Beckworth Promotes Platinum Coins as Obama’s “FDR Moment”!
April 21st, 2012
You know things are weird when pretty strongly right-of-center economists are proposing ideas first touted by MMT econocranks (yes, beowulf, I’m talking about you) to bring about the Obama breakout moment that progressives (despairingly) dream of at night.
The world is a very strange place.
And people argue with Steve Randy Waldman when he says that MMTers, post-Keynesians, and Market Monetarists agree on lots of things… Sheesh.
Macro and Other Market Musings: Obama Needs His FDR Moment.
Cross-posted at Angry Bear.
“You know things are weird when pretty strongly right-of-center economists are proposing ideas first touted by MMT econocranks (yes, beowulf, I’m talking about you) to bring about the Obama breakout moment that progressives (despairingly) dream of at night.
The world is a very strange place.”
Stranger than you know. I’m a Republican. The only Obama breakout moment that interests me is his concession speech. I only touted the trillion dollar coin for the same reason people call 911 when they see a house on fire.
Beowful is an MMRist, not an MMTer. And the only reason this idea gained any traction with Market Monetarists is because the MMRists have been making an effort to reach out to them lately. Attributing this connection to MMT is totally disingenuous.
Beo: whodathunkit?
Ss: Okay let’s be very careful to keep our tribal rivalries accurately defined here.
Beo: of course I mean econocrank in the kindest and most complimentary since the term.
The conspiracy nutjobs would swarm out of the woodwork if Obama proposed such a scheme.
The only thing he cares more about than being re-elected is keeping his scalp firmly attached. Don’t look for any monetary miracles originating from the White House.
As an aside , always keep in mind that sinister Trojan Horses are a revered rightwing specialty. When any idea from the right seems strangely beneficial to the masses , I assume ulterior motives. I’ve been hoping that one day my cynicism would prove to be unfounded , but Intrade odds on that happening are currently ~zero.
“Beowful is an MMRist, not an MMTer. And the only reason this idea gained any traction with Market Monetarists is because the MMRists have been making an effort to reach out to them lately. Attributing this connection to MMT is totally disingenuous.”
I don’t think that this is quite right. IIRC, beowulf floated TPC gambit in an MMT context before MMR came into being, and Joe Firestone became the chief exponent of it.
It is likely the case that David Beckworth picked up on TPC through MMR though, although I am pretty sure it was surfaced at market monetarists blogs in the comments some time prior to MMR.
Beckworth cites MMR in his post, not MMT:
“Okay, that is a radical idea coming from me. It is a mongrel mix of Market Monetarism and Modern Monetary Realism. ”
Beckworth often comments at MMR and I know Cullen Roche has said he’s talked to Beckworth in some detail recently so it seems pretty clear that the collaboration here is between MMR and Market Monetarists. Not MMT and anyone else. In fact, MMT pretty much always rejects Market Monetarism and monetary policy in general so I find it kind of funny that MMTers are suddenly saying the Market Monetarists agree with them.
“I don’t think that this is quite right. IIRC, beowulf floated TPC gambit in an MMT context before MMR came into being, and Joe Firestone became the chief exponent of it.”
Yet I have it on good authority that ‘beowulf’ hasn’t changed his views on much of anything except that what he thought was MMT is actually something else (call it “MMR”). If you’re willing to define MMT broadly– divided between “hardcore MMT” and “MMR”– then I concede your point, yes, it was floated “in an MMT context”.
@beowulf
Agreed. What I meant was that your floating the TPC was prior to the debut of MMR as an alternative and occurred on MMT blogs.