Macro N Cheese

Steve’s guest is Dr. Ruchira Sen who got her PhD at UMKC where she studied with a number of friends of this podcast. Herresearch areas are in feminist economics, informed by institutional economics, MMT, and Marxian economics. She describes an economy built on the backs of women, that exists outside the normal parameters of capitalism while making it possible for capitalism to thrive. We've had neoliberal reforms since the 1990s, which has meant a gradual withdrawal of the state from almost everything. And that has specifically impacted the lives of women. Because when the state withdraws from providing you basic services like water, electricity, then it's usually the women who become additionally burdened...The participation of women in the (paid) labor force is declining, their contribution to unpaid work is phenomenal. In a country as massive as India, with a population of around a billion, any change in government policy can have far-reaching and unexpected consequences. Ruchira describes the effects of

This week’s episode is another chapter in our mission to educate ourselves about modern China. Yan Liang specializes in Modern Money Theory, international trade and finance, and economic development, with a special regional focus on China. She is also the wife of friend-of-the-podcast Eric Tymoigne. Steve and Yan discuss the truth and misconceptions about the ongoing competition between the US and China. It has created winners and losers, with the working class in both countries affected by globalization. Trade war is class war. The explanation for China’s growth is sometimes attributed to market reform and opening itself to trade, but Yan points to the role of the state in financing development, formulating industrial policies, and building infrastructure, both hard and soft. Policymakers are beginning to tighten the grip on private enterprise as they plan to grow China in a more sustainable way, unlike in the past, where extensive growth was a major driving force. US officials pay lip service to job cre

What do you know about modern China? Is it capitalist? Socialist? What do those terms mean in today’s global economies? According to Steve’s guest Vincent Huang, China considers itself “a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.” In this episode, Vincent tells Steve how this socialist market economy plays out in Chinese society, and how it compares to the world we know in the US – and just about everywhere else. There’s a stark difference in the power wielded by corporations, for example. In China... The state is the representative, it's the agent that mediates the conflicts between the corporations and the working class. So that actually is quite important because for China's socialist market economy, the goal is to elevate the well-being of people. And the means could be marketization, could be liberalization, could be market-oriented reforms, but it doesn't have to be. American listeners may be surprised by the people’s faith in government. When comparing public versus private, whether in sc

**Have you seen the Rogue Scholar, Steve Grumbine’s new brown bag lunch show on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at noon EST? For interviews, commentary, and, of course, MMT, go to Real Progress in Action on YouTube. Newcomers to MMT tend to draw a blank when they are told that taxes drive the currency or taxes created the first unemployed person. After all, none of that seems to track with the way they personally experience taxes. Warren Mosler makes sense of it by starting with the money story, using the example of colonial currency. The British wanted workers on African coffee plantations, but people were not clamoring to be hired. So, they created a coin or scrip and levied a hut tax payable in the new currency. The public purpose behind what the British were doing was to grow coffee. They levied a tax. They put a tax liability on everyone's house. That caused lots of people to be looking for work or look for some way to earn scrip so they could pay the tax so their house wouldn't be burned down ... It'

Macro N Cheese devotes considerable attention to ecological economics and environmental justice. We’re always working to expand our understanding of both. Dr. Hail connects the dots between environmental sustainability and the broader public purpose. It’s a focus of his new podcast,https://modernmoneylab.org.au/events/podcast/ ( “Modern Money Doughnut”.) But that's done best of all in Kate's book, when she talks about the doughnut, when she talks about moving away from growthism, from pursuing the growth of GDP as though that is an end in itself, and towards identifying those things which ought to be true of a successful society that provides everybody with the best possible chance of living a secure and safe and rewarding, engaged, empowered life while living within those planetary boundaries. By expanding our scope, the problems appear more complex and vast but, paradoxically, everything starts to make more sense. The goal cannot be just to clean up the planet. If we want to sustain and prolong life on thi

We call this episode “Duality” because it covers what Bill Mitchell describes as separate realities experienced by the elites and the masses. We do not occupy the same universe. The results of this duality are reflected in the manufactured divisions within the working class itself and in the unequal economic power relations between countries. There is a conflict between the public’s need for services and capital’s need for profit and privatization. The point is, we live in 2 worlds – and the disparities are extreme. Bill lays out some of the ways our lives are organized around serving capital. Most of us understand how the education system serves to condition us to passively obey authority, but even our leisure time has been transformed. Bill refers to the book, Labor and Monopoly Capital, by Harry Braverman: What Braverman spoke about was more than a spatial spread of capital and capitalism of the type you’ve just been talking about, but also more and more activities that we typically never thought were

Stephen Williams and Philip Lawn join Steve to discuss the forthcoming book, Sustainability and the New Economics: Synthesising Ecological Economics and Modern Monetary Theory, which Williams co-edited. The book brings together sustainability, ecological economics, and MMT. As you learn more and more about this thing called sustainability, you realize that it's really the economic system that is at the heart of the problem. It's the economic system you have to change. So when you start studying what we usually call heterodox economics, you soon start to learn about something called ecological economics, which Phil is an expert in. And then you start to hear about this other thing called Modern Monetary Theory. And it turns out these two things are completely complementary, and you need both of them.The volume is a collection of work by 15 authors or so, all with expertise in different areas, including the relationship between climate change and health impacts, planetary boundaries, sustainable development goa

Stuart Medina is a founder and current president of Red MMT Spain. He joins Steve this week to talk about conditions in Spain after two years of the pandemic, more than two decades as a member of the eurozone, and nearly half a century since the death of General Franco, dictator from 1939 to 1975, when Spain became a parliamentary monarchy. In the 1960s and 70s Spain had a fairly successful state-led industrialization policy. Franco’s death coincides with the ideological victory of neoliberalism. The elites turned to deregulation (“let the market decide”) and shut down all the public banks. When asked to summarize the situation in Spain today, Medina brings up the astounding unemployment figure of 15%, which doesn’t begin to reflect the reality. In 2011 it was as high as 27%, a rate which the US hasn’t seen since the Great Depression. But we are suffering those unemployment rates currently, as we speak. And when you look at the details, when you look at the youth unemployment rate there, we're talking of

This week’s episode is the audio portion of a presentation by our friend Professor Fadhel Kaboub when he spoke with the Hanon Project's Yousra Magouri in September about the causes and effects of inflation during the pandemic. It’s a beautiful illustration that you don’t need an education in MMT to make sense of the economy. With Fadhel’s characteristic cogency, complex subjects are made accessible without sacrificing depth. He opens with basic definitions of inflation and how it is measured. He describes the two main types – demand pull and supply push -- then contrasts the mainstream and MMT explanations of inflation and the connection of our current circumstances to the pandemic. For the last several decades since the 70s, the mainstream economist will tell you too much government spending will cause inflation, right? Whether it's government subsidies or government contracts, you're just flooding the system with cash, giving people dollars to go out and shop and increase demand way beyond the capacity of t

The Blockchain Socialist wants to dispel the notion that blockchain technology can only serve a right-wing libertarian agenda. In this week’s episode, he tells Steve the left loses out when new trends or innovations are introduced into the economy. Blockchain is a neutral tool on which we can build different types of organizations and institutions. He speaks of the risks taken when groups use Google Docs for organizing their information. Google’s removal of access to Palestinian activists should be seen as a threat to the left. The Blockchain Socialist – let's call him TBS – created his blog and podcast to provide a space for learning about blockchain and digital currency free of right=wing propaganda. He talks with Steve about a wide range of uses in both the near and distant future. For countries under economic sanctions, cryptocurrency can make it possible to engage in international financial activity. For the myriad groups on the left who seem unable to unite because of, often, some pretty obscure differ

It's one thing to understand the US government will not protect us from certain types of abuse by corporations. We see it in the weakness of labor laws as well as environmental and consumer protection regulations. We know the government has no problem sending poor and working-class men and women into harm's way to protect corporate interests overseas. But how much farther will the state go to protect the interests of global capitalism? Ray McGinnis doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he’s here to remind us of the questions that need to be asked. The title of his book says it all: Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored. It took a year for George Bush to decide on forming a commission to investigate 9/11. He appointed Henry Kissinger as chair. This was ironic (and outrageous), given Kissinger’s connection to that other 9/11 -- the September 11, 1973, coup in Chile to overthrow the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. Henry Kissing

Do you think of colleges and universities as protected islands of intellectual activity, ivory towers where the world’s problems are contemplated and debated? Steve Grumbine’s guest is here to tell us otherwise. Davarian Baldwin, of Trinity College, is an urban historian and social theorist, whose work examines the landscape of global cities through the lens of the African Diasporic experience. His most recent book is In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities. Baldwin describes how institutions of higher education are the largest employers, healthcare providers, and landlords in cities and towns across the US. They leverage their massive financial and real estate holdings to displace the most vulnerable communities across the US. Their tax-exempt status does not result in savings for the local citizens, but puts a greater burden on everyone else’s property taxes. The conservative and mainstream media still maintain the pretense that campuses are a hotbed of radicalism, but

Michael Albert is one of the creators of participatory economics (parecon) and has developed a vision for a post-capitalist world that includes participatory governance. His new book, No Bosses, A New Economy for a Better World, goes into detail. From Noam Chomsky’s endorsement: *No Bosses* describes and advocates a natural and built Commons, workers’ and consumers’ self-managing councils, a division of labor that balances empowering tasks among all workers, a norm that apportions income for duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor, and finally not markets or central planning, but instead participatory planning by workers and consumers of what is produced, by what means, to what ends. It makes a compelling case that these features can be brought together in a spirit of solidarity to establish a self-managing, equitable, sustainable, participatory, new economy, with a rich artistic and intellectual culture as well. Albert recently spoke with Steve Grumbine about these concepts. His critiq

**Reminder** Each episode of Macro N Cheese is accompanied by a transcript and an “Extras” page with links to related material and resources. To access, go to realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast. In one sentence: the winners and losers of the 21st century are the countries that attract young people. Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor and best-selling author of numerous books on globalization, migration, the info-state, and the future of the world order. In this episode, he speaks with Steve about his newest book, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us. Most people who pretend to understand globalization reduce it to the rate of world trade growth. Khanna says we need a broader and more nuanced view, even though there are aspects that cannot be quantified. In his work he takes a multi-dimensional and systemic approach. An earlier book, Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization, was about the functional geography of infrastructure and supply chains. Its “punchline” is that conne

Dirk Ehnts, an economist from Berlin, joins us to talk about his book, Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics. In addition to discussing the current situation in the Eurozone, he helps us understand the similarities and differences between the Eurozone and the US, especially regarding the relationship between the individual states and the central bank. So in the US, whatever happens in your state ... you always have government spending coming from the federal level. So that's going to pay for the military installation, that's going to pay for the pensions. It's going to pay for some of the public federal infrastructure. And that means that whatever happens in your state, the federal government is always there. And you also have these institutional mechanisms to ensure that states which do not have a lot of employment can somehow make bargains in the political process and basically trade votes for jobs. And that's the main difference. The Eurozone has both the European Central Bank (ECB) and natio

Somber headlines recall the 2008 financial crisis: “Global financial markets have been on high alert,” warns the BBC. “Chinese property giant Evergrande is on the brink of collapse, and analysts warn the potential fallout could have far-reaching implications that spill outside China’s borders,” says CNBC. From the New York Times: “Every once in a while a company grows so big and messy that governments fear what would happen to the broader economy if it were to fail.” To navigate this story, we needed someone immune to hysteria, so Steve invited the infinitely sensible Robert Hockett to guide us through the Evergrande saga. Hockett begins the episode with a brief history of China’s strategy for economic development. Unsurprisingly, it looks a lot like that of the US, Germany, and Japan, in different eras. The so-called export-led growth strategy involves developing industries that can achieve a sizable share of the global market for manufactured goods, starting at the low end and proceeding up the ladder to

This week Steve investigates the cutthroat world of local school board elections. So, get ready to get down and dirty... Just kidding! His guest, Rana Odeh, is the genuine article: thoughtful, straight forward, and unafraid to bring up uncomfortable topics. At a time when the country’s political polarization seeps into every crevice of civic and social life, our school boards have become battlegrounds. Rana is willing to armor up and fight for our youth and their education.   Rana is running for a seat on the school board in Granville, OH, where she lives with her three kids and her husband, Fadhel Kaboub – a dear friend of this podcast. Anyone who follows Fadhel on Facebook has seen their beautiful family of fledgling artists, musicians, and young campaigners.  Steve and Rana talk about the lack of a federal right to education in the US and the need for proper (federal) funding, decoupled from the local tax base. They talk about the mask mandate wars now being waged in schools across the country,

In 2014, Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters engaged in armed confrontation with law enforcement. Bundy had been embroiled in a 21-year legal dispute with the US Bureau of Land Management. The “Bundy Standoff” was splashed across the news, allowing the public to watch as Cliven Bundy became a hero – a symbol of conservative America under attack by the federal government. This week, Jamie Skillen talks with Steve Grumbine about the history and politics of federal lands. Skillen’s book, This Land is My Land, traces three periods of rebellion against federal land authority over the past forty years. The issue wasn’t originally defined by the so-called left/right divide. Prior to the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979-1982) these were regional actions waged by people who shared a common material interest in federal lands, regardless of political identification. Since 1979, however, federal land issues have become flashpoints in conservative politics. In a nation that prizes private ownership and indivi

This week Steve welcomes Scott Fullwiler for the first time in two years. Scott is a research scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and associate professor of economics at UMKC, where he teaches the macroeconomics PhD program. As listeners of this podcast know, UMKC is one of the two academic birthplaces of MMT. The episode begins with a look at social security and FICA taxes. Originally, the idea behind FICA was for people to feel like they’re paying into their own retirement. The expectation is that SS will be politically protected as a result. Scott points out that this is an unnecessary narrative and compares it to national defense. “It's not as if the reason why we continue to get national defense spending is because somebody feels like they've paid into it and they’re owed it.” There are three different separate things we need to remember when it comes to Social Security and Medicare, and unfortunately, all three of them get blended together in our public discourse … And those thre

This week we’re checking in with a couple of candidates from The New Liberals (TNL) of Australia. We’ll be learning about the traditional Australian political parties and getting an overview of how their electoral system works. Steve Keen is an old friend of this podcast. In the past he’s joined us to talk about everything from climate change to Marx to the breakdown of supply chains during the COVID pandemic. Now we’re meeting him as a political candidate; soon Professor Keen will be Senator Keen. Victor Kline, the leader and one of the founders of TNL, is running for a seat in the House of Representatives. TNL is only two years old but has already gained wide support. Unlike the US, where third parties have been almost entirely shut out of national elections, Australia’s preferential voting system and parliamentary style of government have made it possible for TNL to gain traction. Voting is mandatory in Australia, which Keen explains is far superior to the farce called democracy in the US: I see it as