Macro N Cheese

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