#MintTheCoin & COVID Relief with the Modern Money Network

Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus join Money on the Left to discuss the flurry of debate about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) arising out of the Coronavirus crisis. We focus, in particular, on the Modern Money Network’s multi-pronged efforts to illuminate and remedy the resulting economic devastation. At the center of our conversation is Rohan’s contribution to Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s “Automatic BOOST Act.” Known by the popular hashtag #MintTheCoin, Tlaib’s proposal calls on the U.S. Treasury to mint two trillion dollar platinum coins in order to deliver direly-need cash assistance via preloaded public debit cards for all—no exceptions. In response to dismissive critiques of the proposal as a gratuitous “gimmick,” we affirm #MintTheCoin’s political significance as a gimmick—whether as a critical parody of sound finance trickery or as a meaningful pedagogical ritual that makes public money creation visible. Along the way, we delve into Nathan’s now widely-hailed Substack newsletter: “Notes on the Crises: The Pandemic-Induced Depression from a Monetary Political Economy Perspective.” We reflect upon the inadequacy of Congressional action, paradigm-smashing moves by the Federal Reserve, and MMT’s strategic importance for the future of leftist struggle, both in the near- and long-term.

For more information about Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s “Automatic BOOST Act” and #MintTheCoin, see here, here, and here. Sign up for Nathan’s Substack here.

Link to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure

Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
you are listening to money on the left. I'm Billy Sauce. Joined, as usual by Scott Ferguson and Maximilian Say ho. And today we're joined by two guests. Rohan Gray and Nathan. Tank a ce Aargh!

spk_1:   0:13
How's it going? Hey,

spk_0:   0:14
Nathan. Uh, so we're recording this, Um, and I want to say the middle, but at some point in the Cove in 19 Crisis, Um, and I think we wanted to start by having a conversation about, you know, between the five of us, we represent a significant portion of the minor money network, and it seems like that the M m n has been quite active over the last couple of weeks. Could I ask one or both of you to kind of comment on the role that you see? Mmm. Having played and continuing to play throughout this crisis.

spk_1:   0:45
Yeah, sure. Uh, you know, we set up in the men as a learning network is a street and driven morning, but part of our goal was always to try to provide sort of technical support assistance to social movements on to sort of provide analysis and strategic kind of framing and policy kind of ideas. That would be helpful to the left and Boris Progressive movement. And I think this crisis has been a good example of why we useful on why we relevant. We've had I've been working with Congresswoman Taliban On various proposals, Nathan has been providing some the most cutting edge analysis on the various programs that have come out of Congress to provide relief. Role continues to work down in D. C On labor related issues Other members of women have been working with various congressional candidates in primary races in their private capacity and also working with groups like T s A and Sunrise to provide training materials as well a sort of writing op EDS and other kind of interventions in the public discourse. So hopefully you know, this is an example of how MMT analysis and mm ends kind of framework is not just old hat or just repeating the sort of old classics, but is staying up to date and being very useful for people is they're trying to work their way through particular problems.

spk_2:   2:14
Yeah, I would echo that bomb what Rohan has been working on and it's ah, personal capacity with ah Congress. Congress Woman has been very inspiring. And you always hope that there's more where that came from in terms of me, a CZ Ron mentioned. There was a certain point I reached in the crisis about 11 days ago where I felt like be needed pretty immediate commentary and that I wasn't really seeing the kind of consistent coverage on the sort of basic building blocks of what's happening, Um, and decided to start ready. Just take it upon myself and start reading about it. Um, and you see, uh, newsletter software called Substance to our website service called Sub Stacked. And the response I've gotten, which has been incredible and overwhelming. Um, I think has been a signal of how much people feel like they are missing bread and broader analysis of what's happening.

spk_0:   3:29
So maybe we can start by diving into your sub stack in particular. What kinds of, ah reporter eyes were you seeing? Ah, in financial journalism on the left about, um, what we might call the political economic dimensions of the crisis. And what are you offering that seems to be either either surly off track or desperately missing?

spk_2:   3:57
I mean, in general, I think something a long term trend that I think and women itself has been responding. Thio is there is two tracks in the understanding of financial matters and especially central banking. There is they, like a technical financial journalist, that track which some has only middling grass from what's going on. But some has very tough. It whole, um, great understanding what's going on, but has the assumptions of the that small coterie of people. And don't question obvious things that, um, would be professionally embarrassing to question um, and my mother hand. They're people who want to comments on things. Want to point out injustices of what of what's going on? But they haven't spent very much time in central banking spaces or, you know, even just with the edge, with the materials that central bankers produce for each other to understand the world. And so things just become playing on the way. Non financial journalists report on financial things like talking the big headlines, big trillion dollar numbers. The Fed is providing 1.5 trillion 4.5 trillion $20 trillion whatever it is, and what it occurred to me was that that I mean, what courage for all of us for many years is that we need a bridging of those two. But it felt like a very immediate I should just be writing about this, um, find a problem. And days ago and I started reading about, uh, just the basics of, like, where we heading to a recession anyway? And does that mean Corona virus Isn't, you know, a huge deal? How'm How big of of of support does households need Thio bake bread and pay their utilities on and be fine, be financially whole over the next some months. And then just like the thing that's kind of probably been the most popular, just like a day by day announcement by announcement dissection of what exactly the Federal Reserve has been doing and what it is announced. It's been doing what the unknowns of what it's going to do in the future are event, and that sort of just basic point by point analysis, I think, has been the thing that people both in financial markets and of course I have felt like they've been missing. And, um, based on the response, it seems like the newsletters like filling, filling that hole. You know, while this is done in my independent capacity. Um, you know, I the larger intellectual frame of reference in which I constructed the sub stacked runs through all the sorts of worth,

spk_3:   7:19
so that that's the point that I sort of wanted to sort of bring what Rowe said together with your sub stack, Nathan, which is, um, the mn perspective. Really? You know, it might seem obvious and in this case, but it actually takes, like, a very technically specific and astute analysis of the institutions themselves. And so it it's more than just mmt. I think there's something about really sort of parsing through institutional information and mechanics that both you and rose share and that we anima men sort of, you know, necessarily leverage. And to that end, could you, um, could you dig in a little bit with regards to essentially what the Fed is doing and what the Fed has done thus far to address this crisis

spk_0:   8:14
and what is not doing right?

spk_2:   8:17
Um, I think the essence Thio, understand? What? The minute he go into any detail that subsector suit. But I think the the broad headline things that it has been doing is, um it has been dealing with the payment system. There were all sorts of long standing problems with the payment system that they were trying thio adjust and fix without, back on other schools of certain regulatory rules that they've been that they've had specifically around liquidity regulations, regulations that require financial institutions old a certain amount of what they will quote liquid assets in proportion to, uh, somehow the payments that they need to make on a daily basis. Um, one way to understand that is, you know, you know, the studies come around recently showing that of the median restaurant only has 16 days of cash on hand to meet their expenses if they have that revenue coming in, Um, and and and basically like these, these kind of rules that they wanted to that they've implemented served the role of making sure that financials institutions always have at least 30 days of cash on hand. Um, so one thing is in, and they've kind of just sort of swept all that stuff aside, they've got no when push comes to shove the payment system and its stability is the Federal Reserve's priority far above that kind of trying to tweak with financial regulation how the system operates. So they put that stuff aside. Um, discount window, which was Rex. Borrowing from the better reserve for since 2008 has been extremely stigmatized in the sense that financial institutions institutions have been worried that they'll be tagged with the label of getting another bailout. If they happen. That's obviously worlds of her in terms of PR in terms of potentially, you know, that just late of hits to their proper profitability on dso. Basically, you you'd more. Let's get fired if you screwed up enough, you had to use the scout window in a really significant or unexpected, um, large way and leave peacefully suspended. The stigma discount window lowered its interest rate banks borrow from each other money in her bank loan. A zits called, um, ends. We're kind of going all hands on deck. They're buying government securities, government guaranteed securities to make it absolutely clear that these that, uh, these are as liquid as they possibly need. And that's what's the sort of sort of sweeping away the problems that we're starting to fester. You know, during good times when you know the Fed doesn't feel it to really respond quickly to deal with problems slow, methodically spent months thinking about very small changes were great.

spk_1:   12:02
If they could have done everything through the discount window, it would have been probably a lot simpler at least maybe 90% of what they're doing. But because of the reasons around Nathan saying they had to create 2055 different facilities Thio to achieve function to the largely substandard

spk_2:   12:15
living close to one

spk_1:   12:16
discount window.

spk_2:   12:17
And that's what I got into is they dealt with these kind of technical works in the banking system. But that's not fixing your are our financial system, especially since so many of the problems are with nonfinancial businesses, access thio finance or any sort of any any income at all. And so they've come back to the 2008 well of launching a set of facilities which that they don't have the technical, too. Do what they've been doing. These facilities, they've literally, just constantly kind of the most basic kind of legal engineer, and you could do is a financial institution which is read it what's called a special purpose vehicle give money to that special purpose vehicle, and then they do all the stuff that you technically can't do. And, uh, and this is what's important important to them to such an extent that, um, they managed to convince or them plus the Treasury. Trump administration managed to convince Congress that $454 billion of the stimulus bill coming out of Congress needs to be devoted to giving giving money to the special purpose vehicles, which I wrote.

spk_1:   13:39
It's ironic, It's ironic. They call it. You know, they spent you criticizing shadow banking and then they turn around and just engage in shadow central banking.

spk_2:   13:50
Now the problem is that when a central you need, if you just if long as anything is central banking, do it and do, it's fine. But the problem is when it's just that vanilla sort of me. If they could synthetically raid in SPV that was a central bank, then all of all of the problems with the shadow banking system would disappear.

spk_0:   14:12
Um, just to bring this back thio some broader political and and even ideological points like in every crisis. It seems to me that, um ah, the liberal, liberal, intolerable finance and economics right likes to imagine independent independent banks, independent entrepreneurs, independent berms A ll competing out there autonomously. But what what, historically, crises And this is no exception brings to the fore. Ah, is that but everybody? Everybody in the system is dependent. Ah, in this hierarchy of money or hierarchy of of governance in law, on dso if previously, um, you know, the discount window was sort of pooh poohed upon because, you know, it rendered you some kind of welfare queen. Um, you know, in the in the middle of a crisis, everyone's a welfare queen Queen s. So it doesn't matter.

spk_1:   15:16
Yeah. I mean, to maybe go to a point that you guys brought up on the previous, uh, retrospective episode of Money on the left. You know, there's this tendency even when did the idea space to consider a lot of different ideas to be kind of in competition with each other and sort of, you know, policy entrepreneurs and idea entrepreneurs. But I think one thing that we've tried to do it mm men is to think of it. It's a bit more like the kind of building of the cathedral model off, like every brick is being added to to a larger vision. And so when it comes time to think about the responses to this crisis, you know, it's one thing to say. Well, we were right all along. You know, we knew that these kinds of responses would be necessary, and I think that's true. We deserve a chance to sort of take a victory lap on that, even even in these circumstances. But I think the other point is to say, You know, the reason that we were right was because we didn't develop our organization in our strategy, in terms of just coming up with various ideas that are good in one month, we put out one paper another month. We put out another paper, and there's no cohesion to vision. There's no strategy for why we're focusing on these things and not other things and to think about. So what are going to be the major fault lines? Weaknesses. Sort of defining policy agenda issues and how they fit together, what kind of coherent narrative and from what you would need to develop and the Maur that you build that framework, the more it becomes a general toughest tool to help you address any particular issue that comes along and you still need to evolve and add to it and be reflexive. And that's what we're seeing in this crisis. But you know, everything from mint a coin through to understanding these these discount windows through, too, the importance of the green you deal in the job guarantee and remobilize are not just sort of separate things that we might have happened to written a paper about one time. They're all kind of just housed under the same entity. They actually have a strategic core and unity to them. And I think one thing that I'm pretty proud of amongst all of us is that you can big to us, and we will probably have a pretty good idea of the relative weight and importance of these or how these fit together or why we chose to focus on this next issue, you know, compared to a different one and that you know not to sort of draw too much of, ah, blunt analogy or metaphor. But, you know, that's a sort of central planning, coordinated planning approach to how we doing these things. And rather than sort of set up a central, central Bank of Central, acquitted, visiting and waiting for everything to come to us in a crisis and being purely reactive. As I think. A lot of the analysis that Nathan was referring to Elliot is, or simply saying it's all class conflict and I don't need to read anything new about the world or any institution you know since the mid nineties. Or some Marxists think I think what we're trying to do is show that you can develop a kind of inducted theory of of where the fault lines are and the more you understand that involving since the better prepared, you'll be for the next problem that comes down the road. And every issue you fight on gets absorbed back into the general momentum in the general thrust.

spk_2:   18:37
Just to be back on that comment about like, um, people who feel like they don't update since the nineties, Um, and this is something I haven't read about yet, But I'm playing the right about this week is just the, um, this whole narrative forming around there. You know, this is a big corporate bailout. We're getting this huge corporate bailout, and when I look at the details of what's going on. It doesn't seem to me that way interested before. But, um, the $454 billion in what people call like the Treasury's slush fund, um, is devoted specifically to you whore unquote capitalizing these Federal Reserve programs, which is an accounting gimmick the Federal Reserve could do though the 13 0.3 emergency lending that they want to dio whether or not there's capitalization, there's no nothing anywhere that says the Federal Reserve has to have a positive that worth, or even that necessarily taking losses will stop it from having a positive net worth even that it controls its own accounting rules. Um, this is purely a zit supporting accounting gimmick. And when you realize that you realize that the Stephen that the quote unquote stimulus bill, which is a bad anyway, um, barely has any money for big corporations at all. And that's an interesting question of wine, you know, it has the airline bailout. It has, like a little here and there, Associated money, money and obviously furloughed workers. Qualifying for unemployment is helpful to a lot of big businesses, but like buying large, you know, the funding so far has had pretty bupkis for corporate America, and we'll see how Federal Reserve facilities play out, but has of right now it seems like all they're doing is, um, preventing, uh, uh, corporate borrowing costs from spiraling out of control, keeping it at it like even spread, meaning the difference between those interest rates and, uh, government, the interest rate on government securities or bank treats. And, you know, that's definitely a benefit. It's definitely a subsidy. It points to how large corporations are necessary critical infrastructure in the States and thus aren't gonna be allowed to go down, especially all at once. But it's It's not like the, you know, the tens of billions or 100 Billy, hundreds of billions of dollars that, uh, you know, corporations might get in a circumstance like, you know, the trump tax cuts are at this point, seemed to me like a much bigger, a much bigger bailout. Then anything that's on on the scale right now for big corporations and people's just sort of instinct, all the feds getting involved in their, you know, buying corporate bonds. So that means there's a big band. Lara is happening, obscures the difference between, you know, us like a subsidy or a safety net for CeCe very public infrastructure in actual, like transfers of cash into your pot into people's pockets.

spk_0:   22:18
You have any thoughts about why that is

spk_2:   22:20
why it's happening or the

spk_0:   22:24
The tepid response?

spk_2:   22:27
Um, I think that no one has thought about the, uh, but no one has thought about what the what this Treasury facility is. And like, you know, Congress people. It's all about either pay for it just like how much money quote unquote you're getting for you. And they focus on dollar amounts a lot more than they focus on distinction between loads and grants. Even though, obviously, you know, if you talk to a business person, they say What I want is income. I don't want alone. All that matters is that there's a dollar number in the bill that you count up. This $2.2 trillion number is 454 billion of it is this accounting gimmick. Another $350 billion at least to you small business loans, and I think there's other loans or even just like like delays. And when you have to pay your taxes or whatever. Like I think all together, like in terms of actual spending or dance or even tax cuts like I'm gonna want to do the exact laugh, um, this week and Post. But I figure it's barely like a trillion dollars were, like $1.1 trillion out there that is actually going to spending or grants to anyone and only, like, 650 billions. That going, we're really talking about, like, numbers that are actually very, very small, especially in comparison to the size of the problem. But you know, Congress people are able to pad those numbers help with all kind of load, sort of. The opposite of all of the other side of the pay for to be is now. You know that's everything is about big dollar numbers, but suddenly everyone wants big dollar numbers. You go out and out the door, will you count up all the things and you can exaggerate How big?

spk_1:   24:30
Yeah, Trump, Trump said on TV the other day. 6.2 trillion, he said. It's two trillion and then four trillion and learns that. So he likes to say it was a $6 trillion bail. I'm or $6 trillion sort of stimulus of relief package. And, of course, the exchange stabilized fund that Nathan's talking about. This this quote unquote slush fund is 400,000,000,430 billion of Treasury money. That is then quote unquote being leveraged a 10 to 1 by the Fed to make $4 trillion up to $4 trillion in loans. But one of the things you know is Nathan was singularly about the lessons of 2008 1 of the lessons that everybody learned the politicians went from 2008 is it's great when they can say the stimulus loans were paid back. It's a way for them to avoid accountability for the subsidies that do go to corporations and banks. In this minute, if they can say, Look, we didn't give them money, we lent the money and they paid us back with interest. Then then, you know, what are you complaining about? We actually made money for the government, you know, we actually made a profit on these on these lines over time. And of course, as Nathan said, there's a huge difference between income and credit. But one thing that's really related to what we've been working on with the Queen proposal and Justin example of what I was saying only about this sort of coordinated strategy or coordinated framework is that when we propose the Mint, the queen, you know, the most sophisticated critics people like George Seldon of the libertarian Cato Institute They didn't say it would be inflationary because they know better. I'm even pulled pregnant didn't say I'd be inflationary. But to the extent that they have a problem, what they what they say is that it would cause, you know, unnecessary entanglement between the Treasury and the Fed. It would potentially undermine Fed independence because the Treasury would be able to essentially fund its own spending with a zero interest instrument. But then, if the Fed later wanted to raise interest rates again, it would have to pay the interest cost. Normally, the Fed buys Treasury debt. It earns interest from the treasury. It you know, it does whatever it does and then gives the intricate gives the net profits back to the treasury. And, as Nathan said, that's that's a total accounting gimmick. You can do it however you, but it allows the fed toe have this perception off budget independence and that it's it's not sort of borrowing from the public. Fisk or it's not kind of playing with public money. It's playing with its own balance sheet. And as long as it runs a profit, you know, what are you complaining about? Don't Don't look over my shoulder. Leave me alone, you know, Aren't you grateful that I I actually, you know, I'm a profit center in the in the government, sort of like the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. Paper company is the only profitable branch you know in the whole of the paper company. So if Michael Scott's an idiot, everybody looks the other way as long as it kind of keeps giving, giving profit back. But the reality is, of course, that these decisions you know, natives written about swap lines today, central bank swamplands and the question of which corporate debt to buy, you know, whether to support corporations or municipal and state bonds will state government budgets these aerial incredibly political distributional questions. And rather than take responsibility for that at the treasury level, the Treasury considers say, Okay, we're gonna put 400 billion in this fund and we'll get to take some credit for that as a result. But all the all the kind of difficult decisions will be made by the Fed will be made by independent central bankers under this lending framework where hopefully it'll get kind of paid back at the end. And that avoids that question of sort of saying, Well, where's my swap line? You know, where's my credit relief? You know, where's my subsidy for cheap interest? You know, people are still refinancing their homes and higher percentage rates than corporations or borrowing, and state and local governments is still waiting for their relief while all the money for the corporations has going out the door. So I think that, as Nathan said, on one hand, it's kind of a bit of a nothing burger and overall amount. But on the other hand, we are repeating this sort of and reinforcing this framework of central bank independence even in the middle of a crisis that is making a mockery off that independence. Because, you know, the Treasury is giving $400 billion to the Fed, as Nathan said, not because it's needed, but so that any losses if they are. If they do, experience losses will be born by the Treasury. So the Treasury saying he's out money, You know, you do what you want to do. And if you if you fuck up, um, you know we'll take the first hit and somehow that's supposed to be central bank independence. That's supposed to be preserving a separation between the two. But God forbid, you know that the Treasury fund itself with a coin. And so these issues are seemingly quite unrelated, talking about the Fed stimulus on one handle, a fit lending and talking about the proposal to make the coin. But on the other hand, actually, there's this larger institutional vision of putting out the sort of ongoing hypocrisy and fictions underlying thes narratives about sort of the institutional structure on political economy, of fiscal and monetary policy and treasury in central bank operation.

spk_0:   29:47
So we have essentially a tale of two gimmicks, right with the Fed some presents.

spk_1:   29:52
Yeah, I love attack

spk_0:   29:53
tacular, but is really nothing to spectacular. And then, in the trillion Dollar Queen proposal, something that could make, um, be truly spectacular and all in a bunch of ways, and maybe make amore lasting, um, and immediate difference in people's lives in this difficult time. And I think you know, Rohan, we spoke with you in November 2018 which was, I guess 10 years ago now had a lot more hair on

spk_1:   30:22
my head than Ideo.

spk_0:   30:25
But, ah, back then we spoke with you, and and we cut, I think from the interview went a little long, and we cut about 20 minutes of material on the trillion dollar coin. But at that point, you have been working on, um, a paper about the trillion dollar coin, and, uh, and that paper recently came out right? Not too long ago. Um, And then from that, you were able to adapt and work with congresswoman receded to leave to develop the myth. The queen proposal, which we would definitely suggest. That readers, our listeners, if you haven't already go, go read that. Um, there are some some pretty critical differences between I think you know, the context and reception for mitt the coin this time around and mint the coin last time around, and I wanted to ask you to kind of, as you've been in the thick of it, reflect on you know, your experience or recollection of 2011 in 2013 on the debt ceiling and meant the coin being proposed then versus you know what you're seeing now in terms of uptake in response.

spk_1:   31:26
Yeah, it's been fascinating. So I mean that the major difference on dhe some people are still sort of struggling to get this new on Tannoy. It's talked about. Today is the back then the proposal was for the Treasury to use this existing statute on the books Sex from 511 to K of the Coinage Act of the U. S. Code, which authorizes the Treasury secretary to Minton issue a platinum proof coin off whatever denomination they wish to use that to deal with the situation where there was a debt ceiling crisis where the options available were otherwise if they didn't use the point toe, either essentially blow through the debt ceiling or unilaterally cut spending or raise taxes and serious constitutional skulls and things propose at the time. Well, if you have that trial, Emma, if you're faced with those three impossible options, the obvious solution is to blow through the debt ceiling because spending and taxing us sort of core physical powers. Call congressional powers. You know, it's the essence of the power of the purse in the separation of the executive branch, and the legislative branch really needs to give that power of the purse. You know, you keep that within the hands of the Legislature, whereas the debt ceiling is sort of an accounting gimmick, another accounting gimmick of financing gimmick that was originally actually created to give the executive Maur discretion over how it chooses to finance. You know, imagine if you've got a bunch of different budget approvals for groceries and then for your rent and fuel gas bill and someone says, Tell you what he is a general credit card. Spend it, How you need to keep under a limit, that's that actually gives you more flexibility. So that was the original idea. But the idea with the coin was to say, Actually, there's this fourth option, and the fourth option is on the books. And if the choice is to sort of violate the Constitution in the separation of powers or to sort of, you know, use this existing law in a way that it might not have been originally sort of fully anticipated that that that point option is farm or kind of legally robust and serious. School has responded to this, saying, Basically, look, it might be arguably more legal, but it would reveal to the public the way that money works, and that would be a huge problem. It would cause anarchy in the streets and there would be riding, and we would sort of undermine the very myth off money's neutrality, which is necessary to keep it stable. And it really bugged me at the time as a student and then later is a scholar because you know what they were saying. This is the academics, is a public. Educators were saying, We need to lie to the public and if we don't lie to the public, you know that the world will fall apart and we need to the lie to the public so badly that we need to violate the Constitution's I mean, if that's if that's a theory of an informed electorate, I don't know what the point of committing the democracy it all is. If if we have to just keep telling them lies, because if they knew the truth, they might stop us from violating the wars that we have committed to uphold. But this time around, the proposal was to actually pass a new piece of legislation you know is a representative in Congress was proposing this, and Congress would would pass a bill directing the the the Congress, directing the Treasury to mint the coin and directing the Fed to accept. So a lot of illegal the leak. Interesting legal issues that keep lawyers and detained of the first coin proposal. I'm not really relevant here because whatever the whatever the potential legal gray area off the Treasury doing this on their own, there's pretty much no legal gray area. If Congress passes a law, Congress has very clear constitutional authority plenary authority to direct to coin money, regulate its value to provide for the common welfare and to appropriate funds of Congress, said Fund this. Fund it with a coin. The Fed in the treasure would say yes, how how do you want me to jump? So that's the only thing on this time around. Of course, the idea that we're telling the public that we've got, you know, sort of unlimited money in the banana stand that that that fiction is already blown out of the water. Right now we're even Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee. There's no you know. Mm. Tear by any Stretch it and think, you know, she she she used the term money financed fiscal policy and the central bankers, you know, fortunately, no liquidity out there and things. So the idea that that we can't tell the truth about where the money comes from, I think it is a much weaker claim this time around. Then it was the first time around

spk_0:   35:56
and wasn't. And there was some word, I think, in the Washington Post in, like 2013 that the Obama administration actually considered the proposal. But then they worried that the Fed would not actually cooperate.

spk_1:   36:11
Yeah, I mean, this is this is again This is the idea that sort of fed independence. We often you often hear it in public discourse, and this is a success of the neo liberal ideological project, I would say, but it's often friend in public discourse, as we can't trust our politicians to spend money that the central bank exists to sort of control the purse strings and take away the punch bowl before the party gets too rowdy and all these kinds of things but the actual historical origins of central bank independents, which again is something Nathan I have done research on his part of Emma Men's research agenda. I'm going back to the 1951 Treasury Fed accord. The origins of central bank independence were on. We're between the central bank and the elected part of the executive branch, and the idea was that the Treasury and the president wanted interest rates to stay low because it was it was easier for them to finance their their fiscal spending at a lower interest rate when when the Fed kept interest rates low and the feds said no. We want to be able to control interest rates to manage inflation and Nathan's working on credit report right now that talks about other ways to control inflation, which the Treasury and the president wanted to consider at the time, using direct credit, regulation and things. What we might now understand in some way is macroprudential regulation. But but the the idea of central bank independence then was between the treasury between the president and Central bank. That's why people say Donald Trump is criticizing PAL for wanting to raise interest rates. That's a violation of Fed. It depends. So in that respect, you know, Obama trying to use the coin without additional direction for Congress was could have been said to be an encroachment on Central Bank. It depends. I didn't think that was the case, but that was the argument at the time. Now, actually, what happened is the Obama administration didn't wrote. It got a legal memo in the White House about this, but it's not publicly available yet, but they didn't want to pursue the corn option, not because they actually necessarily thought it couldn't be done. I think if the if the president had I tried to do this in the Treasury and tried to do this, the Fed actually probably wouldn't have denied it and probably claim they would have denied it in the outset to try and stop it from happening because it would make them book like a joke to their serious central banker friends at the next international made up. But the reason that the president didn't want to do this is because the president wanted to win the political fight with the Republicans. And the best way that they thought to do that was to say to the public and to the Republicans, If you don't negotiate with us, if you don't sit down the table, that's a negotiated. The U. S. Economy is gonna come to a crashing halt. We're gonna have a government shutdown. You know, we're not gonna send Social Security checks out. So basically, Obama put a put a gun to the head of the American economy and said, You know, if you don't negotiate, I'll pull the trigger. And from my point of view, that's very dangerous. To give a president the power to to take options off the table to keep Congress is spending commitments sort of flowing just to score those kinds of political points obviously don't like the Republicans. I didn't want them to win that fight with Obama, but I think the fact that he would rather lie about what options are on the table and gamble with the lives of people who you know, would have been affected by the shutdown and would have been affected by spending not going out rather than to say Look, I'd love it if they came to the table. But of course the spending is gonna keep happening. We could always finance it. That was That was a purely sort of cynical political decision. It wasn't about the legality of the coin.

spk_0:   39:46
Another critical difference between back then and now is that there's a ready audience for hash tag meant the coin and social media and things. I wonder if you could, uh, you know, it seemed to sort of develop over time between 11 4013 and now people were just ready and excited to see it, would you? I don't know if you have any thoughts on on the sort of aesthetic representations of the mint, the coin

spk_1:   40:12
proposal or what people are saying today or how they're

spk_0:   40:15
envisioning it versus you. Remember in the in 11 4013 there was, you know the thing. It was the House Republicans said that in orderto to meant a trillion dollar platinum coin, you would have toe amass enough platinum to sink the Titanic, and there seems to be a little bit of that this time around. But, uh, I don't know just what Do you think of the names wrong?

spk_1:   40:38
Yeah, I think, actually, just to keep from going back to the central theme we started. This is also an example of MMM strategy. And not to say we're the only ones before this, but I think we put a lot of effort into sort of outreach to the financial journalism community on dhe, sort of building relationships there and making sure that these ideas are in front of the people who write about them so that they understand how to think about them the right way. And, you know, some of that was already happening. We certainly can't take all the credit for that. But if you look at the way that the minute the quaint discourse has evolved at the time, part of that was these ideas. You know, people who want that familiar with them. We're confronted with this sort of better framing, better analysis of it. And so over time, they then reported in a in a better way. I remember one of the very first interviews that Stephanie Kelton did on Chris. Hey, Show was with another journalists from The Guardian named Heidi More, and she repeated this idea about the platinum and its absolute bullshit. There's nothing in the law that says it has to be bullying value of platinum. It was just a bad reading of the Lord, and this time around we've got people who understand that. And, you know, it's sort of that first time it's tragedy. Second time, it's fast thing, whether we're the word fast, that it really means like stuffing and feathers. You know, it's it's what might have caused a strong emotional response to the first time you heard that the second time is a little bit more passe, and you can get past that shock value and actually talk about it the right way. Even even average people had heard about the coin a little bit, you know, through Jon Stewart or something the first time around. So this time it's like, Oh, yeah, Oh, yeah, I remember hearing about that before you know, what's that again? And this time they kind of read it, and it's not necessarily the same ridiculousness at first impression. But, you know, I think the other part of it is that we've got a left audience now. Over the last four years in particular, and before that, that then understands that a sort of MMT community has something important to say that's worth listening to, even when they disagree, know that they can't afford to ignore it if they want to. And and that and that these ideas are not crazy. You know that kind of what you're seeing this time around with the other main one with the queen is money printer Gobert, you know, and it's very funny on one hand. But it also I think, reflects our the fact that a lot of serious people, both leftists and journalists, are sick off these bullshit Maris narratives that are corroding public debate and sometimes being like I'm just not gonna take it seriously anymore. You can't say that you can't just print money. Everything will go crazy. Uh, I am saying, you know, it's sort of it's sort of ah, really kind of thumbs up to the serious discourse in reflection off how bad the serious discourse has has failed us until now to say, Look, if you're gonna call me an idiot and juvenile, then fine, I'll just lean into it. You know, I'll lean into the main and respect to representative to leave. She represents the poorest district in the country. That this is something that may make her sound, you know, may make certain people wanna laugh, but it's it's much more honest. And she's telling the truth to her, her her constituents and not talking down to them or condescending to them or lying to them because they two things they can't handle. The truth. S o. I have a lot of respect for the courage it took to just say it this way. And I think the journalists consort of Soak It in irony with these maims her money printed Gober. And it's funny. But when you're a Congress person who actually responsible for fixing these problems, you don't have the luxury of irony. You have to be honest, I think, and in this context, the earnestness is we can afford this. We're not gonna deal with this bullshit anymore, and the Treasury has the power to do it. And I can explain this to an eight year old, not because it's stupid, but because sometimes good things are good, the right way to do things, the right way to do things. And when a nine year old says, Mommy, Can't we just print more money? The answer sometimes is Yes, we can.

spk_2:   44:42
That way you can pull all the stops out till they call the cops. Grind your find your you gotta get a gimmick If you want again revise your grow working in the back row and dump your dead. You gotta get a gimmick if you wanna get way

spk_0:   45:20
You know, we've, I think, been fielding questions from left, right and center about the coin And one of the big ones is, um you know, why bother? Why bother with a coin, right? It's It's just a gimmick in this world has been coming up again and again And I think we've all had various responses to this. Andi, I think one that that really got me thinking was Nathan's point, which you kind of referenced earlier about, um, you know the latest. The latest bill creating what is essentially a kind of Treasury slush fund is itself a gimmick. And it really got me thinking about, you know, like the politics and aesthetics of off the gimmick and and, as you said, row about Ah, the hash tag, um, the value of leaning into the gimmick. I'm wondering if maybe Nathan has any more thoughts about that.

spk_2:   46:19
Yeah, it's been interesting. I've been thinking about this, too. You know, the way gimmicks and especially accounting gimmicks, like gets used in discourse like all the same people who save the queen isn't a county gimmick are like absolutely no 100% talking about the absolute seriousness, importance off capitalizing these special purpose. It's like if you listen to them, you think that, like like our top five goals are like flattening the curve toe prevent over capacity of the hospitals. Um, you know, you know, giving getting emergency researchers Resource is the health care workers, uh, supporting frontline workers, capitalizing special purpose vehicles and then, like people, make red or whatever, like like it's It is one of like the most critically important things To be happening right now is is this accounting gimmick, which just it just is, you know, a total gimmick. And, you know, and even if you wanna like no die on the Hill, that you absolutely do need to capitalize these special purpose vehicles to indemnify the Federal Reserve against losses, it's still an accounting gimmick that that is part of the dollar amount that people are counting as a private kind of Oh yeah, the 10 to 1 ratio. You could talk a little bit about moron, but just like literally the reason everyone thinks that there's a $4 trillion plus corporate bailout coming is well, like you know you need, like, a dollar of equity for every $10 assets. Like that's That's a rule, right? Like it's the law. Or like anything anyone follows. But like, that's a thing, right? I've heard of it. You just said it. People are saying, like, you know, in the Trump administration, way like it very much. You know, many people are saying this and like literally, it's spread like that through of the intellectual ecosystem where many people are saying this. And now it's gonna be for trillion dollar plus in lending because, you know well, $10 of lending for every $1 of equity, which is e. It's it's It's childish in the most fundamental ways, Um,

spk_0:   48:55
right and it's childishness serving the dominant power structure, the dominant ideology, which is ah, not helping the people that need help, right and and I think The gambit of the coin is to make a spectacle out of really any any financial instrument that is backed by the government in its franchisees. Um and basically kind of, I mean, not that not that the mint, the coin, I would read it as like purely making a mockery, because I think it it has positive, positive value. You and significance is a way of galvanizing ah, political movements. So I don't want to say it's just product, but I think it's important to point out the product dimension off the gesture because it exposes, Um, it exposes the fact that any right any, um, legal instrument like this is something

spk_2:   50:02
one beginning. But I would say is that like the difference between the coin and the special purpose vehicles, plus the cat, you know, the fund for capitalizing the special purpose vehicles and all that stuff is all that's all. That stuff is ah, child's idea of what serious, like serious thinking and serious like analysis of adults would be like Like they must be doing something with, you know, with their finance stuff with the corporations. And one thing's going one way and one things When the other, whereas the platinum A coin is the child is a child's idea of how public finance should work. Like, Why don't we just met a coin that's just like a huge denomination and like that way we'll pay all our bills and they hate it because it's it's a child's idea off of how a child would go with it. But the thing they're missing is no. The key element that the child has is like imagination and unbounded by how adults like you know, I didn't instruct the world, whereas the child's idea of what adult, uh, like like adult, you know, behavior, adult analysis. Adult policy is like is a child's not having a full grasp of what's going on in the adult world, but seeing how no circumscribed and closed in and boxed in and unimaginative adults over, Uh,

spk_1:   51:53
yeah, I mean, don't Kenneth Galbraith had this line that the essence of conservatism is the search for an endlessly superior justification for selfishness. Right? And when you have Children who say you know, Mommy, why they're poor people in the world? Well, you know, maybe they'll say, Oh, well, because because there should be people out there in there in control. Or maybe they'll say, Well, I took a Nikon wanna one class at Harvard with great thank you. And let me explain to you trade offs and preferences and why certain people have to be poor and like that's actually a good thing from prosperity and for markets, you know, And that idea that we sort of actually, it has to be more complicated than just sometimes there are bad people who do bad things. Andi, I think what Nathan was saying about Charles, Please perfect. I come from a background in early childhood, and there's a great quote by Karloff, music educator who said, You know, if you teach kids that play is learning, Then when the time comes to Lendl, realize that it's child's play. And I think if you think about the coin and these other things, you know, we've been using the term gimmick and that sometimes has negative connotations, and I'm I'm down for reclaiming that term. But how about we replace it just for now with the word ritual? Well, the word theater, or even the word liturgy? Perhaps, you know, I came from a high, an Anglican school. We did a lot of high Anglican liturgy, even though it wasn't the Catholic Church that was still Cossacks and robes. And there was a cathedral. And there was music in between the sermon and and the and the hymns in the prayers. And the real question is, you know who are the high priests here? I can actually give an eight year old. You know, if you think about the way the Olympic flame gets run into the stadium, it's this big moment, and it's usually some culturally important figure. I could give a child the trillion dollar coin, announced them tow, walk for a moment to the Fed and say, Hey, we're doing this on behalf of every child who needs to get paid. You can't imagine a child engaging in, you know, sort of pressing a button to sell the Treasury auction bid to a series of primary dealers at an interest rate that fits the spread between the, you know, Repo on reverse repo rate. The Fed is set blah, blah, blah, and I think that you know Nathan's point that this is a sort of, you know, kids idea of what an adult sounds like, I think another way to frame that is also, you know, this is what an insecure persons idea off of what sophistication sounds like. You know, if you if you get a mathematics PhD. My father was a scientist. He likes to joke that he remembers someone who got a mathematics PhD for proof that was like four lines long and that was that was their whole dissertation. Whereas in legal academia, the people who edit the lower views are usually law students, and they're usually very insecure about their own legal knowledge. And I've I've had this experience myself. Both is an editor, and then as a ride, I try to publish things where I've written something like, um, the last 10 years has been characterized by the aftermath of the global financial crisis and climate change, and someone said, Well, do you have a citation to prove that? I said, What do you mean? They said, You know, do you have a citation to prove that the last 10 years has been characterized by the aftermath of the global financial crisis? I said, What possible proof could I have? That isn't just someone else saying that that I was there referring to them, saying that they said, Well, you're not an expert, you know, you need to have someone who's an expert who said that? I said, I have an expert

spk_2:   55:11
I was one of

spk_1:   55:12
an expert as the next person on this issue And then they said, Okay, we didn't realize you with that much of an expert, So I'm fine. We'll we'll allow you to say this when you're in terms and no disrespect to those street ends. That's just the milieu in which they're operating it. But the idea there is like I can't possibly sign off on this as a judgment call. I need to sort of rely on some external validation and some external reference to the buttress this, unless it's to, unless it's seen as being sort of so obvious, like water is wet. Do you have a citation for that? And I think that that's one of the elements here. Is that like the idea that, like we actually have public legal authority, we have a public power off the purse and the coins value is just because we say so. It's figure well, No, no. Do you have a central bank balance sheet, you know, Do you have a primary deal that bought this? Do you have evidence that the future cash flow, you know, discounted by net present inflation expectations is gonna be sufficient? You know, blah, blah, blah. No. I don't need that citation that the coin is its own citation. And that's all we need. Just to this point,

spk_3:   56:17
that was wise. This sort of strawman gimmick talk is so pernicious is because to what we've been saying, all of society is an accounting gimmick, right? Which is not to denigrate accounting gimmicks. It's just to say that we need the right kind of accounting gimmicks that takes care of that. Take care of everyone. And that's I think, what the coin sort of represents.

spk_1:   56:44
Yeah, and the idea of to go back to this idea of liturgy. You know, there's one kind of liturgy that tells Children these priests are 12 feet tall and they're in communion with God, and they're basically living representatives of God. In this church is 80 feet high because it's it's supposed to be something you're afraid of, and in or off. And don't you dare question us when we're standing on the pulpit, telling you want to do? And there's another kind of church that says, You know, like a like a primary school classroom. We're gonna sit on the floor cross leg because I'm the same size is a child and you know, we're all talking to each other as April's in a circle. And you know, if you want to speak, you put your hand up. It's your turn to speak. And then when I want to speak to my turn, it's not that I'm the priest. I have 40 minutes and things you know so week, or that the cathedral is a beautiful building that we built for Children to play in and learn and and to play beautiful music in. And that's the point of the building. And so we can think about a liturgy or a ritual that is designed to empower the participants in it. Then we can think of a liturgy that's designed to disempower everybody but those in control. And I mean, you know, you don't have to go back to Martin Luther to make that point, but you, But the point here is that I think the point of the coin is that it? It radically empowers average people and in the same way as in 2013. The reason we couldn't use the coin was because it would tell people that we can create money this time, even as we literally creating money. And even as the Fed is literally entangling itself with the Treasury, we can't use the point because to do so would show people that actually, all that complicated banking B s is unnecessary and that the power to do fiscal policy, you know, as simple as it is, exists in something as sort of mundane and almost sort of a joke as the Mint. Kids can go to the Mint and take a public tour, and they leave with a little coin. You know, it's it's actually something that you could imagine an eight year old going into and and not kind of falling asleep when they when they meet Ben Bernanke,

spk_0:   58:51
anything about it. So another major Oh, go ahead, just give us a thinking about it. In dramatic terms, you know, both both sort of make a spectacle of the, you know, fiscal authority, but the SPV and stimulus is much more in tragic, you know, good evil, serious unserious, binary terms. And the trillion dollar coin is it leans into that irony and irony is about, you know, sort of a deeper you're pulling back to see the bigger picture and context and paying attention less too. Um, you know, heroes and villains, but to sort of shared interdependence and humanity And I don't know, Um,

spk_1:   59:31
yeah, I mean, what one of the movies that I love, you know, sort of date myself. Whatever is Moonrise Kingdom? As a youth advocate, I represented kids in Family Court. I was early childhood teacher because it takes seriously, in a sort of simultaneously ironic way, the feelings and intensity of Children's move you and you know, in addition to the sort of star crossed lover story of the main story, there's this beautiful background of music. There's noise, flood. There's the young person's The Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britton and and I've I've played a lot of these pieces in educational pops, orchestras and things and thereby serious composers. You know, Purcell and Tchaikovsky, where it whether it's, you know, Peter and the wolf for Britain, or whoever else but one of the beautiful things about these pieces of music is they don't they don't talk down to kids, you know, in the same way as Leonard Bernstein popularized this public music education, Mary brought kids to the orchestra and talked. Talked to them about all these beautiful pieces of classical music, but they but they are constructed in a way to be accessible. Two kids, you know, they're not condescending. They don't dumb it down. But they do make the music accessible in a way that that is, acknowledging kids where they are. I think that if we really cared about democracy and designing legal institutions, we would we would think about them in a way to make them, you know, simple on the other side of complexity. So that so that we can empower average people on average Children to understand what's going on without making them feel stupid, and that only smart people and serious people and of sophisticated people deserve to have an opinion on these things. Whether that's classical music or or high finance. I think it's the same.

spk_2:   1:1:18
I think what I want. Sorry, I wantedto, uh, same one thing I'm at, like another way don't frame. That is like the goal of policy making should be to make it impossible to oh, launch, you know, suddenly launch ah, blogger or whatever and get attention from tens of thousands of people by describing what AH central bank is like. That should be like something that is impossible because the pedagogical level at which we our institutions for stabilizing I have financial systems and or making sure that we can make went is simple enough that, you know, But why would we be listening to you? But we don't need? We don't There's not some technical, you know, high in the sky knowledge. We all have our seven. It's class where we talk about money and, you know, we know what's going on. Oh, screw off.

spk_4:   1:2:49
Saturdays came out one morning sky Saturdays came with So know what you what to do?

spk_3:   1:3:31
Yeah, and it's it's, you know, this makes me think of the whole conversation. So far, it's sort of make me think of what has been my hobby horse online since, uh, since the crisis started, which is essentially I mean, this came up in the coin itself and also in the discount window conversation that we had before, but it seems like at least to me, and this is something that we've really actively been. FEMA ties ing on this show for a good part of a year now, which is that neoliberalism and the sort of technocratic, core off fed independence has been in crisis. It's been in crisis since the financial crisis, and it's been this slow, agonizing death. And I I did a threat about this on Twitter recently. But you know, Cove, it is gonna be known for what killed neoliberalism. At least on on my reading. At least put the final nail in the coffin of Fed independence, and I think Nathan's sub stack has really demonstrated this. But they're The responses to this thread was no. We have to wait and see. We have to see what the system does, and it's always premised on the fact that we first believed neo liberalism for what it is. We believe the Fed when they say they're independent before we then act. But what it seems like all of the work that we're doing here at the monitoring network, and especially technically speaking that you row in and Nathan have been doing since the crisis started, Which is to say no. We don't have to believe you anymore. Neoliberalism. We're gonna make the next paradigm and finally put this technocratic, unjust paradigm in the grave.

spk_1:   1:5:29
Yeah, I mean, I I was not a particularly great student in high school. I mean, I was a good student in terms of grades, but I wasn't particularly respectful student when I felt that teachers were not critically respectful. But one of the things I always remember was, you know, you could tell the difference when you had substitute teachers. I'm sure most people have this experience, not necessarily on how much they taught you, because very rarely does a substitute teacher really kind of teach you something about the subject matter that was assigned the day before they turned up. But you could tell the difference between substitute teachers that wanted to make the experience one where they respected you and respected the classroom and ones where they just wanted to sort of have control of you and that latter group at least 2 may The only riel accurate response was contempt. The only one thing that they deserved to come into a classroom that they didn't know, that when students they didn't know to try and teach in a in a context that wasn't conducive to long term learning and and then to do so in a way that was sort of arrogant and impure IUs the only proper response was to tell him to go fuck themselves. And I think that in this context, as you say, the worst thing that we can continue to do is validate as legitimate things that are embarrassingly self preservationist on dhe. Very little else. And I think the money printed goes Brewer is about, you know, is a sort of good example of that because thes these kinds of concern trolling or tearing your hair out and appeals to normalcy and respectability, they don't deserve the paper to that it takes to respond to them or the typing. They deserve to be laughed at from the back of the room and have a spitball shut into the face of the people who says it. And I think you know what MNT does in the right way, and the kind of good will hunting way is to be able to back that up to show that that isn't just a covering insecurity for weakness. But it's born off the strength off, not taking your enemies framework of the world as a legitimate starting point, but rather to say, Yeah, I know enough to know you're full of shit.

spk_3:   1:7:37
Yep.

spk_0:   1:7:40
You can do

spk_2:   1:7:41
anything I would say from my point of view, like but one of the elements that I kind of feel like I straddled talking to financial markets, people, especially through journalists. Shout show wasn't fall. Who, uh, the Nets stalwart supporter of the coin for many, many years and on, but more generally that, like that crisis you're talking about, which is a crisis, you know, largely reflected is an intellectual crisis. The people who operate in the financial world, whether as journalists, whether you know, private market participants as regulators, um, that that is where the crisis is. And I would say that's definitely my experience with this substance. And you know, you that there there has been a wave of financial market professionals have been interested in what I have to say and sign up for email. Also been, You know, some, uh uh from government officials and been a wave of of reporters wave through through not just like reporters and in places but like the most important fire financial journalism sources. And I think that that Lex uh, you know, uh, first, you know, wanting to feel like you're the year prices in in an area that is feels infield technical, any other stuff you cover but also reflects respect that you know, people that they that they otherwise, though, are leftists and respect of the knowledge and a recognition that that knowledge is now everywhere and influencing what's written across the board in the financial. Just today, um, a Wall Street Journal Ah, columnist Bike burn, Pete's out on You know, there's been talk about having to save more, and the central framing of the peaks is sectoral balances, accounting identities for every, you know deficit, that there must be a surplus. And he's just casually using this as the centerpiece of this piece, and he use it because it's already like a shorthand that the consumers of this kind of media sort of sort of graphs to criticize ideas about. This isn't a businesses and households safe mortar. Um, and I might have criticism of where he was going. But that kind of analysis you could never expect would just be casually thrown out there. Ah, column, that sort of place, like The Wall Street Journal. And now it's so common that I don't think there any other and main Tear has really picked up on it. I haven't seen anyone else really tweet about. Used to be the You know, we were so starved for any coverage of any aspect of our ideas that we would fawn over something like that for a week. And now there's an ocean of it and we like I barely even noticed, like, 80% of it. But it's it's a media environment that has completely changed. And it's that environment in which now it's the next step of having the public understand what's now very well understood. A rarefied financial books.

spk_0:   1:11:32
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing that's so striking to me when it comes to the struggle for the hegemony over ideas and framing is just how much of the discourse has changed. And then specifically that this that Mt. Is has arisen as a key signifier within the discourse off this pandemic, right? You do you do a casual, uh, Internet search on and you'll see headlines like Corona virus Markets. Is it time for modern monetary theory? Uh, the huge Corona virus bailouts will need to be paid back. Or will they? And then the first line of the story is about MMT, uh, another one that I just pulled up. Prepare for a test of economic principles on then. MMT is the first thing they were talking about they're not talking about, Um uh, you know. Well, now it's anybody's game. Maybe, maybe, uh, you know, maybe the post key Indians were right. Or maybe the, You know, maybe the Austrians have something to teach us. Know this crisis has made an empty, uh, kind of central term of debate on I think that that's the

spk_2:   1:12:56
extraordinary thing about market monitor or something. Someone should look into that

spk_1:   1:13:02
e. I don't know. I feel like the Austrians, you know, some liquidation of human beings. And, you know, entire cities, I think, is probably necessary for the course correction. I think Peter Schiff has finally come to his moment when you know when When that hyperinflation has the model for you. I mean, yeah, I mean to go to your point. Some people, I think, you know, even some prominent ears, they're saying declare victory at this point, you know, everybody is sort of in an empty And now you see, NBC is saying, Well, we'll be nine MNT a kind of thing But I see that public pedagogical point to still be very important. You know, I think the fact that central bankers are kind of faced with their own lives in this moment isn't enough to may. Maybe I'm just sort of pressing the advantage and want to keep pushing, pushing for the full loaf. But I see the fact that you know that the coin is not necessary, obviously finance any spending. But the fact that they're still on objection to it, that's a strong one. The fact that it's still able to be loft out the room suggests to me we haven't done the public P educational part completely yet or there's still work to be done. Of course, you know any big idea, especially a complicated one, is not gonna get into everybody's head. You know, if you're the kind of person doesn't really news, you know it's not gonna get to you necessarily. But I think that in this moment this is a moment to sort of take our winnings and press further not to not to sort of step back and say OK, everybody is quite unquote monetizing deficits. Not that that's necessarily kind of quote unquote implementing them in tea or the fact that we're talking about inflation constraints, no budget constraints is proof that we've won. I don't think that's true, because I don't think that we're going to see this logic applied the next day in the same way. You know, we're not providing support to state and local governments as much as we could, which, if people did understand them into his analysis, would know that that was necessary. We're not, you know, using money financed deficits away. Kind of using this moment, too, to deal with long term interest rate considerations about monetary policy or anything like that s Oh, there it is. There's more to be done and that the role, the point is to press our advantage. And one of the reasons I like the Queen is even in this moment, even as everybody kind of is accepting so much of the basic MMT insights about fiscal policy. It is pushing that advantage. And the response people are getting is really you want to fight this fight now, you know, do we need to do this? And of course, these are the same people that didn't want to do anything until they were forced to do something. So yeah, yeah, we do need to do it because if you had your way, we wouldn't have done anything. And we're gonna keep pushing until we get over the finish line once and for all

spk_0:   1:15:46
and because people's lives are at stake.

spk_1:   1:15:49
We saw it, we saw. And this is one thing we haven't talked about yet and I talked about it elsewhere. But we saw after 2009 a backlash. A history moves in big swings and reactions. We saw a backlash to the stimulus spending where it was austerity. It was the tea party. It was the Simpson Bowles commission. And what I think we need to be preparing an understanding now at the end of this crisis is not just the national debt hysteria and the deficits in these big numbers which are gonna be thrown around to scare people about their grandchildren. I've talked about that elsewhere, but I think one thing that money and left has talked about a lot of the past as well is you know how, uh, crises moments also engender the broader social conception of scarcity. And I worry. Now we're going to see close Borders. We're going to see a rise of xenophobia. We're gonna see average people trusting each other a little bit less and anything that fuels that fire, whether it's economic or budgetary or whatever. Any little bit of hook that gives people an excuse to be just that little bit less human to each other has to be fought with every ads we've got because the we just saw a victim or been today in Hungary, declare himself bloody dictator indefinitely, basically and suspend Parliament and and I, you know, we've seen the rise of surveillance technologies in relation to the crisis, people monitoring where people's phones go in the name of promoting social distancing and things. So we're going to see a huge backlash to the very frail sort of fibers off of social decency that were hanging on before this. And I think that the idea of kind of, as you guys like to say, emphasizing the boundless and infinite center, the public utility of money is even more crucial now, even as we sort of the successful that we've been in this point,

spk_3:   1:17:49
Rohan brings us precisely back to the beginnings, which is that since the financial crisis and various iterations, right, the modern money network and we, as a collective importantly as a collective have been doing the work to be prepared for the intellectual crisis that we could all see coming in some form or fashion, obviously not in the form that it came. And so it's crucially important

spk_1:   1:18:18
that I don't know who had a

spk_0:   1:18:20
gun. I don't know. I even the preparation suite.

spk_2:   1:18:22
We'll sort of thing, given this comes out monthly review. I got a I got to give a shout out to a book that I bent to review a couple years ago, but failed. Thio, which is Ah, Rob Wallace is, uh, big farms make big flu, and I think you know something, definitely getting too warm in future money on the left. But that's definitely, you know, part of the glow of a globalized infrastructure of production is the, you know, the the increased virulence and transferability of viruses. And then, you know, industrial farming going along with it, you know, making that kind of, uh, incubating those kinds of diseases in animals and, uh, and increasing their capacity to spread to jump to humans and spread everywhere.

spk_3:   1:19:22
Yeah, and yeah, that's actually an interesting point. And I want to get back to conclude this point, which is to say, pressing our advantage means necessarily using this sort of intellectual head start to completely and totally pushed and shape the discourse, as as we hand at all fronts, whether that's online on the ground, with people with, you know, with the public, with the so called technocrats in close room, singular conversations and push and push and push and push. And you know that we were doing that. But just to call it out, I think is crucially important for this project going forward

spk_0:   1:20:06
and a lot easier to do with a network. Right? I know that, uh, I've been dealing with this crisis 100 different ways. Not all of them. Very good, but talking to you all and seeing the work in front of my says we're talking is inspiring a lot of ways.

spk_1:   1:20:25
Yeah, people, people like to say that the mark of, ah politicians, they can hold your multiple contradictory ideas in their head at the same time, you know? And certainly I think I've heard of that used to describe lawyers before. But I think one of the benefits of this network approach, you know, even more than just sort of one think tank way everything gets published with one name. The top, you know, everything goes through one sort of common filtering mechanism Is that that some of these strategies are going to have internal tensions with, you know, some some of this work is going to sound more populist, and some of it's gonna sound more paddocks and what it's going to sound more amelioration ists. And some of it's gonna sound Maur kind of fire brandy pitchfork ing. Some of it's going to be speaking to sort of die hard leftists, and some of it's gonna be speaking Thio more kind of biologically mild or or or sort of non kind of radicalized segments of the population and and to be able to keep an underlying unity off the vision and of the goals, even as that sort of people, the various wings and the various sort of projects, go in directions that sort of occasionally pick them in. Ostensible tension with each other requires trust and relationships and in some level of community. And I think that's what we're hoping to do with the network. Sort of that kind of nudge in a wink. You know, we're all we're all on the same page at some deep level, even find out. So it's a dog in a certain

spk_0:   1:21:59
area with with no no Hayak yelling down at us from the top of the mountain. Yeah, I'm cost Well, Roman Nathan, thanks so much for joining us. Um, we hope you're both safe and well and this time of crisis and carry on,

spk_1:   1:22:22
you'll t

spk_4:   1:22:23
o