Posts

MMT : can we actually debate it?

With Mark Blyth’s recent destruction of MMT as a solution for Scotland there has been yet another spark in the debate (see last blog post) The trouble is, the debate just ends up going around in circles and it doesn’t need to.  At the heart of the MMT debate is the concept that a currency issuing state need never run out of cash because it can always resort to the printing press. This is in itself true.  The fundamental question that then follows is: Is this a wise thing to do? Specifically is it wise to print money for public spending when that money is not matched by tax or borrowing? That should be the debate over MMT.  The deflections The problem is that those disciples of the MMT religion want to expend lots of energy trying to debate matters which are not fundamental to the issue.  The press The first deflection is the use of the term ‘printing press’. Here we end up discussing if the state prints money or just creates in through the Bank of England. Printing press is just a meta

Full transcript of the Mark Blyth interview March 2024

  Mar I wish we had time to discuss cuz there's a lot of that I I disagree with but we are here to hear your opinion on 0:06 all of these other [Music] 0:15 [Music] things hi Mark it's great to finally meet you um why aren't you with us in 0:23 Dundee okay I'm going to blame my wife for this one and and it's true right so 0:28 it was a let say a sign ific Milestone birthday and she has never been to Asia 0:34 she's always wanted to go and I got a chance to go to Hong Kong to do a talk 0:40 and it was exactly at the same time as this so I said to her look you know it's your year it's your birthday dundy or 0:47 Hong Kong what do you want to do and I can't understand why but she decided to go to Hong Kong instead so we're leaving 0:53 on Friday so that's why I'm not there you were a child grown up in Dundee and I wondered what it was like for you as a 1:00 child in 1970s Dundee I was grown up in 1970s Aline so I'm I'm interested in