Very helpful - thanks, Jason.

I'm out of my depth here, so I'm not going to attempt any defence of PM -
except...

I wonder how much Randall really studied PM. I say that because he says
it's not clear whether PMs proposal for central banks to create money was
that it should be physical money (notes and coins) or electronic money.
Even a cursory review of their proposals makes it clear they are proposing
electronic creation. Perhaps the apparent incoherence comes from
insufficient study.

What is less known, is that the originators of PM looked deeply into how
the Bank of England's internal accounts works. They documented how those
accounts currently work, and how they would need to be changed to implement
the PM proposals. I'm unclear whether any of that corresponds with the
"accounting" issue.

And they worked out how to make the transition incrementally to counter
accusations that it would be too disruptive.
And they even wrote the parliamentary legislation that would need to be
passed!

I look forward to learning more about MMT

Alex

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On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 at 02:18, nysa71 <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Alex,
>
> Thanks for your response, Alex.
>
> To answer your question, no, MMT doesn't align with Positive Money. MMT
> economists will generally argue that PM fundamentally misanalyzes currency
> and is incoherent. I remember a few years ago, there was actually a lot of
> back-and-forth between the two schools of thought.
>
> Another criticism of PM by MMT economists is that there's no accounting,
> which is fundamental to MMT, particularly a macro-accounting identity
> called "sectoral balances", which I'll get into a little later.
>
> Here's a short video (under 7 minutes) of MMT economist, professor Randall
> Wray from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, giving a basic
> critique of Positive Money: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DPEnbuW6aaNg&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=FV6gTerkkYoXSRQ-1JRq5Blf62X6toUugorgPYK31-4&s=SEz-zhHzdPbYaYeVPWgCMaossaVlrutdy0XR6QRtKPo&e= 
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DPEnbuW6aaNg&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=lpMS7tyM_omedh0s3cbg6D8lbLDXWToXx-AcDYylWys&s=PhO0_CWlyUcMLFsq8NmiujTtDYJp3PjwN4ZF2FW6sgE&e=>
>
> A fundamental premise of MMT is that there are
>
>
>
>    1.  Currency *issuers *and
>    2. Currency *users*
>
>
> As the names suggest, currency issuers *issue* the currency, and currency
> users merely *use* the currency.
>
> Examples of currency issuers would be the U.S. federal government, (the
> U.S. dollar), the Canadian national government (the Canadian dollar), the
> Mexican government (the peso), the U.K. government (the pound sterling),
> the Japanese government (the yen), etc.
>
> That is, currency issuers have a monopoly on creating their own respective
> currencies.
>
> Examples of currency users would be households, businesses, and U.S. state
> & local governments. That is, they do not create currency. They must
> acquire the currency first (e.g., through work, investments, taxes, etc.)
> before they can spend. The Eurozone would be another example of currency
> users since each of those countries gave up their power to issue their own
> respective currencies, and now are just users of the euro.
>
> I'll end with this final thought for now...
>
> Why would currency-issuing governments need to tax or "borrow"? Indeed, as
> a matter of logical ordering, they would need to spend their currency into
> existence first *before there would be any of that currency to tax or
> borrow*! Hence, taxes and borrowing must serve some other function(s)
> than funding the spending of such governments. If anything, it's just the
> opposite --- it's the spending that funds the taxpayers and the "lenders"!
>
> I'll dig into that in my next post!
>
> Have a good one,
> Jason Bessey
>
>
> On Thursday, September 10, 2020, 02:37:57 PM EDT, Alex Goodall <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Jason
>
> That's interesting.
>
> Some years ago I was involved with Positive Money in the UK. I don't
> recall them talking about MMT (but I could be wrong).
>
> Their core idea is to educate people to understand that new money is
> currently created as debt by banks (so economic growth must always be
> accompanied by growing debt), and the proposal that instead, new money
> should be created debt-free by the central bank. Alongside that, monetary
> policy should be focused on how much money to create (to avoid
> inflation/fund public spending/boost the economy as needed), rather than
> controlling interest rates - which should be left to the market.
>
> Does that align with MMT?
>
> There are some very nice, easy-to-understand (albeit a little dated)
> videos here:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__positivemoney.org_videos_introduction_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=FV6gTerkkYoXSRQ-1JRq5Blf62X6toUugorgPYK31-4&s=BOXXLzvQciYCctPAHvhJI1oB1oLZc04eLDwXaPQTw0M&e= 
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__positivemoney.org_videos_introduction_&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=fHWi962XDmFqYegrclgtonuz_BywmuqfQPugghKMyf0&s=CYaidl4l8N1U42lcmStfWW_H5nsttj9J6ZO1UK4PH40&e=>
>
> Video 7 provides a good summary.
>
> Alex
>
>
>
>
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>
> On Thu, 10 Sep 2020 at 18:30, nysa71 <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> *From:* nysa71 <[log in to unmask]>
> *To:* Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]>
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 10, 2020, 10:24:25 AM EDT
> *Subject:* Re: picture bio desc
>
> Hello ToK Community,
>
> My name is Jason Bessey, and I'm 49 years-old from Skowhegan, Maine.
>
> I've long had an interest in psychology and the social sciences, in
> general. I first heard of the ToK back around 2004 when I was a psychology
> major at the University of Maine at Farmington via Steve Quackenbush, also
> a member of this community.
>
> I was very interested in the theoretical unification of psychology, and I
> found Gregg's proposal quite intriguing. I very much appreciated someone
> attempting to address psychology's theoretical fragmentation.
>
> I found other fields in the social sciences interesting, as well --- such
> as anthropology, sociology, and political science. Furthermore, I could
> grasp the concepts in those fields.
>
> But economics was strangely a different story. I *wanted* to understand
> it...but couldn't make heads-or-tails of it! It just didn't seem to make a
> lot of sense. Or to be more specific, *orthodox* economics didn't make
> any sense to me. It just didn't seem ---- *right*...but I couldn't quite
> put my finger on it.
>
> So I delved into more heterodox schools of economics. Around 2009, I
> discovered Georgism --- a school of thought based on the writings of late
> 19th century political economist, Henry George. For the first time,
> economics started to make sense to me. George was deeply concerned with the
> increase of poverty in the midst of progress in his time --- hence the name
> of his popular book, *Progress & Poverty*, in which he based his analysis
> on the classical three factors of production: land, labor, and capital. His
> conclusion was that there should be a single tax on land, and there was a
> significant international "single tax" movement that followed and continued
> decades after his death.
>
> As much as I appreciated George's thought, though. I never thought he got
> the concept of money quite right. So I asked myself, "What is money?" And I
> found this question extremely difficult to answer.
>
> So for the next two years, I grappled with this question. Around 2013, I
> saw this mention here and there on social media about something called
> Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). So I Googled it, read a brief blog post on
> it, and immediately knew I found the answer to my question.
>
> MMT, in short, is (at its core) a description of how sovereign currencies
> actually function, and has been developed by many professional economists
> over the years. The interesting part is that that description is
> significantly different  than what's been described to us by mainstream
> economists.
>
> Furthermore, I began to realize that, in modern political discourse, we're
> framing questions about fiscal and monetary policy all wrong...and that's
> standing in the way of us dealing properly with the pressing issues of our
> time --- a sort of progress-and-poverty problem in our day!
>
> So I look forward to sharing with you what I've learned about MMT over the
> years, and I hope you'll find it of value, too.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jason Bessey
>
>
>
> On Monday, September 7, 2020, 07:42:43 AM EDT, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Jason,
>
>   Could you share a brief narrative/bio about you and your interest in MMT
> and a title? Also, a picture would be great. I will then announce in the
> next few days.
>
>
>
> Best
>
> G
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________
>
> Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
> Professor
> Department of Graduate Psychology
> 216 Johnston Hall
> MSC 7401
> James Madison University
> Harrisonburg, VA 22807
> (540) 568-7857 (phone)
> (540) 568-4747 (fax)
>
>
> *Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.*
>
> Check out the Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:
>
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