Archive for MMT
Yet Another Attempt at the Government Debt and Future Generations Issue
Whoa, I almost spared all of you by forgetting to link to my latest article in the Freeman. I did my best to summarize what is wrong with the we-owe-it-to-ourselves “insight” on government debt. I’m pretty sure the example I spell out in the article is new. Anyway, here is the conclusion: If an imperialist [...]
Read morePaul Krugman Hits the Bar Before Answering Steve Keen
I am super busy with “day job” stuff so I can only do a hit-and-run: In the big blogosphere battle between Krugman and Steve Keen, the latter threw out some sweeping insults of New Keynesian economics. One of the things Keen said was: Firstly, there are similar underlying principles to the DSGE models that now [...]
Read moreLudwig von Mises 1, Abba Lerner 0
I am working on my article for this month’s Lara-Murphy Report. (Carlos had mentioned that he been reading Human Action lately, and noticed that Mises talks matter-of-factly about people saving via insurance policies, so I’m elaborating on that phenomenon.) I came across this passage (pp. 843-844) which made me feel dumb: In the process of [...]
Read morePotpourri
* Bob Wenzel has some concerns about gold confiscation, if the feds get serious. In short: It’s hard to hide a bunch of metal, since there are detectors built specifically for that purpose. * Russ Roberts interviews Nassim Taleb. I will always like Taleb, because he answered my emails back in the day and even [...]
Read moreFuture Generations Will Be Indebted to Me for the Clarity of This Exposition
OK my piece de resistance. I’m going to post this on Facebook, so let me start from scratch: I am responding to Paul Krugman’s recent claims on why the standard political debate on the government debt is totally wrong-headed. (For a good summary of his position, see this NYT piece.) Specifically, Krugman conceded that if [...]
Read moreMurphy, Former Disciple of Abba Lerner
I think I’ve got this debt stuff resolved, after spending about a week on an intellectual odyssey. This is truly one of the biggest shifts in my thinking on something that I thought I had down pat, in my life. First, let’s go to Nick Rowe’s taxonomy of the various positions one could hold on [...]
Read morePotpourri
I’m still buried with “day job” work, but at this point I have so many tabs on my Firefox browser that it’s slowing me down. So this post is an investment in my future productivity, see. * Glenn Greenwald once again delivers a very fair assessment of the political culture. It’s really impressive that GG [...]
Read moreWolf vs. Krugman: Separating the Economist From the (Bad) Accountant
Not surprisingly, both my allies and critics seem to be missing the point of my previous post on Krugman and (alleged) accounting identities. So some clarification is in order. First, here’s a simple one I made in the comments on the definition of income: If I do a consulting project for a guy and he [...]
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