MMP Blog #50: MMT Without the JG? Conclusion
Can you separate the MMT explanation of the cause of unemployment from the policy to cure it? Yes. Should you? Of course not.
Functional Finance
MMP Blog #48: Is The Job Guarantee Necessary?
Once one understands that sovereign governments do not have to force millions to suffer involuntary unemployment, then the ethically defensible position of opposing a Job Guarantee is narrowed.
MMP Blog #37: The Public Purpose
The public purpose is an evolving concept. The national government must play an important role in society as it helps to identify the social purpose and to establish a social structure in which individuals and groups will work toward achieving the public purpose.
MMP Blog #35: Functional Finance: A Conclusion
Let’s finish up the discussion of Lerner’s functional finance approach addressing two issues: functional finance and developing nations and also the functional finance approach to trade deficits.
MMP Blog #34: Functional Finance and Exchange Rate Regimes: The Twin Deficits Debate
The US Dollar probably will not remain the world’s reserve currency. From the US perspective, that might be a disappointment. In the long view of history, it is inconsequential.
MMP Blog #33: Functional Finance and Long Term Growth
Applying a household “budget constraint” to government is obviously inappropriate—households are users of the currency, while government is the issuer. How could economics have become so confused?
MMP Blog #32: Milton Friedman’s Version of Functional Finance: A Proposal for Integration of Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Milton Friedman was a conservative economist and a vocal critic of “big government” and of Keynesian economics. Yet, in 1948 he made a proposal that was almost identical to Lerner’s functional finance views.
MMP Blog #31: FUNCTIONAL FINANCE: Monetary and Fiscal Policy for Sovereign Currencies
This week we begin a new topic: functional finance. Today we will lay out Abba Lerner’s approach to policy.