Episode #07 (Interview with Patricia Natalia Pino from progressive media outlet, The Pileus about 'Modern Monetary Theory' being a monetary reality for governments)

Life from the Left

In our last episode before Christmas we chat to Patricia Natalia Pino, a contributor to the economics section of The Pileus, a progressive online news media outlet about the following:

• Background to The Pileus – challenges and opportunities that they and other new progressive news media outlets face.

“If we’re going to have publicly funded media, it cannot be centrally controlled”.

The Alternative?

“Everybody would have an allowance to choose which outlet to fund”.

• An Introduction to MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) – UK Government is the sovereign monopoly issuer of pounds sterling. Therefore, it cannot run out of money.

“It should not be called Modern Monetary Theory, it should be called Modern Monetary Reality”.

• Fiat Currency System = Money not backed by any commodities.

“Government promise to accept currency as a means to pay taxes”.

“We need pounds to pay taxes, that’s where the demand for pounds comes”.

• The lack of an economically literate mainstream media – peddling economic myths that have not fully understood our transition from the pre- 1970s gold standard era.

• Government debt – Is running up large debt a bad thing? Are there any constraints on government spending?

“Government debt is our savings”.

“Government spending is private sector income”.

“The real constraint [to government spending] is whether there is spare capacity in the economy to spend”.

You can read more on MMT and Patricia Natalia Pino’s articles on economics in The Pileus by clicking on this link https://www.thepileus.com/economics/

Follow Patricia on twitter https://twitter.com/PatriciaNPino

Track of the week