Colin Kendall Says:
November 4th, 2010 at 10:36 am
I am a new convert to the ideas of MMT.
As a British Mensa member, it is quite embarrassing for me to admit that for the first sixty years of my life I believed every one of Warren’s Innocent Frauds.
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And so it is with 99%+ of the world. It is just more intuitive to think of money as a “thing” than as a utility or public monopoly. And all the MMT apologists who constantly complain that people don’t get it need to realize that there is a large marketing component involved in educating people. Berating “neo-liberals” is a waste of effort — especially because, outside of economic academia, the number of people who know what “neo-liberal” means is miniscule!
I agree completely with Phil’s remarks; the MMT community/proponents simply doesn’t seem to realize just how in-knowledgeable (sic) the rest of the public are (this also applies to most of the hosts of the MSM financial/talk shows). I have left comments at other blog sites with no responses, which says something. The likely-hood that the MSM talk shows can represent useful educational venues seems non-existent (though they may bolster the egos of the interviewees). Venues which would have a greater prospect involve those which permit an educational atmosphere: for instance, if a grammar-corrected ‘billy blog’ were written in USA English style rather than Australian English style it could serve multiple purposes including the provision of an information base on which an educational video, comic strip, cartoon series, etc. might be constructed to get down to the level of understanding of those who determine economic policy in the White House. (After all, they have been barraged in the blogosphere for several years by ‘top-level’ economists with little or no effect.
Oh, I know exactly how clueless people are – I too have heard the crickets chirping after I left comments. And that’s at sites frequented by professional economists (who admittedly, are the worst at understanding this.)
It seems to me that the best way to advance the cause would be to take a page from the right-wing: a think tank. Someplace that can publish papers on fancy letterhead, hold conferences with an open bar, and more to the point have a staff of MMT-trained people who can get on the rolodexes of journalists and stand ready to provide a ready quote about the issues of the day. That’s the way you get it on the radar.
Only thing is, it costs money – millions of dollars, year after year, with no revenues other than those of donors. Warren’s got a lot deeper pockets than most of us, but even his pockets aren’t that deep – you’d need more, and I don’t know of all that many other rich people who would be interested enough to do it.
I only discovered WM’s 7deadly.pdf(what I believe is termed NeoChartism), yesterday after following a “must read” link while reading the Solari Report blog. While I am attracted to the ideas presented in this 63 page political position paper, I believe that the idea that these 7 “Innocent Frauds”, are simply black and white issues, is problematic at best. The analogies which WM uses to illustrate his stated ideas do not necessarily hold up to critical examination. I have found that both EconProph http://econproph.com/2010/03/20/links-on-modern-monetary-theory-mmt/ and Chartismblogspot: http://chartal.blogspot.com/ host ongoing debate/discussion of the subject matter.