Speaker 1: Let's go to Roiland from Grand Rapids.
Roiland, you're on the air.
Speaker 2: David, nice to hear from you, man.
It's nice to hear from you.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
So I have a question about modern monetary theory.
Sure.
So I don't know if you knew the last year.
John Yarmuth, representative from Kentucky, was on C-SPAN kind of touting the modern monetary
theory and, you know, accepting it as like a lens and framework to view kind of like
the government and how it spends.
Sure.
So I was curious, do you think that MMT will kind of become more prominent and more and
more mainstream?
Obviously, mainstream is kind of hard to choose, but you know, one of the trauma two prominent
frameworks of you policymaking Speaker 1: here is the thing about modern
monetary theory.
A lot of people think about it like something that you enact, like, OK, we now we've turned
on modern monetary theory.
Now there's modern money.
It's not really.
It's really a perspective, right?
The idea of the fundamental idea of modern monetary theory is that currency need not
be restricted in order to prevent inflation in absolute terms, and that the creation of
new money by governments has varied effect depending on what the money is spent on.
And if you spend the create created money because we're talking about ones and zeros
at this point, if you spend or allocate the created money in certain ways, it can be economically
stimulative, whereas allocating that money in other ways might cause inflation.
So it's it's not something where it's like we're now doing modern monetary theory.
It's really just a framework where we would think about government spending in a different
way.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
I think the issue right now is kind of because something like the Clinton years where we
were and I think a definite I forget what they call it, a deficit or some time where
there was less money in the economy trying to get away from that framework because obviously
we love the Clinton years, but we shouldn't be really having our our balance sheet in
that direction where there's less money in the actual economy.
So I feel like the Democrats in particular would have to reframe their arguments on modern
monetary theory.
But it has.
Stephanie Killing has said with in her recent interviews that I've seen actually, I'm not
sure how recent they are, but she's actually talking to, like Senate Budget Committee members
and everything.
So it's like they they understand it, but I almost feel like they're trying to figure
out how to reveal it to the general public.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I just the concept can be boiled down pretty simply, which is
like government spending doesn't just diminish the value of the dollar and cause inflation.
We need to actually look at what the money is being spent on and it can actually have
economically stimulative effects.
I mean, it's sort of like taking elements of demand side economics and adding more of
a fiscal policy currency aspect to it.
I don't know what the best way to communicate it, but I do think that because elements of
it are correct, it will hopefully become more of a part of the discussion going forward
is my hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my hope my hope is that for two, because when you read articles about
modern monetary on just whatever websites they're, you know, they're always saying like,
Oh, this is what we tried for the stimulus package.
And look, it's not working as well.
The thing is like, did they actually discuss any of these policies with any amount of monetary
theories about, you know, controlling inflation and unemployment and all that right now, they
just consider any of that.
Yeah, yeah.
So.
Speaker 1: Well, very good point.
I appreciate the call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
If you can just have some more MMT people interviewed, that would be great for it to
become more public.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had Stephanie Kelton on twice.
And am I right that Paulina Chanakya also is an expert on MMT?
I'm trying to remember.
I think she might be.
Speaker 2: I am unaware my guys would be like Rowan Gray and Warren Mosler, obviously, and
Randall Wray.
Those are the main three guys that I would listen to.
All right, we will Speaker 1: look into it.
Thank you.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 1: You, too.
There is roiling with a beautiful phone call.