocated without distorting otherwise efficient markets. The most efficient seems to be direct payments to individuals. But it’s important to remember that MMT does not advocate or prescribe for anything, it merely describes the fiat monetary system under which we live. Sure, some people may claim the government should spend on something because MMT says we can, but that’s not totally accurate. Just because the government can spend it, doesn’t mean it should, this is what MMT says because it acknowledges the potential externalities of limitless spending. This includes the ability of central banks to buy all of its government’s debt like Japan has done.
One of the more hope inducing vdo's in the long row of educational, thoughtinducing and worldview enhancing videos of the Great Simplification series! Did i get that right? Trumps possible choice for financeminister(?) is the author of such a heterodox finance view?? After the wonder of Wörgel (Austria) another Austrian had such intellectual superior views? I am flabbergasted.
The comment I am about to leave might seem as if I did not appreciate the interview, and your efforts. I did appreciate the interview, and I do appreciate your efforts. I frequently interpret a hesitant "lean" toward some new form of fascism as an inevitability here, and other discussions on this channel. I know you are all more than this, and I wonder if we would all benefit from more directly confronting the never before seen "New, Benevolent, Perfectly Automated Fascism" that some folks suspect needs to be in place to accurately solve The World's future problems. [insert annoying novella here]
It might be that there's two perceptual frameworks, one is humanity's strength is in subsuming different perceptions into ideas enclosed into the all-human, the other celebrates diversity of perceptions again removed from ideas but not the environment as all-human and non-human. It's also not having two levels as a person, the higher virtuous level and a lower level of compromise guided and allowed. If ideas come from the environment and that is simplified because it's easy and efficient, the ideas themselves become more estranged which seems like a one level person who plays 3 card monte there in an attempt to regain dimensional perception.
@@j85grim4 Oh please! Folks that feel most/all current governance structures worldwide are not ideologically capable of addressing climate concerns are not harder to find than leprechauns. Maybe like planning a scuba-diving trip with your friend, and not discussing the fact that your friend currently cannot swim, and that your friend is currently having a hard time seeing the relevance of swimming? Who's problem is this?
@@projectmalus Thank you for crafting such a thoughtful response! I wonder if the duality I interpret from your statement is an example of sentiments that are not going to be reflected well in anyone's current "ism". I don't feel that's as desperate as it sounds, and would welcome the discussion.
@@57stapler perhaps a third kind of freedom is needed, for the non-human logos. If self is not an object and between objects, and there's a horizontal and vertical aspect that can be organ-ized. Something like each of my organs corresponds to an object in the environment and physical expression of art is the in between that self is. Example might be lungs, singing, nitrogen in the redox tower and the nature of self in/as that object, gregarious. Another way to see this, pancake batter poured out and forming those holes and the disc of the pancake. If the universe starts as shell, perhaps around dark matter as the first black hole and first sun, and this shell fragments and forms a tube, which settles for disc and has "leftover" energy, life as self from the sweet spot. For us, the Sun as shell and tube affording the disc of the solar system which has a sweet spot in which the shell supports life and is in a constant pull towards fragmentation, or objectivity of the perfect sphere. The forming of objects on the Earth, with grass/herd/pack as object (triangle that moves to pyramid then cone with dimensionality from cohesive dynamics) and humans able to move into that by being part of a mammal object, which extends self into logos, specifically via being non-ruminants eating ruminant food and the organs affected in a half dozen ways that are radically different from each other. This breaks the strong triangle for them and brings the dark triad for people. The aggressive actions of that triangle are bound into the vitality as dynamic cohesive access to logos from stress, we only get the stress and the logos access. This creates the two world perspective I think. Humans are striving for the perfect powerful interface, as campfire circle extended in dimensionality via the fire of tech. Another option is to be connectors, much like those pores in the pancake, like 8 billion GI tracts on the shell of Earth in generous caring mode, as a sort of trampoline. This from not the grass all powerful perspective (Machiavellian? Capitalism?) which is singular intent and many forms as expression but as many perspectives that recognize and help realize what's there, and similar form, our strength that needs folding back into the world. Cheers.
I wish NAte had pushed the narrative a little, because suddenly it seems like the degrowth story was erased from his brain. At least he had said something along the lines of 'taking into account that in the world as it is today we have already exceeded carrying capacity, I can't imagine the consequences of a lot of the largest economies reindustrializing, when we still don't have the technologies.' with which we can do it sustainably'. For me the guest theories are still very narrow, i liked listening to the conversation anyway.
This one was interesting. Your idea for a debate between Every and Keen is an amazing one, I'd love that. I will just respond to his advice to not read mainstream news. I really hate that advice. Read newspapers with a critical eye? Absolutely. Don't assume you're getting the full story in your news broadcast? For sure. But to say to not interact with them at all is a little too "fake news"-y for me
Yeah, he's unfortunately just as propagandized as all other liberals. Where else does he have trouble selecting valid sources? Amazing that _HE_ is one of the few 'woke' economists 😞
Daniel have used it for at least 10 years. This guy is a beginner in thinking like this and have evidently never talked to anyone using the term. That means that his knowledge on the area is flawed at best, but he probably feel smart among the brainwashed economic colleagues he have..
Catholic economics? Determined by whom? Rome? A history of extraction by any means, and mostly from the poor. Christian economics? Same problem, and even more so, based on a meta-physical construction for which there is zero evidence...and whose "reward" is acquired post-mortem. This makes any attempt that is applied to mortal concerns is essentially hypocritical, as one risks eternity for temporal comforts.
Omg I keep having to comment when I hear these things! If there were no govt intervention and central banks, we may very well have to work 7 days a week. But in normal free market economies, central banks aren't stealing the wealth of their citizenry and prices go down as productivity goes up. It is normal for prices to decrease over time, and when this happens, people have to work less and less to produce the same amount of stuff. People have to work longer in our current system bc the Fed has had a target of stealing 2% of our wealth! Red queen phenomenon.
Damn, you are deep in the Free market religion. You think the same way as the Capitalist elite wants you to believe. You recommend the best substrate for them to grow their power and to be complete psychopaths. Is that a coincidence or are you just a victim of their economic propaganda apparatus ??
"But in normal free market economies" There is no such thing as a "free market" economy: That's a fiction created by the neoliberals to justify a system that allows the rich and powerful to exploit everyone else--and the planet--and the name of "freedom" (but mostly for billionaires and corporations).
There's no fed funds rate in a free market. Central banking and fractional reserve banking are incompatible with truly free markets. Interest rates are an emergent property of free markets.
Free markets are 100% corruption - build directly into the system. You have been deliberately propagandized by the elite. Free markets is just a free war - nothing else. wake up..
I love this interview. What l do find disturbing is not the views expressed. It is the wooden calving folding wall type thing. Does the foul look like it is attempting to drink from a male figure horse. Look to the calving on the right side of the screen neck height. I Think l would have considered that before l went on a UA-cam stream.
Greed should be against the law of society. This can easily be treated as a crime just by having proper anti monopoly laws and regulations. Waste by governments should on the other hand also be criminally charged. Smaller governments to prevent large budgets managed by a few politicians with the authority to waste taxpayers money.
A moral revolution is required. How do we get there from here? Perhaps morality needs to be coded into a new aspect of economy built for people and planet. What does that restoration economy look like?
Thank you Michael & Nate. I've been in this "Game" since 1971 (1971 is not a typo:), and your discussion here is in the TOP TEN Best Presentations on what I call the socio-eco-econ-ethical Crisis I've ever heard. KUDOS, from an Environmental Geographer. p.s. to Nate: also in my Top Ten are one of your interviews with Simon Michaux and one with Tom Murphy. Thanks for all your work.
This is the second time I have listened to Michael Every when I last listened to him on Adam Taggerts's old channel, Wealthion. Again, I am deeply impressed astonished, and dismayed, not by his clarity of thought, but by the awful predicament he so eloquently describes. We are a planetary monetary species, but we seem to not understand the implications of those actions on our common environment. His voice of reason must resonate with worldwide power brokers, but how is it that only Trumpian political players appeared receptive to his evaluation of global economic risk? Curious...
Nice !!! I agree with your assessment
Wow--this is a great discussion. One of the best, and much appreciated. Finance is the mechanics of the BAU economy, and it is good to hear from a 'mechanic' who questions the machine itself. There's a lot to learn and unpack from this podcast. Thanks again.
Nicely put.
A brilliant man, Mr Every, and a brilliant conversation, Nate. I think it is possible to invest too much in what we read, no matter where. Humans have never before faced the meta, or poly tragedy of destroying most of what makes the planet blue-green, i.e., (mostly) multi-cellular life, and oxygenated water in the sea. We all need to be in communities small enough to encounter in our daily lives the reality that nature is not an "externality". All powerful tools can do powerffully moral, and/ or powerfully immoral things. Such is human nature, and how it is treated from its genetic underpinnings to its manifestations in our social connections. Morality is not an external constraint around our wrists, It is foundational in human nature. Mr. Every's description of amoral economic shining lights having deathbed flashes of wealth having a meaning that transcends money reminded me of Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich".
That requires not having citizens of nowhere and mass migration to destroy our long-cherished communities. It also misses the fact that the industrialised world will half by the end of the century and in many cases by mid-century regards the wording age population. This will more than blow the climate targets (I don't agree with as they have this all wrong) out of the water. Climate is not an issue right now, it is catastrophic population and therefore systems collapse. The climate story is over, the cleanliness of the ground and sea however, isn't. That needs a lot of work.
Every is a real critical thinker, able to handle several disciplines. Thank you for interviewing him, Hagens.
Another hit out of the park! The discussions with guests who speak on economics topics are consistently excellent and so illuminating. It's a combination of the quality of the thinkers Nate invites on TGS, and Nate's own ability to ask insightful questions grown out of his diverse intellectual background. Really, I find TGS discussions one of the best uses of my "screen time". Thanks, Nate, for doing this interview!
At timestamp 1:06, Every is talking about how the free market allocates investment and sets rates (silly app ventures being advantaged over boring food ventures), and it reminds me of Nate's conversation with Iain McGilchrist: our culture is dominated by "the Emissary" part of our brain, and "the Master" -- which would reign-in bad economic decisions and instead use wisdom and cultural values to set priorities -- is missing. And from what Every says, it sounds like economist Schumpeter had a similar insight at the end of his life, about the "free" market needing Catholic values (or really, any non- "efficiency-centric" values), as has Angus Deaton. Interesting to see so much overlap in the conversations in TGS...
One thing people forget about MMT, besides the fact that it is a descriptive, as opposed to a prescriptive, theory, is that we are already "doing" MMT. Our government has been freely spending money into existence and running defecits almost all the years since 1971. The question is, what is that money being used for? Further, we also have the capacity to tax those dollars back out of existence if we run up against inflationary pressures. We can, if need be, gain ourselves more fiscal space, disincentivize spevulation and incentivize productive investment by raising the taxes on the upper brackets the way we did during the 1940s and 1950s. We can also shift a lot of that foreign military spending back home to retool infrastructure and literally get more bang for our buck by nationalizing the defense industries, thus eliminating the incentives for defemse contractors to make highly expensive, maintenance intensive, ineffective weapons systems in favor of far cheaper, more reliable, and more effective systems.
This is now one of my favorites. Excellent discussion.
Wow. What an insightful conversation. What's missing is actual leadership.
I've followed your show a long time, Nate. Learned a lot. Still am. But this is a conversation I will listen to again. I can't thank you enough.
Really enjoyed that episode and Micheal is articulate and clear. On the MMT debate, isn’t is always based on the supply side. MMT explains double entry booking how money is created, if you don’t understand your capacity MMT won’t work. Always comes back to how we want to organise as a society, we have lost our way.
There is an old addage which says, you can't have an economy based on theft.
This is what happens when greed is the "good" motive that underlies the economy.
Anyone who has played the game monopoly, can realize why wealth accumulates or redistributes to the players who can earn money rapidly using other money. The more money a greed based investment accumulates the more that new wealth is invested in other greed based business activities. The wealth accumulates, not based on work, or creativity, it accumulates based on the money already accumulated. It grows on itself, rather than the efforts of the person who owns the wealth.
Eventually the game ends when all the wealth is funnelled to one player, and everyone else is bankrupt. In effect, the economy of the game collapses from a deflationary collapse.
This always happens in monopoly, and on a larger scale, its happening to the global economy now.
In what sense is the collapse deflationary? Nor does it seem to be historically accurate,
since the U.S.'s rise to industrial dominance took place in a period of constant deflation, from
1865 thru 1897. ( with real or lawful money. ) The prices of the commodities produced by
the "robber barons" consistently fell, while the purchasing power of the dollar increased,
and in the case of oil, that went from $16/12 brrl to less than $1. and stayed there until
the trust was busted in 1909, which is considerably more than can be accounted for
from the 95% inflation that resulted from the civil war and its recovery to pre-war levels
in 1897.
If one accepts that inflation/ deflation is strictly a monetary phenomenon...which doesn't
begin to emerge as a commodity ( coins ) until 600BCE, early credit systems always
resulted in the accumulation of wealth by those in charge of the system, and the increase of
debt for everyone else.
Wealth extraction via rents, interest, taxation, fees, etc., are non-productive activities...and the
use to which this revenue is directed must be appropriately allocated and efficiently managed.
In this sense, the interests of the authority and the system itself are directly opposed to
that of the general public...as both the misdirection and inefficiencies of the system
leads to increases in costs and the expansion of government.
Real ( commodity ) money sends signals of this imbalance much sooner...and is a hindrance
to government ambitions, so its elimination is a necessary step in the continuation along
this path...and what better vehicle than "magic money"...to accommodate it.
Unfortunately, this accelerates the effects...and the consequences. ( and you are here. )
I've never heard that saying.
Greed is good is a govt. sanctioned message.
Monopoly only exists because of a finite amount of money, this doesn't exist in todays world. All the debt based money paid back would mean zero money in the world, same as all to one person, which is impossible, even the 1% of which we are supposed to be of the world, even if the 1% hold all the paper value it doesn't stay in their accounts, it get's loaned out just like your money. They are trying to pump as much money in as they can because it's all debt based and they get a return. The only reason poor people don't have money is they can't get into debt, half the world lives like this, Africa is on the cusp of growth like the west had over the last 80 years in the next 80, the total amount of money in the world isn't going to decline or be cut off is it? Sure the 800% growth the west had over 200 years might be coming to a settling but the economics are different .
Every’s thesis is that “MMT works, but the newly created money has to be invested into the supply side of the economy.” So here’s a question, where does the money flow to? There’s a multitude of energy technologies, do the legislators invest 50% into solar, 25% into nuclear, and 12.5% into wind, and 12.5% into geothermal? What about companies, what companies get a hold of the money and what don’t? What about production, how do we know the money being invested is actually producing something of value? What about volume, if MMT applied “correctly” is a good thing, then what’s the difference between monetizing a trillion dollars into the supply side versus a hundred trillion? How can a consortium of highly intelligent people allocate resources in a long term value producing manner compared to a dynamic free enterprise system? In 1968, The Club of Rome was telling the world that we would run out of oil (or face unaffordable prices). By 1998, oil prices collapsed to $10 a barrel. Why…because oil is a commodity, and when the price goes up, capital is invested into the industry, resulting in an oversupply which brings prices back down. If Michael Every was a public legislator in 1980 when oil was $35 ($129 a barrel in 2023 dollars) a barrel, would he have legislated the investment of billions into oil and gas industry? Also, what’s the opportunity cost? If it takes 100 billion in capital to bring oil from $35 a barrel to $10, at what point does the law of diminishing returns activate; meaning the capital is utilized more effectively by a different enterprise? So I ask you, who can honestly answer any of these questions?
Good questions!
Turns out "greed-ism" is the metacrisis, b/c we've finally reached the emerging limits to growth...and growth oriented only to extraction and waste is bottom line profit only is "greed-ism" which will always collapse a society, now the world. Economy based primarily on greed which we benignly call the free market measured by GDP.
@@richardlane5498 My comment is about how “supply side modern monetary theory” will inevitably fail because it can’t dynamically allocate capital. What does this comment have to do with that?
MMT works it just might not work FOR YOU. Right now the current system is working just fine if you are part of the 001%. There is no need to change it.
@@DoubtfireClubWGPowers Money is energy because everything you buy with it requires energy. I’m assuming you like myself trade are time for money, so you can think about it in terms of joules of energy captured per hour worked. MMT doesn’t play by the same rules you and me play by. If money is energy, then MMT says there’s a special group of people that have access to unlimited energy (by the way, your energy) at no cost. Does that sound moral, ethical, or progressive to you?
I'm glad someone is saying this that has a platform. It's basically greed is why capitalism cannot work. Humans would have to evolve beyond the level of greed.This is why we are doomed.
Our tendency to look for patterns in past behavior helps us plan for an array of future possibilities. It doesn't serve us to treat the patterns we find as if they constitute an absolute and infallible Oracle.
It's a lack of resources why capitalism won't work. the ability to consume whatever you want just because you hold money can't continue and you can't buy your way to a better planet if people can consume what they want, If this constraint wasn't in place then greed wouldn't matter. What do you mean doomed? People are mostly ignorant, emergent response once options are available, or even once they aren't as ignorant would mean different responses to what they then perceive as reality. It might be money is doomed but let's imagine we go forward 200 years and it is equal to times 200 years ago, energy wise, life wise, horses etc and we can take the best of what we have now with us, it might be life is better. We really do only need to supply people food and shelter and medical care, switching from profit to need, surely is going to be the result of any metricises coming true. Once humans realise we only need to do 10-20% of what we do and we could raise general wellbeing for everybody, once we look all the way along the system to the central banks and what they mean to how society is allowed to flow, in the background of everything we do, I think once society realises how much of their lifes efforts are being taken for granted, are being taxed in dollar values of 50% of their working lives, at least. I think there is a groundswell of people understanding this issue more now with the internet. I'm not sure what is being taught in schools about the debt based system and how or if it changed after going off the gold standard but any slow down if it was 30-100 years in the future won't mean we are doomed, it will mean we will evolve, because there will be no choice.
Yes, but it's neither can pure socialism. The key issue is that it is never binary and the devil us in the detail. I.e. the right answer is always balance between the 2 extremes.
If we could evolve at the speed of light
I think the answer is in game theory and particularly the Nash equilibrium. We are stuck in the system and attempted change lessens our position and therefore the ability to change it !
The resolution of the problem is to start a new game in parallel with a new rule set that produces the result we need. That result is restorative activities that balance the consumption.
Michael described what many marxist have said and theorized. Local production is a key part of socialist/communist economics. You need a base of productivity to give returns to your citizens. Not to mention the environmental benefit and stability of reducing the supply chains. By producing things in your own country and by giving the labor ownership in some form, whether through co-ops or nationalization, you reduce inequalities. It may also be the only way to limit the exploitation of resources. This is all theoretical though. I'm sure we'll nuke ourselves before we see another major country have a marxist revolution,
The fed doing QE or QT has nothing to do with MMT. MMT is a theory that describes how money originates and functions. Governments spend money into existence and tax it back out again. The dollars do NOT originate from taxation. The dollars originate from spending and always have for thousands of years since the invention of money. This is true regardless of whether the government runs a deficit or a surplus, whether it engages in QE, which is in effect the government converting its less liquid treasury bond financial instruments into more liquid dollars by buying its own bonds or private sector bonds, or whether it does QT by reversing that process by tying up a greater proportion of bank reserves by issuing a higher proportion of treasury bonds, thus reducing the quantity of dollar holdings in bank reserves. MMT just describes how money works. It is not a policy program. People who talk about such things as the government engaging in "MMT stimulus" are confusing MMT with Keynesian fiscal policy.
This man is BRILLIANT
Michael’s knowledge and ability to communicate important concepts unmatched 👏
great guest!!!
At eight minutes, your guest mentioned keeping the world healthy by paying attention to the whole forest. So much of the human doing involves violation of global health. Basically, living a western lifestyle with a high standard of living cannot be reconciled with supporting a thriving "forest". I am interested in what will come next on this conversation but I fear that while true that narrowing ones focus misses the variety of "trees" , broadening attention brings one the conclusion that collapse of the dominant human enterprise is the logical, inescapable and all too near future. Thank you for providing a guest with such high intelligence and integrity.
"Don't even read the news." Now you're speakin' my language.
This is was a milestone enlightening convesation gentleman. Continue the jouney gather the likeminded to open minds and eyes and ears.❤
Excellent, wide-ranging discussion...thank you!!!
Wonderful podcast. One of the best. One thing missing ( given the interviewee works for a bank ) is the role of Banks in credit money creation for speculation. The GFC saw Governments bailing out the Finance sector and subsequent paying Banks interest on reserves. The whole issue of whether fiat money creation requires bonds to be issued ( debt ) is also not covered. Plus Steve Keen has never described himself as an MMTer and he has specifically made the point that while he agrees with MMT mostly he thinks they have it wrong on the matter of imports and exports for the reasons discussed. Excellent discussion.
Think of everything this guy says with this one analogy (it fits perfectly with each topic covered here):
You have a long, rough piece of iron that needs to be flattened and smoothed. You have two John Henry’s at each end with a nine-pound hammer.
One John Henry hits the iron on one end with his hammer, it causes the piece of steel to go up on the other end. So, the John Henry at the other end hits the metal at the other end. The piece will just keep doing that as long as the two John Henry’s keep doing exactly this.
After a while, it dawns on one or both that maybe they could make progress if they hit the metal in other places, with different force - sometimes at different times and sometimes, at the same time. They figure out that John Henry 1 hits the piece at his end with a certain force, John Henry 2 hits the steel a third of the way from his end with lighter force. Then, John Henry 1 hits the piece a third of the way from his end. Then, John Henry 2 hits at the very end at his end, while John Henry 1 moves to the center and hits there. They repeat til the iron is smooth and flat. (Then, they go to the tavern and get drunk and sing songs - but, that’s another story).
This analogy fits everything from two countries with either different or the same monetary systems as trading partners, to supply and demand within one economy, to apply different interest rates to different parts of the economy. It also fits well with if Trump is elected and raises tariffs, lowers taxes and increases manufacturing - it all depends on what other nations do at their end (and who Trump picks to be the John Henry of US trade).
Maybe economists should be required to take a course in blacksmithing for one semester.
*Insert breaking bad meme*
"Jesse, what the f*ck are you talking about?"
This is how two robot arms, with Artificial Intelligence, machine-learning, can now roboform metals like aluminium and titanium into amazingly complex shapes, apparently at speeds ahead of computer virtual model simulation!
The robot arms work with ever-changing feedback loops adjusting the software through real reality feedback.
This is about to create a factory revolution for complex structure manufacturing.
@@PatrickCordaneReeves the long way around saying, Michael Every has very good mechanical aptitude, something an economist apparently needs.
All of your guests are amazing, but l really enjoyed Michael Every’s mind. Again, thank you Nate for a great show.
Fantastic show. I will be connecting with Michael. Nate, found you a few months ago, and I just can't put you down.
Thanks Nate for this interview! I've heard Michael Every on other pods but your particular focus has encouraged a deeper exploration of the macro landscape.
An interesting discussion.
I felt there was a bit of a gap in the explanation of MMT in relation to inflation around where taxation fits into the picture.
Money creation through state investment under MMT will only cause inflation if the money is left in the system after it has done its job and there is no longer the resource to match it.
Under MMT, we'd normally remove this excess money supply out of the system through taxation and other mechanisms in order to manage the inflation risk.
In this system, taxation destroys money and state investment creates it.
Inflation is a lagging measure of the balance between money supply and resource. Taxation should be the tool we use to manage it as it can be targeted.
Steven Hail gives one of the best explanations of how this could work in our context that I've heard to date on the Planet Critical sister podcast: ua-cam.com/video/GR0HVW0Ktmo/v-deo.htmlsi=asEDhH-RCBxs_s4i
Brilliant -- Every gives me a new perspective that helps explain how we arrived at where we are and what to pay attention to going forward.
This video moved me!! It was your best guest ever
The best defense of any country would be a highly educated and well treated happy people that would therefore be freely willing to defend their peers and way of life.
Ha!
7:14 "purpose for the greater good" 🎯
'Left' supporters of MMT are all about creating supply for social well-being. 'Right' supporters have always been about military spending, creating supply that is mostly useless for social well-being. One look at Congress answers the question of where we're "doing MMT" and where we're "worried" about "debt".
Fascinating concepts. I'll listen again. By the way, I love the screen behind the speaker. Eastern?
A headline and a sentence from CNBC today (Apil 11, 2024): Fed likely to cut rates before ECB blinks. "It seems the European economy is for now stabilising in low gear."
As I have been saying for over a year now, some of the European leaders are actually thinking about how to manage their economies as they contract. This is a major paradigm shift. Macron is the leader in this, even though he is still behind the curve. Sanchez and Scholz seem to have a grasp too. All three countries are not moving fast enough of course. By the way, economic contraction is NOT degrowth, which is a nonsense term. It is similar to deflation vs. disinflation. Disinflation is a reduction in the speed of inflation, while deflation is a contraction in the money supply. Degrowth is based on the false premise that we can have a sustainable economy if we manage it better - i.e. more centralization. Contraction means GDP goes down.
What happened was tha the US pushed Nato to another war, but US is pulling out of their Ukraine failure and are leaving the naive EU liberals in a very very bad situation.
Macron et. al gambled EU future on their combative behavior, and without Russian energy, EU is finished as a global Capitalist psycho..
More and more, the future is taking shape from these discussions. And the things people are arguing about have nothing to do with it! I'm thinking the logical conclusion is a rude awakening.
deep, clear, honest and realistic
Sorry to interrupt the comments on this fascinating conversation with this note -- Follow the Transcript stops at 1:24:44, just as Nate refers to Every's "financial system architecture"...
Thanks for letting us know. This has been fixed.
Good conversation, but most of the discussion on MMT was inaccurate. For example, a core precept in MMT is the job guarantee. That's putting people to productive work on the supply side. S. Kelton most certainly discusses the tie between inflation and real resources. No one in MMT advocates endless money "printing." That's a straw man. Despite all this, it was worthwhile. I loved the ending about Catholic Economics and couldn't agree more on the vital role of morality in society.
U.S. goods and services trade deficit in 2023: $773.4 billion. That's a lot of USDs ending up in the rest of the world. The US gets goods & services, the world gets dollars. Who is getting the better deal?
"You can screw the poor for generations and they just get drunk and angry and sing songs" is an accurate assessment of our current naive indifference to global inequities. But...
Curious why you tend to use the term metacrisis over polycrisis. Polycrisis seems to me to be more accurate.
Crises is more accurate.
Please try "metacrisis literacy" with mr William on the podcast call "the Stoa"
Meta is a term I would think would be more easily understood, Poly Crisis sounds like a problem with PVC pipe.
At 42:50 Michael implies that MMT is already in use when he talks about the stimulus checks. Good show! What I have been saying for a couple of years now is that the Green New Deal will never happen because de facto MMT has been used since Reagan to fund the US government. As Dick Cheney once said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
So you should have no problem answering the question: 1.) How much is enough?
2.) What is the primary directive of LIFE? 3.) Which of the following characteristics do you think
contribute to the success of a species? a.) acquiring just enough resources. b.) acquiring more
than enough resources. ( a.k.a. profit, empirically. ) 4.) How can one determine what is enough when
the basis for that measurement is not assigned to a physical commodity? ( whose value
fluctuates within a range determined by circumstances beyond the control of any of the systems participants. )
Finally, since history demonstrates system "collapse" of many societies, again and again...irrespective
of the culturally accepted subjective morality present...while "wealth" has always been unequally distributed
to those in control of society...and has always been unstable by virtue of accumulated DEBT...( see Graeber and
Hudson )...how does one determine logically reasoned "causes and effects" when the terms employed as
descriptions avoid any objective definition? ( i.e. profit, GDP, greed, free market, measurement, etc. )
What should I do with this money? What money?
Hannah Arendt "at first i am human" works for me
The power generator lighting the Russian Roulette scene in the Deer Hunter choreography - burns money far more than all the money exchanged playing that Russian Roulette game - combined.
Michael Every et al drift in analysing how the choreography goes internally.
They need to question - who is running the Power-Generator and from where the fuel is coming fuelling it.
The Russian Roulette is actually a reflection of a bigger ongoing Peak Oil Musical Chairs Game.
Gaza, turned to ruins in a few months, is actually a clear manifestation of that ongoing Peak Oil Musical Chairs Game.
Gaza will widen and expand to cover all the oil-rich Middle East, the more the oil reserves deplete to the ground over time.
The time has come to acknowledge the world is indeed in an ongoing Peak Oil Musical Chairs Game - beyond Minsky, GDPs and you name it of other fake empty expressions.
"The Many -Isms of the Metacrisis” - should be translated to a movement of "I am scared" - where people-players worldwide are given the platform to bid against each other for how long a civilian will last alive in a Peak Oil Musical Chairs-impacted geography - Gaza for example - probably similar to what we've seen in the Deer Hunter.
At least, that will help the general consciousness to realise how essential is to reduce fossil fuels consumption rates voluntarily.
Finite fossil fuels are dangerously hypnotic to humans, their consciousness, reasoning and mental capacity.
Humans were not ready morally, ethically and intellectually to start mass extraction of fossil fuels with the advent of the steam engine 300 years ago.
The Magna Carta requires now overhauling - adding to it the right for humans to understand what Energy really is - before any other commandment;
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future"(2017).
Wow, this was great.
The reference I fall back to is the movie "War Games" where the computer runs simulation after simulation and realizes that all potential outcomes of nuclear war have no winners. How will the people and systems currently running things get to the point where they realize continuing as we are will result in no winners? Only then may they decide to change from the current way things are done.
Check out Robert Sapolsky's free will argument, he would be a wonderful addition to this panel of amazing minds!
ua-cam.com/video/xhobcj2K9v4/v-deo.htmlsi=5R5DZGLeUW8IsIKo
Nate, you are SO the best. 😁😁 thank you!!!
Love THE GREAT SIMPLIFICATION! Great work and thinking Nate Hagens.
This one has been a great broad Meta-Analysis to provide nice context to a lot bot previous episodes.
So valuable!
Thanks!
I like the criticism of neoclassical economics, which of course is very seriously flawed. The observations of this guest seem very spot on for the current situation. However, it should be obvious even to economists that a bag of potatoes is worth more than a computer if there is a shortage of food. If we don't stop consuming junk and start investing in sustainable technologies and cultures, all of this is going to be a moot point, because crop failure. Refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. All economies are agricultural economies. The biophysical reality is NOT going to stay stable for decades. No economy is going to be able to "grow' its way out of this. The only possibly successful strategy is cooperation on every level. The invisible hand does not exist and never did. Also, I would really like to know why people who work in jobs whose main point is skimming money off the middle class, like to insult middle class jobs.
We need a common mythology to get us on the same track of reality if we want more cooperation and peace.
Stephen Fry describes myths emerging naturally over time, beginning from lots of individual small stories to try and explain how the world works collated into a larger story. You can’t simply start a myth. Myths in the age of science won’t start. If, for example, you look at past myths, there are Gods/creatures/etc that represent a natural phenomena or object. Currently we generally have an explanation for why a lot of these previously mysterious/‘magic’ things happen.
I suppose what you might be getting at is we need a new religion?
I propose a socialist movement, one that has a manifesto enough people agree on that will be attractive enough to overthrow this destructive, callous capitalist regime. Either way, if we don’t find an alternative soon, this world is going to get a whole lot worse when the collapse is in full flow.
@@SamWilkinsonn Very insightful! Yes, the mythos needs to develop organically...but it ain't looking good for that.
@@SamWilkinsonn ... unless Moloch counts 😜
@@TennesseeJed organically! That’s the word I was looking for.
Moloch would work, because we’re technically sacrificing children… as well as the vast majority of life on the planet. Maybe we’ll get extra brownie points for that?
@Silks- I instinctively prefer Robert Graves. Myths are an ancient lens, packed with political/economic data. (Not a quote).
I am reading the idiot by Dostoyeffsky, he made the point that the economic system has no moral belief guiding it, so will not serve us well... resonated with what your guest said..
Meta crisis was first popularized in 2019 across multiple different climate and sociological research papers and platforms come all of the term appears several years earlier in places.
Everybody's talking 'bout
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m
All we are saying is give peace a chance
Vote for the Peace-ism Chance-ism Coalition.
I'd love to hear Nate interview an economist from the Austrian school of economics. Bob Murphy perhaps. They are also critical of the current crony-capitalist system and debt-based monetary system, albeit for very different reasons than those MMT folks.
Mike Maloney & Rafi Farber are other suggestions.
godd interview, excellent guest!
Nate, thanks once again for a good discussion. If the goal is war utility for the whole world, human and non-human life, like we can move towards achieving that by restoring planetary health by trying to restore, ecosystems as well as possible to make them as productive as possible Through intensive management. So if we try to convert financial wealth into the education of young people and laying the foundation for local communities to become self-sufficient and restore ecosystems, we can provide a pathway from the financial system to evolve away from GDP into more appropriate matrices by which to function. State based actors are already obsolete. Perhaps the key lies in persuading the very wealthy people that an inconsequential portion of their sequestered capital can best serve their self interest through Le down some runway, to buy some time for the financial system to transition in an orderly fashion, avoiding a crash and burn scenarioseemingly inevitable on the current trajectory
there is no verb at all in any of that uhm
7:15 sounds exactly on point - self actualization when, what? There is not self? Sure. But what's my contribution? What, from my one and unique life, do I see that I can bring to the table(, etc?)
9:92 what's a GDP for?
10:26 Bhutan is the duck billed platypus of mammals
11:00 Steve Keen
Minsky?
Nate you need to catch up with Professor Mearschiemer's work.
What's his work based on ?
1:00:20 are you kidding me?! We went through ALL of that, just to get to: 'Our economic systems can't work unless we include moral distinctions' ??? Really?
I must be missing something...
I like him. I really, really like him.
Currently at 23:00 and I went from “I like him,” to “my GOD that was fire.”
This is getting really good
...morality in economics... it always makes me laugh that in the one place in Wealth of Nations that Adam Smith uses the term 'Hidden Hand', it's a restraining argument for agents in a society, bound by their morality towards their nation and the people of that nation, to not make decisions which will damage the country. The Hidden Hand as Smith argued it was a moral bias, not a blank cheque.
I get concerned with saying 'catholic economics'. No disrespect to modern day catholics, there are many good people under that wing, but historically they've already had their chance. De Civitas Dei gave us a millennia of darkness, of eyewatering corruption, slavery, repression of rights, repression of knowledge, of divine right and original sin, inquisitions and heretical burnings, and even in more contemporous times the Reich Concordat is indefensible. Religion isn't required for morality to exist, simple human empathy and awareness are, and I am deeply concerned by any model for the future which grounds itself in a decision procedure based on 'faith'. The greatest achievements of mankind were built on the foundation that faith simply isn't enough to get to the truth of something... and one of the primary weaknesses of economics as I see it, comes from how dangerously often 'faith' in it working fairly is used as an excuse.
Keynes was a fan of Newton, and Newton was devout in his belief... but Newton was a Deist... he believed God existed, but did absolutely nothing, had no agency in the world. God set up the rules, but didn't define the outcome. Unlike his contemporary Leibniz who believe the world as it stood then 'was the best of all possible worlds', because God was perfect and would have made a better world if he could, Newton believed if you want to make the world a better place, you need to go make the world a better place. Leibniz was a catholic, Newton... was something else entirely.
RE: "But they're saying that the DEI component that the White House insisted on, which was really, really stringent for every one of these factories, makes it so expensive and impossible to meet the criteria in some cases. You have to employ X number of people who simply don't exist, you can't do it. If you're ..." "they're saying" gives me pause. Can we be sure that's the real reason or just one that plays into certain political views? It's my understanding that there is a real issue of finding qualified staff for these jobs, which require certain educational backgrounds and technical experience. We as a country have not invested in the educational and training needs that would produce a workforce to employ at these and other high tech facilities.
He is correct, the 1% have all the marbles and make all the rules (own all of Washington). ❤❤
❤
Daniel Schmatchenberger and others were using the term Metacrisis well before 2022.
Michael Every, to simplify your theories of better economies, moving forward we just need to put our planet and people first?
I do agree that we need something like "wearing a bracelet of morality, saying what "Would Jesus do with this money" " It's a wonderful intent but honestly needs a much clearer understanding of just how natural systems handle their growth to then turn to perfecting what growth and it's natural growth limit of expert self-control....
Please honor me with a short conversation. We have so very much, both of us long and experienced deep divers into the complexity of the systems of the economy, **powered by following rules for multiplying profit (capitalism).** It's that those rules have COGNITIVE BLINDING EFFECTS that is the trouble. It's not immoral social or personal bias, except on occasion, that allows our whole **good-willed expert and engaging professional community** to organize around the world's accelerating suicidal impact growth plan. Please
The voters play a role in wanting certainty about their economic prospects. We assume government administration experts are working towards calibrating policies roughly based on a collection of “isms” and economic theory in order to satisfy these (oversimplified) expectations. The communication of the underlying uncertainty and complexity is a political negative and so is attenuated to the point where the voter becomes quite stupid and confused as to the actual underlying complexity and tenuous nature of economic models. I suspect this can only get worse as voters and politicians become desperate to satisfy expectations that are moving increasingly outside the physical reality of ecological scarcity.
29:52 #ISMs: A partial answer -- Create a whole-systems framework through which to invite, engage, and challenge the best theorists and die-hard defenders of every ISM to prove the accuracy, morality, value, and viability of their preferred ISM, and to transparently & vigorously debate with others out to do the same. I'm working on such an infrastructure & framework.
The channel 'geopolitical economic report' here on YT debunks most of the western Capitalist religion. It features michael hutchins, desai and Ben Norton as channel host. There's also the channel 'new economic thinking' that also invites lots of critics..
Nate I was waiting this whole interview for you to ask the guest the peak oil question. Did I miss it?
Richard Duncan has also talked about supply side spending...use mmt for cancer research, nuclear fushion research etc.
Had to down an entire bottle of Adderall to get through this. Might'a comprehended 3% of what Michael said. #Ineedtogetsmarter
An enlightening, understandable and disturbing discussion on economics, finance, market vagaries. covering some contentious and complex issues, Meta and Polycrisis, MMT, heterodox economics. Regards closing remarks, think it doubtful ‘Michael Every’ or yourself Nate will be able to effect in time any socio-economic changes sufficient to stave off forthcoming access to and ultimately loss of Flammable Fossils (FF), in particular Oil, so needed to sustain a global population of at least 8 Billion, unless that is a completely new form of sustainable energy equivalent to FF’s energy density and portability is found (hopium), but then that in itself would heighten an already looming ecological disaster. Todays rebuildables, sorry renewables don’t come anywhere near to meeting present human’s energy wants and needs.
The road to natural sustainability won’t be painless, view:-
“Jack Alpert - Civilization's “Running Out of Gas” Story”
The term “Gas” refers to Gasoline not NG for those not familiar with American terminology🤔
23:00 "are they building technological wonders to share with the world, or are they building tanks and aircraft carriers?" - well of course, they're building all of the above 😸.
Hi in NZ we had an economy like that up until the mid eighties so wasn't rampant consumption.Cars were expensive imported goods generally were expensive.
I have Friends who bought houses and raised families on a single income impossible for the majority now .I feel it produced a better quality of life .
What has he written and where can I buy it?
Does he teach? If so, Where?
Metacrisis, in Panavision with Dolby Surround Sound and THX.
Tiptoeing through the garden of ecocide to where words fail. How are we doing with using language to explain money, energy, and the limits set by ecocide?
Please get neuroscientist Peter Sterling on your show. His brilliant book #WhatIsHealth is contains perspective on 'externalization' of memory leading to boundless information outside of individuals. P.129 and all of chapter5.
No proof that money can be arbitrarily allocated without distorting otherwise efficient markets. The most efficient seems to be direct payments to individuals. But it’s important to remember that MMT does not advocate or prescribe for anything, it merely describes the fiat monetary system under which we live. Sure, some people may claim the government should spend on something because MMT says we can, but that’s not totally accurate. Just because the government can spend it, doesn’t mean it should, this is what MMT says because it acknowledges the potential externalities of limitless spending. This includes the ability of central banks to buy all of its government’s debt like Japan has done.
You might want to interview economist Fadhel Kaboub.
One of the more hope inducing vdo's in the long row of educational, thoughtinducing and worldview enhancing videos of the Great Simplification series!
Did i get that right? Trumps possible choice for financeminister(?) is the author of such a heterodox finance view??
After the wonder of Wörgel (Austria) another Austrian had such intellectual superior views? I am flabbergasted.
The comment I am about to leave might seem as if I did not appreciate the interview, and your efforts. I did appreciate the interview, and I do appreciate your efforts.
I frequently interpret a hesitant "lean" toward some new form of fascism as an inevitability here, and other discussions on this channel. I know you are all more than this, and I wonder if we would all benefit from more directly confronting the never before seen "New, Benevolent, Perfectly Automated Fascism" that some folks suspect needs to be in place to accurately solve The World's future problems.
[insert annoying novella here]
Huh?
It might be that there's two perceptual frameworks, one is humanity's strength is in subsuming different perceptions into ideas enclosed into the all-human, the other celebrates diversity of perceptions again removed from ideas but not the environment as all-human and non-human. It's also not having two levels as a person, the higher virtuous level and a lower level of compromise guided and allowed. If ideas come from the environment and that is simplified because it's easy and efficient, the ideas themselves become more estranged which seems like a one level person who plays 3 card monte there in an attempt to regain dimensional perception.
@@j85grim4 Oh please! Folks that feel most/all current governance structures worldwide are not ideologically capable of addressing climate concerns are not harder to find than leprechauns. Maybe like planning a scuba-diving trip with your friend, and not discussing the fact that your friend currently cannot swim, and that your friend is currently having a hard time seeing the relevance of swimming? Who's problem is this?
@@projectmalus Thank you for crafting such a thoughtful response! I wonder if the duality I interpret from your statement is an example of sentiments that are not going to be reflected well in anyone's current "ism". I don't feel that's as desperate as it sounds, and would welcome the discussion.
@@57stapler perhaps a third kind of freedom is needed, for the non-human logos. If self is not an object and between objects, and there's a horizontal and vertical aspect that can be organ-ized. Something like each of my organs corresponds to an object in the environment and physical expression of art is the in between that self is.
Example might be lungs, singing, nitrogen in the redox tower and the nature of self in/as that object, gregarious. Another way to see this, pancake batter poured out and forming those holes and the disc of the pancake. If the universe starts as shell, perhaps around dark matter as the first black hole and first sun, and this shell fragments and forms a tube, which settles for disc and has "leftover" energy, life as self from the sweet spot.
For us, the Sun as shell and tube affording the disc of the solar system which has a sweet spot in which the shell supports life and is in a constant pull towards fragmentation, or objectivity of the perfect sphere.
The forming of objects on the Earth, with grass/herd/pack as object (triangle that moves to pyramid then cone with dimensionality from cohesive dynamics) and humans able to move into that by being part of a mammal object, which extends self into logos, specifically via being non-ruminants eating ruminant food and the organs affected in a half dozen ways that are radically different from each other. This breaks the strong triangle for them and brings the dark triad for people. The aggressive actions of that triangle are bound into the vitality as dynamic cohesive access to logos from stress, we only get the stress and the logos access.
This creates the two world perspective I think. Humans are striving for the perfect powerful interface, as campfire circle extended in dimensionality via the fire of tech. Another option is to be connectors, much like those pores in the pancake, like 8 billion GI tracts on the shell of Earth in generous caring mode, as a sort of trampoline.
This from not the grass all powerful perspective (Machiavellian? Capitalism?) which is singular intent and many forms as expression but as many perspectives that recognize and help realize what's there, and similar form, our strength that needs folding back into the world.
Cheers.
I wish NAte had pushed the narrative a little, because suddenly it seems like the degrowth story was erased from his brain. At least he had said something along the lines of 'taking into account that in the world as it is today we have already exceeded carrying capacity, I can't imagine the consequences of a lot of the largest economies reindustrializing, when we still don't have the technologies.' with which we can do it sustainably'. For me the guest theories are still very narrow, i liked listening to the conversation anyway.
How you thought this discussion around how we treat money was narrow, is beyond me.
@@antonyjh1234 🤷♀
@@lowelovibes8035 The largest irrigated crop in the world, is the lawn, we are far from carrying capacity.
This one was interesting. Your idea for a debate between Every and Keen is an amazing one, I'd love that. I will just respond to his advice to not read mainstream news. I really hate that advice. Read newspapers with a critical eye? Absolutely. Don't assume you're getting the full story in your news broadcast? For sure. But to say to not interact with them at all is a little too "fake news"-y for me
If he took out his bias regarding Ru, he would see why their economy is doing well. They might be on their way to becoming a Gas giant
Yeah, he's unfortunately just as propagandized as all other liberals. Where else does he have trouble selecting valid sources? Amazing that _HE_ is one of the few 'woke' economists 😞
I've decided to ask Mary what she would do with all the money coming to me after realizing Michael way too much attention.😂❤
I believe Daniel Schmachtenberger was using the term metacrisis before Michael. This guy seems pretty full of himself.
Daniel have used it for at least 10 years. This guy is a beginner in thinking like this and have evidently never talked to anyone using the term. That means that his knowledge on the area is flawed at best, but he probably feel smart among the brainwashed economic colleagues he have..
Catholic economics? Determined by whom? Rome? A history of extraction by any means, and mostly
from the poor. Christian economics? Same problem, and even more so, based on a meta-physical construction
for which there is zero evidence...and whose "reward" is acquired post-mortem. This makes any attempt
that is applied to mortal concerns is essentially hypocritical, as one risks eternity for temporal comforts.
running backwards, yeah makes absolute sense spannxxx!!!
Omg I keep having to comment when I hear these things! If there were no govt intervention and central banks, we may very well have to work 7 days a week. But in normal free market economies, central banks aren't stealing the wealth of their citizenry and prices go down as productivity goes up. It is normal for prices to decrease over time, and when this happens, people have to work less and less to produce the same amount of stuff. People have to work longer in our current system bc the Fed has had a target of stealing 2% of our wealth! Red queen phenomenon.
Less lobbying and cartelization of employers gives employees options.
Damn, you are deep in the Free market religion. You think the same way as the Capitalist elite wants you to believe. You recommend the best substrate for them to grow their power and to be complete psychopaths.
Is that a coincidence or are you just a victim of their economic propaganda apparatus ??
"But in normal free market economies" There is no such thing as a "free market" economy: That's a fiction created by the neoliberals to justify a system that allows the rich and powerful to exploit everyone else--and the planet--and the name of "freedom" (but mostly for billionaires and corporations).
listening to this conversation is exactly why I own bitcoin
I am shocked that it took the Underpants Gnomes to make an appearance in these discussions.
There's no fed funds rate in a free market. Central banking and fractional reserve banking are incompatible with truly free markets. Interest rates are an emergent property of free markets.
Free markets are 100% corruption - build directly into the system. You have been deliberately propagandized by the elite. Free markets is just a free war - nothing else. wake up..
I love this interview.
What l do find disturbing is not the views expressed.
It is the wooden calving folding wall type thing.
Does the foul look like it is attempting to drink from a male figure horse.
Look to the calving on the right side of the screen neck height.
I Think l would have considered that before l went on a UA-cam stream.
Greed should be against the law of society. This can easily be treated as a crime just by having proper anti monopoly laws and regulations. Waste by governments should on the other hand also be criminally charged. Smaller governments to prevent large budgets managed by a few politicians with the authority to waste taxpayers money.
A moral revolution is required. How do we get there from here?
Perhaps morality needs to be coded into a new aspect of economy built for people and planet.
What does that restoration economy look like?