Macro N Cheese

It will come as no surprise to our listeners that countries of the Global South are mired in a foreign debt crisis and that default is directly tied to the lack of monetary sovereignty.Our friend Ndongo Samba Sylla, a Senegalese development economist, talks to Steve about the situation, how it came to be, and how it can be overcome.Countries of the Global South usually are tied to debt in a foreign currency for a number of reasons, including balance of payment constraints and the capture of export income by transnational corporations. Some debt was carried over from colonial rule. Ndongo emphasizes that these countries are often trapped in an extractive economic model. Their resources are exploited by foreign companies, leading to a cycle of debt and dependence.Debt cancellation, while absolutely necessary, is not enough to address the structural issues that perpetuate the crisis. Ndongo mentions ecological debt — the extraction and exploitation of natural resources from the Global South by the Global North.

**Don’t forget to check out our transcripts! There’s one for every episode of this podcast, as well as a section of “extras” with links to relevant resources. Go to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/ This week we’re bringing you all three sessions of the Real Progressives Book Club on L. Randall Wray’s Making Money Work for Us.  RP Book Club is run by our volunteers with guest experts leading the discussion and taking questions from attendees.  This is much longer than our usual episodes of Macro N Cheese, so we’ve included the time codes for each session. [1:43] — Session One Guest economist Eric Tymoigne  Chapter 1, What is Money? Chapter 2, Where Does Money Come From? [1:14:35] — Session Two Guest economist Yeva Nersisyan  Chapter 3, Can We Have Too Much Money?  Chapter 4, Balances Balance  Chapter 5, Life is Full of Trade-Offs [2:43:33] — Session Three Guest economist Randy Wray Chapter 6, Th

“People talk about campaign finance being the problem as to why ‘progressive’ politicians can't get elected. But that's more of an effect of this rather than the cause, because let's say, Citizens United, the court ruling which now allows corporations to pretty much give unlimited donations to candidates. That's just the most recent evolution of a system which precludes all possibility for radical change.”Our guest this week is 1Dime, a content creator on YouTube and the podcast, 1Dime Radio, and a graduate student in political science. The interview is another stop on Steve’s journey to find the intersection of Modern Monetary Theory and Marxism. 1Dime is one of the few socialists – or democratic socialists – who accept MMT. Our audience understands that capitalism is antithetical to democracy. 1Dime suggests that the US is unique in that it is very liberal in what it allows its citizens to do in the private sphere, or civil society, without allowing for real political power, which he defines as the abilit

Is the US a failed state? Well, with a paralyzed economy, debt deflation, and a ruling elite waging class warfare on labor, what else should we call it?Economist Michael Hudson often writes and talks about the US role as a global force bending the rest of the world to its will. Or trying to. This week he and Steve bring the focus home, looking at the state of affairs in the US; breaking down the causes and devastating effects of the massive transfer of income and wealth from the working class to the 1% — specifically the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors.Michael slices through false promises of re-industrialization after half a century of brutal policies by both Democrat and Republican administrations.“America cannot re-industrialize without reversing this whole philosophy of post-industrial society as a class war against labor. You can't have both. You can't have a class war against labor and re-industrialization, with the labor unionization that goes with it. That's the conundrum.”It’s well

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

If you’ve recently chatted with a well-informed liberal – the kind who reads the NY Times or watches PBS NewsHour – you’ve heard encouraging things about the economy. You’ve heard that Biden’s doing a good job. Unemployment has gone down, wages have gone up. Why can’t you be happy about it all?To celebrate all this good news, we brought back our friend, Yeva Nersisyan, associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College, research scholar at the Levy Institute, and frequent collaborator with MMT OG Randy Wray.Yes, unemployment rates are lower, but we know those numbers don’t tell the true story. Or have you already forgotten our episode with Pavlina, just two short weeks ago? Yes, wages have gone up. But so has inflation. And in the race between inflation and wages, inflation is winning. Speaking of which, our Macro N Cheese family knows that one thing worse than inflation is the Fed’s cure for it.In this episode, Steve and Yeva look at the disconnect between the ongoing immiseration of the worki

It’s always interesting to get the insights of someone whose job places them near the beating heart of the imperial behemoth. Especially when they’ve begun to pull back the curtain and take a hard look at reality. Paul Gambles lives in Thailand where he specializes in emerging markets with MBMG Group.Paul and Steve talk about the clarity that MMT provides. The public is kept intentionally misinformed by a mainstream narrative purposely obscuring the power relations of the capital order.Paul describes capital flight in developing nations and how the US gains and maintains economic control through dollar hegemony, international institutions like IMF, and military aggression. The western system imposes itself on emerging markets as if drawing them into a warm pool of water, a step at a time. Once they are in the system, they find it is shark infested.The discussion covers conditions that led to the banding together of BRICS to create an alternative pathway to the US-dominated system. Paul warns that western hege

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

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

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

Dr. Lin Zhang talks with Steve about her book "The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy."Her book includes stories of individuals who transformed themselves and their lives to take advantage of this new global economy. She tells of Min, a former prisoner...“I think Min's story in a way captures the sort of imperative of entrepreneurialism in which we are all still living. The contemporary capitalist economy. The need to kind of keep reinventing oneself to adapt to the constant changes, but also the kind of contradiction generated on personal and collective level. So, the coexistence of opportunities, risk and frustrations. So this is, I think, what I try to document in the book, the everyday labor of entrepreneurial reinvention.”Dr. Zhang and Steve discuss the support provided by the state, which is no small matter. It makes entrepreneurism in China different from that of the US, or from India or developing countries of the global South.Zhang also talks about the roots of

**Check out the section of “Extras,” where you will find resources for further information about topics touched on in this episode. Transcripts are available for this and every episode. https://realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/It’s been almost two years since we’ve had German economist Dirk Ehnts on the podcast. This episode can be seen as part of Steve’s ongoing look at “dedollarization” and what it means to be the world’s reserve currency. They turn the MMT lens toward the Eurozone, comparing governments’ responses to the pandemic, inflation, and the treatment of labor.“So of course the labor laws are different in Germany compared to Italy, to France and so on. If the French workers go on strikes, they burn stuff. It's always amazing for us Germans to see it happening, but their productivity is even higher. So maybe German workers should burn stuff when they go on strike. So that increases productivity.No, I'm just joking. I never said that!"Dirk talks about changes in regulations on deficit spen

New Zealander Bijou Smith is a longtime friend of Steve and the podcast. His story, in brief: “I was a physicist. I love physics, theoretical physics, but when I learned a bit about economics—I was always interested in economics from a sort of dynamical systems analysis perspective. It's kind of interesting mathematics. Even the neoclassical stuff is interesting for a little while until you realize it's a joke. But then when I heard about MMT, a lot of the pieces clicked into placed and it's like, wow, this is really the struggle.” MMT is a bell that can’t be unrung.Steve and Bijou talk of popular concern about the petrodollar, and how economic illiteracy distorts its importance. The role of the US dollar in global political economy is poorly understood without the insights of MMT.Smith criticizes the false psychology that views currency as a finite resource and is locked into the image of fixed exchange rates. He argues that this creates mental models that are not true but are still played out as if they are

If you’re one of the lucky ones who attended our webinar, RP Live with Clara E. Mattei, then you’ve already heard this episode. Or you may have watched the video of that event. This podcast episode is the audio version, but we’re asking you to play it anyway. It never hurts to hear information a few times, and by playing it, you’re also helping us grow Macro N Cheese. Because algorithms.On Tuesday, May 2nd, Professor Mattei will be joining us for the first of two sessions of RP Book Club on The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism. There’s still time to register using the link at the bottom of this page.At the end of The Capital Order Mattei writes:"This book has detailed a set of influential economic patterns that are pervasive across the globe and that shape our daily lives. Contrary to what the proponents of austerity would have us think, however, the socioeconomic system we live in is not inevitable, nor is it to be grudgingly accepted as the only way forward. Aust

Carl Zha brings us his knowledge of China, the US, and global political economic relations. He also brings his exquisite sense of the absurd.Exactly one year ago, Carl and Steve recorded their marathon discussion of Chinese history, resulting in three episodes about Mao. This time, they have Taiwan in their sights. Just like Joe Biden.Official US policy on Taiwan is just ambiguous enough to allow plenty of shenanigans, despite recognizing “one China” since the 1970s.“We know how the Cold War 1.0 played out. We isolated the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc. We cut off all the trade and then eventually the Soviet Union collapsed. This is how we won the Cold War 1.0. So we'll just play the same playbook to win Cold War 2.0 against China. But this is crazy talk because China is nothing like Soviet Union of the yester years; China is the world's largest trading economy. It has trade not just with United States and Europe but also has a huge trade with the global south. So, what the US is doing in its attempted decoupl

**Every episode of Macro N Cheese is accompanied by a full transcript and an “Extras” section with links to further resources. Check them out at realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast It’s been two years since Bill Black was last on with Steve. We’ve invited several guests to talk about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, so it only makes sense to ask our whistleblower friend to weigh in. Bill and Steve discuss what it means to be too big to fail. When an institution is too big to fail, the creditors get bailed out, but then, Bill says, “really really bad things have happened.” “...they hold the economy hostage. And nowadays they hold the global economy hostage. And if you hold the global economy hostage, you hold global politics hostage. So that needs to be fixed. And the way to fix that is not to allow such institutions, right? Duh,” The episode looks at the capture of government by the financial industry. Bill talks about his experience during the savings and loan crisis and the transition from somew

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

C. Derick Varn is a poet, teacher, and “arm-chair theorist” (his words, not ours), but Steve called on him for his deep knowledge of history, specifically the history of revolutions.Varn takes a realistic and nuanced look at some of the popular myths about the brutality of key figures, like Stalin and Mao. He suggests placing them in the context of historical geopolitical economic conditions.I'm also just going to remind people that both the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chinese Revolution, in particular, come out of the context of world wars. They happen when they happen during the world wars for a reason. You have highly traumatized societies where the power has been broken because of the consequences of world war, even when the powers at hand are actually allied with the winners.Steve asks whether one should excuse abandoning civil liberties in order to protect the gains of a revolution against very real internal and external threats. “What civil liberties?” asks Varn. Some revolutions never even got rid of

When you learned of the run on Silicon Valley Bank, did the image of George Bailey come to mind, facing the mob demanding full withdrawals from Bailey Building & Loan?“You’re thinking of this place all wrong, as if I had the money back in the safe. The money’s not here. Why, your money’s in Joe’s house that’s right next to yours. And the Kennedy house and Mrs. Maitland’s house, and a hundred others. You’re lending them the money to build, and they pay it back to you as best they can. What are you gonna do, foreclose on them?” (It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946)Steve’s guest is Brian Romanchuk of Bond Economics, here to break down the conditions and events leading to the collapse of SVB. Spoiler alert: there’s no Jimmy Stewart, no uplifting message, no sentimental tears.Brian explains how the American banking system is unusual relative to other developed countries. In Canada, where he lives, the Big Five banks are an oligopoly, but they’re diversified. They deal with all the nation’s banking needs.SVB is a relat

Steve always says the beauty of MMT is “it takes the most convoluted spaghetti diagram and turns it into a straight line.” When it comes to banking, the financial industry, financial technology, and privacy, has the MMT community developed that straight line yet? Today’s guest, Raúl Carrillo, thinks we can get there:“I don't think we quite have, but I think the straight line flows right through everything else we've done. Just as we don't want banks to be heavily involved in the public provisioning process... We have to pay just as much attention to Silicon Valley, and then start thinking about what it looks like to actually build a democratic public money system that operates on MMT principles.”It’s been two years since we’ve had Raúl on the podcast, but the conversation is continuous, and it includes our episodes with Rohan Grey and Brett Scott.Steve and Raúl discuss Raúl’s recently published white paper, "Seeing Through Money: Democracy, Data Governance, and the Digital Dollar." It is essentially an interv