Finding The Money - Fun Film
As an update, my begging paid off and I snagged a review viewing of the documentary “Finding the Money.” (Thanks!) The documentary does a good job of covering the main introductory points to MMT. It does a good job of explaining MMT concepts as well as covering the fairly standard misconceptions that crop up. It also covers the history of the development of MMT, which is useful for understanding the context of why the theory came up the way it did.
From a theoretical mudslinging point of view, it does a pretty good job of skewering the absolutely terrible fiscal policy views of the fiscal hawks in the 2010s. The treatment was fair given how incompetent those fiscal policy views were.
The scene that caused whinging on Twitter — the Jared Bernstein interview — was awkward. The lesson I learned from it is that saying “I have not thought about that, and I am not sure how to respond” can be better than alternatives…
This will sound wrong, but I hope Stephanie Kelton can be the Milton Friedman of MMT. Others in the Mont Pelerin Society stuck to theoretical work, but Friedman was a salesman first and foremost - and it cannot be denied that he was good at it. While the neoliberal ideology was inherently attractive to the ruling class, Friedman sold it to the people, creating the pitch that the political class has run with ever since. The films, speaking tours, books aimed more at the public than at academics, all of this is exactly what MMT (and the world) needs, and what Kelton is now doing. And, she’s good at it: having experienced her working the room, she definitely has the “it” factor for a wider audience. The more people understand how money really works, the more people can step back and see neoclassical theory for the bullshit it is. Go, Stephanie, go!
I watched it last evening - finally found it on iTunes not AppleTV (oh dear, Apple)… A bit more and a bit less than what I expected. Great it included credit money as well as fiat. Well worth watching.
The jarring (sorry) scene for me was not Jared Bernstein (who despite his fumbling came across as forgivable and likeable) but Rishi Sunak smirkingly giving the stock explanation for the UKs 15 years of austerity and Randy Wray just smiling, as one might at a small child, and saying, “he’s just wrong”.
As, of course, have been all the media commentators and economists who have supported the most destructive economic policies ever to have been imposed on a country short of military conquest.
For this reason alone, it should be seen by every British citizen before the upcoming election and twice by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.
And, of course, people everywhere whose minds have been turned to mush by neoliberal nonsensecomics.