Skip to content

Alt-M

Ideas for an Alternative Monetary Future

Alt-M

Ideas for an Alternative Monetary Future

  • Home
  • Contributors
    • George Selgin
    • Larry White
    • James Dorn
    • Jennifer Schulp
    • Norbert Michel
  • Primer
  • Working Paper Series

government debt

Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, government debt, Modern Monetary Theory
Financial Markets, Money & Politics, The Fed & Central Banks

On Empty Purses and MMT Rhetoric

George Selgin/March 5, 2019June 19, 2022 /45 Comments

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…

Continue reading
Green New Deal, Modern Monetary Theory, Stephanie Kelton, Federal Reserve, government debt
Money & Politics, News, The Fed & Central Banks

The Modern New Deal That's Too Good to be True

George Selgin/February 8, 2019June 19, 2022 /68 Comments

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…

Continue reading
interest on excess reserves, output gap, debt monetization, fiscal policy, federal deficit
Booms & Busts, Financial Markets, Money & Politics

The Output Gap, the Federal Budget Deficit, and the Threat of Debt Monetization

Larry White/May 15, 2018June 19, 2022 /5 Comments

In April 2018 Congressional Budget Office issued a report on the state of the federal budget in light of the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” enacted in December 2017,  the “Bipartisan Budget Act” enacted in February 2018, and the “Consolidated Appropriations Act” enacted in March. The CBO…

Continue reading
Monetary Conference, Cato, Shelton, Basel, financial crisis, government debt, QE
Events, Money & Politics, The Fed & Central Banks

34th Cato Monetary Conference: Central Banks and Financial Turmoil

Ari Blask/November 23, 2016June 19, 2022 /1 Comment

More than two hundred people came to Cato last Thursday, November 17th, for the 34th Annual Monetary Conference. Four panels and two keynote speakers covered “Central Banks and Financial Turmoil,” the theme of this year’s conference. In his introduction, CMFA’s James Dorn laid out some of the key…

Continue reading
bankruptcy law, government debt, Puerto Rico, secured bondholders, U.S. Treasury
Financial Markets, News, Recommended Reading

The Administration’s Puerto Rico Jujitsu Threatens the States’ Ability to Borrow

Ike Brannon/March 3, 2016June 19, 2022 /4 Comments

The New York Times reported last week on some of the details of the Obama Administration’s recovery plan for Puerto Rico, and it does not bode well for investors — or for states and municipalities that borrow money. The island’s government is $72 billion in debt, with…

Continue reading

Follow

Print

Subscribe


Contributors

  • George Selgin
  • Chuck Moulton
  • Bradley Jansen
  • Larry White
  • Hu McCulloch
  • James Dorn
  • Diego Zuluaga
  • Nicholas Anthony
  • Jennifer Schulp
  • Working Paper Series
  • Norbert Michel

Categories

  • Banking Regulation (119)
  • Booms & Busts (50)
  • Commodity Money (78)
  • Currency Boards (19)
  • Digital Money (98)
  • Economic History (198)
  • Economic Thought (164)
  • Events (59)
  • Fiat Money (80)
  • Financial Innovation (50)
  • Financial Markets (138)
  • Free Banking (210)
  • Inflation & Deflation (83)
  • Legal Analysis (2)
  • Monetary Policy Primer (12)
  • Money & Politics (325)
  • News (248)
  • Recommended Reading (99)
  • Securities Regulation (7)
  • The Fed & Central Banks (378)
  • Uncategorized (11)
  • Working Papers (7)

Recent Posts

  • The Menace of Fiscal Inflation
  • Monetary Progress
  • Paul Krugman and the "Ersatz" Theory of Private Currencies
  • The New Deal and Recovery, Part 18: The Recovery So Far
  • Should the Fed Devalue Our Currency to Implement Negative Interest Rates?
  • Populism and the Future of the Fed: A New Book from Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives
  • Revising the Bank Secrecy Act to Protect Privacy and Deter Criminals (CMFA Working Paper No.007)

Recent Comments

  • brian_in_arizona on The Menace of Fiscal Inflation
  • Selgin on Paul Krugman and the "Ersatz" Theory of Private Currencies
  • Brutus admirer on Monetary Progress
  • Brutus admirer on The Menace of Fiscal Inflation
  • Max Hydrogen on The Menace of Fiscal Inflation

About Us

Welcome to Alt-M, a community devoted to exploring and promoting ideas for an alternative monetary future. Our goal is to reveal the shortcomings of today’s centralized, bureaucratic, and discretionary monetary arrangements, and to bring serious consideration of real alternatives to the center stage of current monetary and financial reform debates.

Sponsors

Liberty and Privacy Network
This work by the Cato Institute and the Liberty and Privacy Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
DMCA | Privacy Policy
top