In my Government & Politics classes, I have taught students about debt and deficits in a doctrinal way for nearly a decade. But recently I have started to question what I (and likely you) learned from the zeitgeist, media, college, and US politics about debts and deficits.
Today’s #NerdFarmerAcademy episode is a conversation with economist Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He is a noted expert in Modern Monetary Theory, heretofore MMT. MMT is an economic theory that posits our approach to debts and deficits is just wrong. MMT economists believe that the concerns frequently expressed about the US debt are basically economic concern-trolling. They note that because the US government, unlike you and I, is a currency issuer, rather than a currency user, the limits on government debt are much higher than most of us have been led to believe. They call on the government to use debt to do great things. MMT-ers believe we can afford a much more generous government that can make a meaningful difference in the lives of working people.
Cast of Characters
- Fadhel Kaboub – Twitter
Going Further
- To Read: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy by Stephanie Kelton
- To Read: MMT and the Green New Deal in the US Context by Fadhel
- To Read: The remainder of the poem we shared in the second segment
- Direct Download Link
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