Macro N Cheese

The last time Delman Coates was a guest on Macro N Cheese, the Our Money campaign was still fairly new, this podcast was on its 20th episode, and none of us had heard of COVID-19.  Now, almost two years and 100 episodes later, it was long overdue for him and Steve to get together again. Delman believes the federal response to the pandemic has been an eye-opener. People saw the government use the public purse to provide economic stimulus. New money was created through deficit spending without the need for new taxes to pay for it. It’s out in the open: whether deficit spending is being done to bail out corporations or whether it’s spent on emergency relief, everyone can see it happening. And so that's why I think that there is so much power in MMT. Paulo Freire talked about the pedagogy of the oppressed. MMT is a pedagogy of the people. And as people see their government working and functioning, they understand that the concepts that we've been espousing are true. And because of that, I think it's unassa

From his days at TYT to his ground-breaking investigative work at Status Coup, Jordan Chariton has been on the front lines of journalism for years. The stories he covers should be plastered all over cable news and the national publications… but they aren’t. While the mainstream is obsessed with impeachment and a newly-elected Republican who follows QAnon, Jordan has been reporting on the tragedies and travesties being visited upon American communities far from Washington, DC. From Flint’s poisoned water supply to Iowa’s fraudulent Democratic caucus, what’s notable is the absence of the national press corps. Jordan travels to trailer parks and tent cities where he educates himself and his followers about the day-to-day misery perpetrated on the people. I'd be seeing what's actually happening in the country, which was just an economic Hunger Games mixed with environmental genocide. And I'd get back to the hotel or wherever I was staying, and the media's main focus would be on whatever Trump tweeted. Jordan an

We at Macro N Cheese are big fans of Black Agenda Report because of their clear, no-bullshit analysis and their global perspective. This week’s guest does not disappoint. Danny Haiphong is a contributing editor of BAR, co-host of The Left Lens, and co-author of American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News―From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. Danny describes austerity as the assault on the rights and well-being of working people. It has been normalized and disconnected from the issues of xenophobia and white supremacy being peddled by both parties in a kind of faux competition between the elite over who is going to lead the charge for the empire at this given moment. Steve and Danny spend much of the episode addressing the distinction between reform and revolution and the dangers inherent when the lines are blurred. While it’s becoming clear that electoral politics are inadequate for bringing the kind of revolutionary change we need, we can’t entirely dismiss th

We’ve had several episodes on Brexit, but this is the first time we’re talking about it with a Scottish nationalist. Kairin Van Sweeden is the executive director of Modern Money Scotland and works with the SNP, the Scottish National Party. Joining the union was forced upon the Scottish people in 1707 against the wishes of the majority. With the seat of government and economic power concentrated in London, the needs of Scotland are not a priority in the UK. Despite the continual growth of the independence movement, they couldn’t get it passed in the 2014 referendum. By the time of the Brexit vote in 2016, many realized their mistake as the majority in Scotland voted to stay in the European Union. Scotland has an abundance of resources, with a huge farming sector and an excess of renewable energy potential in the form of tidal and wind energy. They have 60% of the UK’s ocean water but only 8% of the population. Enter a problem. Scotland has an aging (shrinking) population and needs to attract young people. Th

Recently our friend Bill Black introduced us to June Carbone. He suggested she could tell us how the job guarantee fits into cutting edge research on the family. June holds the Robina Chair in Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School and writes about the intersection of family, the economy, and politics.  In this episode, June takes Steve through the evolution of the American family as it transitioned to meet the economic needs of modern society. She says what excites her is not so much what things are, but why they change. When the US was founded, it was an agricultural society. The foundation of the colonial era family was the farm, owned and controlled by men and primarily a self-contained unit.  Industrialization and urbanization disrupted the system. The entire economy became dramatically more insecure, with boom-bust economic cycles. Women are no longer helping in the fields. They are the moral centers of the family. What's their job? Well, we think of it as sp

What can we say about the job guarantee that hasn’t already been said?  Quite a bit, actually, as you’ll see in this and upcoming episodes. This week Fadhel Kaboub is talking to a mellower Steve, fresh from the hospital and still on the mend from Covid19. Fadhel begins with the reality that capitalism is a brutal system that constantly leaves people behind. It’s driven by technological change, and as this develops, we require some workers with new skill sets, while others are rendered virtually obsolete. We don’t have an existing system bringing them into the new technology. We count on individual workers to do this on their own, to somehow anticipate technological change, take time and money from their own budget, so to speak, to invest in learning new skills that will be useful for this new industry that doesn't exist yet and somehow be ready to go to transition to those new jobs. And those jobs sometimes are in a different location. Sometimes they're completely in a different country, a different p

Steve Grumbine has been in the hospital with Covid-19 complicated by pneumonia. We’re encouraged by his progress and expect to have him back in the saddle soon. Since he was unable to record a new interview this week, we’re reviving a 2017 conversation he had with Patricia Pino from the UK. Our listeners know her as co-host of the MMT Podcast, but this was recorded several months before that project was launched.    It’s amusing to revisit the past, comparing ourselves then and now. In 2017 Steve was still very much into a heavy metal, confrontational style. He was constantly being challenged by folks obsessed with the “Illuminati.” They were more willing to believe in Rothschild conspiracies than in the reality of sovereign fiat currency. In contrast, Patricia was remarkably optimistic, assuring us that we’re “almost there”... MMT is catching on.    American progressives had been frustrated by the results of the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and identified with the disappointm

Happy New Year!  Welcome to our first episode of 2021.    Among ourselves, we on the Macro N Cheese team often debate (argue) whether it’s possible to achieve our economic and political goals under the present system. We’re as susceptible to discouragement and despair as anyone else. This is why we love a guest like Emma Caterine whose optimism is rooted in experience and realism.    Emma’s message for 2021 is “organize!” To begin with, we must address the isolation that people are feeling while in the midst of the most heightened state of class war since the Great Depression. Everyone has lost a source of income - or they know somebody who has. Debt continues to accrue with no end in sight, and while people understand that this is widespread, they all experience it on a visceral, personal level. It’s our job to communicate with them. It’s our job to educate.    It’s clear we can’t expect much in the way of solutions or relief from the Biden administration. The president-ele

Happy 100th! To our supporters, both old and new,Thank you for making this podcast a success exceeding our expectations.   For the story of Macro N Cheese and our 100th episode, please check out the “Extras” section on the episode web page.  realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-100-flying-with-sara-nelson   *   *   *   *   *    Sara Nelson is a labor leader with MMT bullets in her bandolier. She’s practical, wise, and filled with compassion for the workers she represents and those she doesn’t. She joins us fresh on the heels of another victory, celebrating the passage of the latest Covid-19 relief bill while admitting it’s not perfect.    She explains that her union’s strategy requires a multi-pronged attack and its success manifests on multiple fronts. They could only prevail because they are organized. Their battle began long before they arrived at the legislative process. They had already fought through the early rounds.   

Are you listening to Macro N Cheese on our website? If not, you’re missing the transcript and extra content that accompany each episode.    This week we welcome Professor Steve Keen for his third visit to the podcast. He talks to us about the need for a debt jubilee, rising from the insanity of orthodox economics and the very real consequences attached to that paradigm.   There's this belief which is promulgated by mainstream economics. If you read a text like Mankiw, for example, you'll find a statement saying that when the government runs a deficit, it has to borrow money from the private sector. And when it borrows that money, it puts an unreasonable burden on future generations. And that belief, I think, is the core of why we don't use the power the government has to create the money when it's necessary, as it is right now. And that belief is fallacious. The government creates money by running a deficit, it doesn't need to borrow in the first place to raise the money. It creates it by

This week, Randy Wray joins us for his fifth Macro N Cheese episode. As always, he brings loads of useful insights and factual information, both historical and of the moment.    While cable news and Democratic social media are jubilant with the ouster of Donald Trump, we know it’s a hollow victory. There’s nothing to celebrate. Randy and Steve look at the sobering facts. We stand on the precipice of country-wide evictions and mortgage foreclosures. Many jobs and businesses are lost forever. The optimists among us keep looking for signs, but at every turn, we’re confronted with evidence that the incoming administration has no intention of meeting the challenges.    In normal times (pre-pandemic), our paychecks are gobbled up by rent, health care, utility bills, and debt, debt, debt - leaving very little, if any, discretionary income. Now we’re faced with overdue rents and mortgages, overdue electrical, gas, and water bills. Student loans, car loans, and credit card debt haven’t gone away, a

You don’t have to be a Marxist to know the vital importance of labor. Workers hold the key to social change. They keep us fed, clothed, and provided for; they’re the only force with actual leverage over the ruling class. No wonder unions are such a threat.    Joe Burns isn’t just a labor lawyer and negotiator, he’s a student of labor history. He joins us to talk about the past, present, and future of the movement. For the challenges faced today, it is instructional to look back. For example, the gig economy is not so different from the early days of the auto industry, when employment was often temporary. The sprawling nature of trucking was used by employers as a barrier to organizing. When unions saw past those conditions, they were able to grow and achieve results.    Joe talks about the historical significance of national unions as we look at today’s international economy. Early unions were local or regional, but as transportation and trade developed, so did national manufacturing and p

When Steve Mnuchin announced a clawback of the CARES Act, the liberal media wasted no time before launching condemnations. Among our friends in the MMT community, wiser heads prevailed. Make no mistake, nobody denies Mnuchin is the Grinch who stole Christmas. But like a magic eye picture, if you change your focus slightly, a different image will form. This week, our friend, Robert Hockett, joins us to tell us why Mnuchin’s announcement can be seen as a gift in our stocking, not a lump of coal.   On the surface, the CARES Act appeared to be an acknowledgment that the Federal Reserve and Treasury had gotten it wrong in 2008-09. They had bailed out the banks, while ignoring the victims of those very same institutions whose obscene dealings had plunged the planet into crisis in the first place. This time they were extending a lifeline to Main Street, and to the states, regions, and cities bearing the brunt of the current crisis -- who are, in fact, first responders on the front lines of both the pandemic an

Not all of our listeners are anti-capitalist but it’s safe to say that most of us object to the accumulation of massive wealth solely by virtue of inactive, unproductive ownership. Sitting on idle property is a particularly egregious way of accruing riches, often to the detriment of surrounding communities that are forced to tolerate eyesores in their midst for decades on end. Depreciation has been a windfall for the ruling elite.    Our guests, Joshua Vincent and Rich Nymoen, are proponents of the land value tax, or LVT, associated with 19th-century political economist and journalist Henry George. The term "Georgist philosophy" refers to the economic analysis and social philosophy he advanced.    Neither Josh nor Rich promote the confiscation of property. Value is derived by different means:    ...it's the rental value, not the actual land itself that belongs to the community. And most of that wealth is publicly created, is community-created. If you look at a city, almost all o

At Real Progressives, we get daily messages from people who are still recovering from Bernie’s trouncing in the primaries. They remain distraught, disillusioned, and discouraged - convinced that he was robbed.    Last week Rohan Grey explained Rashida Tlaib and AOC’s Public Banking Act. This week we asked him to take off his MMT hat and talk to our wounded volunteers. To help them put the recent political past in perspective and move forward, they first must accept a sobering dose of reality. Rohan wasn’t surprised by Sanders’ loss.     ...I think at least for me, as someone who tries to be a committed leftist revolutionary, whatever, the odds are always extremely small. The odds are extremely small right up until the point that you win. And they continue to be very small the next day for the next thing you try to win. And I don't think that the history of progress is the history of always inevitably having a good shot. It's the history of very, very difficult things, somehow managing

On October 31st, Rohan Grey posted a 31-part Twitter thread about Rashida Tlaib’s and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s new Public Banking Act, which he helped craft. We immediately reached out and arranged for Steve to interview him, ending up with not one, but two episodes of Macro N Cheese. This week he answers our questions about the Public Banking Act. Next week he and Steve will venture into the swampland of politics. By the time the episode airs the election will truly - finally - be over. So, has anything changed? How does Rohan see the road going forward? But back to the Public Banking Act…     "It's long past time to open doors for people who have been systematically shut out and provide a better option for those grappling with the costs of simply trying to participate in an economy they have every right to—but has been rigged against them," Tlaib said in a statement. "The COVID-19 pandemic has also plunged city and state governments into a financial crisis unlike any other they've ever expe

Esha Krishnaswamy, host of the https://historicly.substack.com/ (historic.ly) podcast, joins Steve to talk about the frustrating political miasma of centrism. Centrism. So vapid and insubstantial, how does one grab ahold? It’s a wispy dandelion head (aptly named the capitulum) - one slight *poof* and it’s gone. But we’re not fooled. As soon as the left gets behind a popular policy or candidate, the center reveals itself to be a mighty, unstoppable force in the service of the ruling class. In today’s world, the US centrist home turf is the Democratic Party.    Esha’s jam is history and throughout the episode she calls on instances from the past, from John Locke’s justification of inherited land wealth to E. Belfort Bax on liberalism and socialism in 1890. Through the lens of historical materialism, events can be progressive or reactionary, depending on the conditions of their time. She likes reading Lenin because “he’s hilarious and insults everyone.” If he were around now he would be “the worst T

This second part of Steve’s conversation with Warren Mosler was to be about the government response to the pandemic, but first Warren talks about disagreements with some in the MMT community. We here at Macro N Cheese believe in healthy debate and want to bring a range of viewpoints to our listeners.    The federal job guarantee is one area in which Warren disagrees with certain prominent MMTers. He sees the JG as a transitional program to be used during downturns in the business cycle with the goal of getting people hired by the private sector when the economy rebounds. A number of advocates see the job guarantee as a door to more spending on the public purpose. Warren’s position on public purpose jobs is simple: “if you need them, hire them.” We’re all in agreement that skilled workers shouldn’t be working minimum wage jobs, even at the more reasonable rate of a job guarantee minimum, but there’s a vast need for public services that won’t be met by private firms. Mosler says that some MMT proponen

Talking to Warren Mosler reminds us just how far MMT has come since the days he traveled from conference to conference, peddling his intellectual wares. Well, they no longer laugh at Mosler Economics, AKA Modern Monetary Theory. It’s a well-known part of MMT history that Stephanie Kelton, fresh out of grad school, set out to disprove his assertions, point by point, and ended up making MMT her life’s work. Today, in Warren’s view, she’s arguably the most influential economist in the world, because all of the powerful economic advisors have read The Deficit Myth. Of course, he gives credit to Randy Wray, Bill Mitchell, Mat Forstater, and those who came after, but, he says, her book saved the world.   That we get this deficit spending is just great, you know, that we've had recently. You could say MMT has saved the world. Whether it knows it or not. There's no way they would have done three trillion and now talking another two trillion. And there hasn't been a single mention of a tax.   In this fi

Bill Mitchell joins us this week to discuss a plethora of American misconceptions… perceived exceptionalism, obvious neoliberalism, and a dysfunctional electoral system, as we approach the culmination of perhaps the most absurd and disheartening presidential election in history.   The interview covers the consequences of neoliberalism in Europe, the UK, Australia, and the US, both in the rightward march of political parties and the ticking clock of catastrophic climate change. They discuss the attraction to the Universal Basic Income by some on the left who can’t see its underlying agenda and the perils of turning us all into consumption units.   Bill Mitchell is the guest we need to hear from as the ugly campaign season winds down. Our Australian friend’s vantage point, as well as his astute grasp of political economy, combine with his level-headedness to bring a message of understated optimism. When Steve gives in to a rare bout of despair about the future, Bill talks about the early days of the M