That’s just not a thing that’s going to happen given the circumstances. And it’s just like, maybe that’s why we don’t have runaway inflation. It’s so odd Nick, that this is another example of something where orthodox economics, the theory seems to contradict the empirical evidence. The truth is, the more you think about it, more ways you turn it over in your head, the more sense it makes, particularly in the context of the actual evidence available. When you first hear it you think, well, that’s just crazy talk. And when I first heard about MMT, I was deeply skeptical. What’s fascinating of course, is that none of the predictions of doom that conventional economic thinking has made have come to pass. We are running a giant natural experiment, as we have been for the last 30, 40 years, as the deficit has gone from essentially zero to 20 trillion or more on MMT. And right now Nick, we are just racking up huge deficits all of a sudden and nobody seems to care. Are we maxing out the resources in the economy rather than these fictional numbers about dollars in the deficit. Well, Goldie today we get to interview the woman of the moment, our friend, Stephanie Kelton, who is one of the nation’s biggest proponents of Modern Monetary Theory.Īnd it’s the moment because one of the things that MMT says is that federal debts and deficits don’t really matter in and of themselves, a deficit doesn’t matter, it’s inflation we should be looking at. I’m David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures I’m Nick Hanauer founder of Civic Ventures. Plus higher what worries me right now that we may let the deficit get too small.įrom the home offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why. There’s something wrong with them, there’s something you want to eliminate, they’re a problem. Well, that’s how we think about deficits. We were already doing it, just calling it a different thing. The country went into the crisis with 20 trillion in deficit. We’ve been running an experiment in MMT for the last 20 or 30 years.

On this episode, originally released in 2020, Kelton explains the myths surrounding MMT and what a new understanding of the budget could do for our economy. No one is more knowledgeable on the subject than returning guest, Professor and Author Stephanie Kelton. MMT is an attempt to accurately describe how government debt and complex financial systems actually work and it can help us responsibly use our resources. Today’s we’re re-releasing one of our of most popular episodes, all about Modern Monetary Theory. Twitter: twitter: I’m Ashley, one of the producers here at Pitchfork Economics.

The deficit myth kelton