Modern Monetary Theory has been accused, not always fairly, of more serious shortcomings than you can shake a stick at. Among other things, critics have faulted it for not being all that modern, for passing-off tautologies as profundities, for wrongly assuming that the value of fiat money…
A couple posts ago, I criticized in general terms Modern Monetary Theorist Stephanie Kelton’s suggestion that the expense of the proposed Green New Deal need not make it “a drag on the economy” since the Fed could always foot the bill. That post steered clear of the…
This morning I responded to leading Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) proponent Stephanie Kelton's Huffington Post op-ed, "How We Can Pay for a Green New Deal," with a tweet observing that "MMT often boils down to nothing more than an especially naïve sort of Keynesianism: assume an unlimited…
So it has come to pass. In his recent press conference, Chairman Jerome Powell has at last made official the Fed's plan to stick to its post-crisis "floor" system of monetary control, which uses changes in the interest rate paid on banks' excess reserve balances, rather than…
Among many other advantages it enjoys when it comes to influencing the course of monetary reform, the Fed has that of being able to shift the constraints that determine whether a proposed reform is or isn't possible. If existing constraints don't stand in the way of some…