Macro N Cheese

“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

Austerity is a potent weapon of class warfare. Political economist David Fields talks with Steve about the ways austerity serves to discipline labor, as it has been doing since the Bolshevik revolution. They touch on the reasons capitalism cannot risk full employment, as explained by both Karl Marx and Michal Kalecki.David wants people to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations or The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Even Smith, the father of the “invisible hand,” said government is instituted for the security of property — for the rich against the poor.The discussion touches on the current inflation, comparing the true causes to the mainstream narrative.“There's been a very coordinated, calculated campaign with well-known economists. Call it neoliberalism. Call it what you want, financialization... The concepts, terms, economic principles that we take for granted are not value-neutral.”We are embedded in a system of winners and losers and we’re meant to believe there’s no other way. Workers must be prevented from

Dr. Fadhel Kaboub was recently appointed Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development of the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC), an international intergovernmental organisation founded by countries from across the Global South. In honor of Fadhel’s new position, we’re releasing Steve’s very first interview with him from back in the day when we live streamed onto Facebook. Steve thinks his questions are very different today — more disciplined. Some of us can’t get over how young he sounded. It was only five years ago!Fadhel and Steve discuss the spectrum of monetary sovereignty from full sovereignty to completely non-sovereign. Fadhel explains the structural debt traps developing nations find themselves in. They have deficits related to lack of sufficient food or energy production, forcing them to rely on imports.“Those are things that, no matter what you do as a central bank, you're not going to eliminate those structural issues unless as a country you start investing in renewable energy s

Historian Harvey J. Kaye joins Steve to talk about the complicated legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Kaye acknowledges many points in our criticism of FDR but goes on to discuss what Roosevelt was up against, and why he should be respected.“Because Gramsci, I think it was, said, when you judge the past, don't forget, you too shall be judged. I'm paraphrasing … When socialists start winning elections, then they can start telling me about how inadequate FDR was.”Them’s fighting words! But speaking of socialists – or rather, social democrats – and elections, the episode also includes discussion of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, and the lessons Bernie could have taken from FDR. After all, they both faced serious opposition within the Democratic Party.At a time when the American capitalist class were enamored of Mussolini, Harvey lays out FDR’s achievements and maintains that those policies prevented a revolution. Listen to the episode and see whether you agree.Harvey J. Kaye is a Professor Emeritus of

Recent episodes of this podcast have looked at the many ways in which the US attempts to maintain global hegemony through the deep state, the banking system, NATO, and the unholy trinity of the IMF, WTO, and World Bank.This week, Steve talks with Daniel Conceição about the possibility of a supranational currency for Brazil and Argentina. Daniel points out some potential benefits, but it’s hard to avoid comparisons to the Eurozone and the crippling loss of monetary sovereignty. Nevertheless , if successful, such an agreement has far-reaching implications not only for these two nations but potentially throughout all of Latin America, helping promote greater economic integration while providing increased stability.Steve and Daniel revisit the issue of the petrodollar. Traditional MMT wisdom would say it’s no big deal; it’s merely a numeraire. Daniel suggests there’s more to it, “because when we claim that taxes are the main driver of currency acceptability, what we really mean is that necessity is the main drive

We revere venture capitalists, don’t we? Without their brave acts of derring-do — AKA investing in uncertain ventures — how would society achieve progress? Just kidding.If you are a regular listener to this podcast, you’ve heard guests speak about the horizontal contradictions within the ruling class. Industrial capital and finance capital can each be affected differently by foreign, domestic, fiscal, and monetary policies. They may sing from the same hymn book but sometimes their interests diverge.Steve’s guest, Dr. Julia Ott, teaches the history of capitalism at the New School. She and Steve focus their discussion on venture capitalism and its implications on policy changes, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. They explore how venture capitalists have been heavily involved in lobbying for capital gains tax breaks, leaving them more to invest and pass on to their children, exacerbating the extremes of generational wealth and generational poverty, especially for people of color.They also observe how ventur

If Macro N Cheese wasn’t committed to spreading MMT to the activist community, we might have been a history podcast. Nothing excites Steve Grumbine as much as listening to 50 hours of lectures on the French Revolution or the Black Plague. This week’s guest, Aaron Good, checks a lot of our boxes. What he brings to the table is history with a solid class analysis.Aaron is the author of American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. American exception should not be confused with American exceptionalism; think instead of the concept of laws applying to everyone EXCEPT one nation or one elite group.During World War II, the US oligarchy saw the opportunity to replace the western European colonial powers with a new empire. They planned and created institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, the CIA — all designed to launch and support this new era of US domination of global capitalism. Imperialism required its own strategy:“To do all of this, they need to have the capitalist world all marching to America's beat. And

When you realize the national debt is little more than a bunch of interest-bearing savings accounts, you will have effectively neutered the politicians and pundits who wield it like a weapon to keep the people in line and tame the working class. Every year in the US, the debt ceiling alarm is rung right on schedule. Just like Halloween.Interest-bearing Treasury bills are not available to most of us. (Do you have an account with the Federal Reserve? No? Exactly.) Rohan Grey is back to explain how these things work for the select elite. Not only do the rest of us handle money differently—we think about it differently. The words we use have different meanings.“The average person might think money is the opposite of debt. Well, that's not how the financiers think. That's not how the bankers think. That's not how the hedge fund managers think. For them, cash is debt. Debt is cash. It just depends on what they're talking about.”We’re supposed to believe the US is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Every time a Tr

In September, Real Progressives had a webinar with Michael Hudson. It gave our volunteers the opportunity to ask him about his book, The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism, or Socialism. This week’s podcast brings you the audio of that event.Although his book looks at three economic philosophies, the Q & A focused on contrasting the dynamics of finance capitalism and industrial capitalism. Michael makes the case that in its early days industrial capitalism promoted investment in public infrastructure and basic services, allowing industry to invest in development.Finance capitalism basically sought to break away and consume all of the public infrastructure. Most financial fortunes are made by privatizing the public domain – natural resources and public utilities yield fortunes in economic rent without private investment. This has led to the US, for example, turning over its economic planning to the financial sector.“The objective of finance capitalism, contrary to what's tau