Macro Afternoon

By in Australian Dollar, Australian Shares

| 189 comments

Stock markets are generally buoyant across Asia today with a few macro releases, including Australian construction data, disappointing to the downside, but having almost no effect on risk taking.

The Shanghai Composite is up nearly 1% going into the close, taking back most of the previous losses to remain above 2900 points at 2964. The Hong Kong Hang Seng Index is up about half a percent, shrugging of its own slightly disappointing GDP print to be almost at 29000 points. The current rally remains intact , with prices remaining above the high moving average and the trendline on the daily chart:

US and Eurostoxx futures are unsteady given the glitch on the CME exchange but it looks somewhat positive for the S&P 500 tonight where that particular market needs to break the psychologically important 2800 point level to really get juices flowing:

Japanese stock markets are doing well again despite the stronger Yen with the Nikkei 225 taking back its previous losses to be up 0.4% going into the close at 21546 points, still above key resistance that had been broken recently. The USDJPY pair has come back ever so slightly in the last couple of hours, but is barely hanging on after the large selloff overnight, clinging to the mid 110’s with momentum still quite negative:

The ASX200 is up slightly, making good on its previous poor showing to currently be up 0.3% to 6145 points, maintaining above the key 6100 point resistance level after previously setting up for further gains above 6200. The Australian dollar has shrugged off the poor construction data print and all the revisions by the investment banks to remain just below the 72 handle, with short sellers unable to catch a break!

The economic calendar continues tonight with a North American focus, namely Canadian CPI, then US advanced trade goods and Fed Chairman Powell’s testimony to Congress, although that might be overshadowed by Michael “The Rat” Cohen’s testimony. Plus another DOE crude oil inventory report.

Comments

  1. Ortega

    Conservatives howl about lenient sentences, but when one of their own is convicted of child rape they scream injustice and wheel out little Johnny Howard.

    There’s a new word in town.

    PELLOPHILES.

    • Timmeh

      I could listen to Scottish accents all day. He doesn’t swear enough for a Scotsman though!

      Funnily enough, when I was in Scotland, it’s was them that couldn’t understand my Aussie accent!

    • Peachy

      I listened to this while pilfering sourcing a piece of hydraulic hose (intact, fittings both ends) from a, errr, backhoe.

      Got my mood up.

      • Ino

        You’ll thank me, once you get to use it. It’s ergonomic in how it fits in your hand, anti-slip (provided you wiped off the hydraulic fluid), and, best of all, whoever it is at the other end, enjoys it so much that the safe word doesn’t get used at all…

        *Looking at Haroldus* I think you have a first customer… I’ll leave you to it…

  3. rj2k000MEMBER

    Santa Teresa residents win legal battle against NT Government over dilapidated housing
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/santa-teresa-community-wins-housing-class-action-against-govt/10853674

    Former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou grilled in court about $145m Acquire Learning collapse
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/demetriou-grilled-about-145m-acquire-learning-collapse/10854062

    Dodgy football and dodgy training courses.
    Blazing stars of the Aus economy.

  4. Arrow2MEMBER

    I’m thinking Mon could be the short-term short opportunity on AUD just prior to the RBA meeting on Tues and national accounts on Wed. I can’t see that enough weakness is priced in – although in theory it should be.

    Bcnich any views?

  7. Jacob

    Left wing lunatics finally grow some brain cells!

    tax on luxury cars worth more than $100,000 and yachts worth more than $200,000 to raise $240 million.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/labor-s-plan-to-tax-the-rich-to-pay-for-extra-nurses-and-midwives-20190225-p5105s.html

    https://www.caradvice.com.au/729993/nsw-opposition-plans-to-slug-car-buyers-with-the-highest-stamp-duty-in-australia/

    Right wing pricks have long complained that the LCT does not apply to yachts. So here is the LYT!

    Put in a mansion tax on every mansion costing over $2 million. New York State has a mansion tax.

      • The Traveling Wilbur

        You could look at it for as long as you can stare at an Escher picture for without blinking, and it would still be good, progressive tax policy.

        What would be even better is a second tier gst rate for ALL ‘luxury’ items. Like yachts, cars, helicopters, pens, clothing, TVs, footballs, antiques and plumbing fixtures over a certain retail value. E.g. $40,000.

      • The Traveling Wilbur

        As long as it retails for over $40,000, it’s in!

        (don’t want those peasants who’d have to suffer the hardship of a 30K one to have any more suffering to do)

    • yeborskyMEMBER

      I guess you’re not in the market for one of those items in the foreseeable future, Jacob. If you are, you better jump in quick with your order and beat the tax. 😉

    • reusachtigeMEMBER

      Just another whingeful attack on successful people. “Hey give me more of other people’s money so I can remain a leeching sh1t”

  10. SweeperMEMBER

    Loving watching MMTers duck and weave Krugman’s interrogation.
    The minute they encounter someone able to cut to the chase analytically, who isn’t drawn in by stupid word games around bank reserves, natural rates of interest, “horizontal transactions”, “net financial assets”… and who can actually write clearly, the whole edifice crumbles.

    But based on my experience with MMTers I think Krugman is yet to reach peak frustration or realise just how much the over engineered façade hides an empty core.

    • skippy

      To date the MMT camp has got it right wrt others failed predictions, more so all the wonky econometrics that even Keynes himself was against.

      Then again if you could be bothered to read the in depth MMT literature you might not have to rely on neoclassical quislings like Krugman.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Read it. To put it charitably it’s wrong.
        In fact since I was able to open the empty box of word games I can even answer Krugmans last 2 questions he posed to MMTers to save them the trouble (without the didactic detour into why the natural rate doesn’t exist):
        1. Yes
        2. Amazingly, Yes

      • SweeperMEMBER

        And I saw in the other thread you raised the loanable funds thing.
        Where in Krugmans entire retort did he refer to loanable funds?

      • SweeperMEMBER

        He was talking about the aggregate demand schedule. That adjustments in interest rates see a movement along an aggregate demand schedule to achieve full employment. Does MMT now say the aggregate demand schedule doesn’t exist?
        The only coherent explanation of MMT I’ve read says it does exist it’s just vertical. ie. employment is completely determined by fiscal policy.

      • skippy

        “Where in Krugmans entire retort did he refer to loanable funds?”

        Errrrrr – ????? – you mean the neoliberal cornerstone is not just visible in your spectrum or blind to the Philips curve thingy …. you know the tool used to gut actual Keynesian economics and bastardize it like Robinson pointed out.

      • skippy

        Krugman’s argument with Kelton does in fact rest on the loanable funds theory, though he never uses those words:

        The question then becomes one of tradeoffs: would the things the government could buy with a higher deficit be worth the lost private investment due to a higher interest rate? Often the answer will be yes. But there is a tradeoff.

        Why does Krugman assume a tradeoff between gov’t deficit and private investment? Why does he assume that increased fiscal spending will necessarily lead to higher interest rates? Because he assumes that gov’t spending and business investment are both coming out of one pool of available funds, i.e. loanable funds.

        You really think Lars is like that Sweeper, engaging in bad faith or talking out the side of ones mouth like oo7’ers do, low ethical bearing just to service some ideological faith [working for the side of light stuff]. Something I remember you – again – taking him to task for but now engage in the same type of dialectal rhetoric.

        This is not to mention fiscal and monetary policies are not substitutes for one another, as one can directly effect demand while the other is a “let’s hope this works how we want it to” approach. And finally, there is no necessary connection between fiscal and monetary policy. CBs can set their rates at whatever they feel like, without regard for fiscal variables.

        Which again is strange considering oo7 agenda to administrate sovereign fiat by an unresponsive non democratic board of sound money free market ideologues where sky fairies and IR are synonymous in distribution. I’m just gob smacked at both of you ….. sigh ….

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Skippy,
        That is clearly a cut and paste. Albeit clear, but wrong.
        So I will respond.
        No Krugmans argument does not rest on loanable funds.
        Once again he is talking about the aggregate demand schedule and assuming it has a downward slope.
        This is not contentious at all and is about the one thing economists agree on that. Look at any post war recession (and recovery) possibly excluding the GFC.
        I will ask again, is MMT saying the aggregate demand schedule doesn’t exist or are you saying it is vertical. Please provide answers without silly detours into discussions about loanable funds.

        Secondly in answer to Krugmans second question which you have provide an incorrect answer to and which I said the correct answer is “Amazingly, yes”:
        Thoughtful MMTers will have to acknowledge that expansionary fiscal policy Is also expansionary monetary policy. This is the case because per liquidity preference theory of interest rates (MMT’s sole cause and effect theory of interest rates) the CB will need to drop the target rate in order for the increase in monetary base to be held willingly and this won’t be inflationary because the aggregate demand schedule doesn’t exist or is vertical pending MMT confirmation. Unless the CB were to pay interest on reserves to maintain a target rate – which would merely transfer the entire national debt to the banking system and would mean the same interest cost had the deficits been financed by bonds. So why would the CB do this, especially when the interest rate can be set anywhere because the AD schedule doesn’t exist (or is vertical – pending official MMT confirmation). This is your model, or the analytical reality of all the silly word games.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Secondly re. the Lars article:
        I am not accusing him of anything merely disagreeing with his characterisation of interest rates in Keynesian theory.
        Instead of reading regurgitated comments from MMTers on what Keynes said regarding the interest rate maybe try reading Keynes.
        Keynes had the interest rate in his investment schedule and also emphasised that money demand would increase with income other things being equal and in the absence of CB would therefore lead to higher interest rates.
        Read ch 17 starting with this sentence:

        “IT seems, then, that the rate of interest on money plays a peculiar part in setting a limit to the level of employment, since it sets a standard to which the marginal efficiency of a capital-asset must attain if it is to be newly produced“

      • skippy

        So you again resort to neoclassical semantics. That is the argument that mmt makes and what part about Keynes have you forgotten in describing everything as cookie cutter economics to be worshipped e.g. what might be applicable in the past or now is not aways hold true in perpetuity. I see you have staked your position with the neoclassicals and all that baggage that comes with it. Good to at least see the pro neoliberals front when pushed.

    • ChristopherJMEMBER

      Krugman is a fake, Sweeper and every thinking person can see he is just mouthpiece for the elites and the owner of his newspaper. If you want some links to the many times he has been discredited by economists and others, let me know. There’s heaps out there. MMT is already happening, just not for us. It is just a description of reality, bro. Is part of why china’s buying us and not the other way around.

      The fact that he’s talking about it shows how far we’ve come. Ten years ago, no-one outside of a small group had any idea that federal taxes cannot be respent or that the funding of federal government spending by borrowing from the financial markets is actually a political choice for a country like Australia

      • skippy

        Best bit is the grumbling about academic status with attendant doctrinaire attitudes, Wray clearly notes that MMT has both tertiary and actual environmental experience … sigh … unlike Milton et al they actually worked in the field they are talking about and not making deductive remote philosophical musings about reality.

        Hay its not like the Jacobin was not always a free market site or something, its just that some have spoiled the brew which has constipated the magic sparkle free market pony from clearing the ill wind trapped inside it.

        Groan … rational agent models, share holder value memes, Powell memo, Citi memo, ALEC, Citizens United, pro Corporatist SCOTUS stocked pond, public choice theory, reduced democracy, dumbing down of citizens through education which prefers widgets for plug and play market desires, managerial capitalism, executive renumeration incentives, 34T-ish in tax havens, marginal economics, etc, etc …..

      • SweeperMEMBER

        What field? Hedge funds and tax shelters? Great
        You guys can call Krugman fake but at least he writes clearly and gets to the point.

      • skippy

        Yeah like you can’t search peoples CVs and then lump everyone into some nice little strawman to pin everything on.

        What part about the decades of dominate economic ideology and its results is confusing, especially when clinging to clearly refuted tropes and confusing PR as intellectual introspection.

        Next thing you’ll be siding with Summers or Trumps 8 ball economic advisor.

        Please … is removing the gold standard NAIRU QTM hyper inflation [zomg weimar inflation – oops trade shock] buffer such an affront, considering the sociological data wrt to austerity to service the misdeeds of the elite investor class and its propensity to push society to the hard right – nationalism, fascism, weird going pro, civil disorder, societal dysfunction, just because doctrinaires of all stripes can’t compromise*.

        * – that is what Wray was doing mate…. compromising with all the doctrinaires and not being some ludicrous purist in some dead end ideological bear pit – survival of the fittest winner take all …

        Bloody hell mate Keynes strove to amend so much crap in ill health whilst his contemporaries sat on gilded perches funded by their respective donor classes and you side with Krugman -?????

  13. L

    The Liberal party must be broke to resort to these measures.

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/mps-allowed-to-spend-millions-of-taxpayers-dollars-on-radio-and-tv-ads-under-new-rules-20190227-p510mb.html

    The Morrison government will allow MPs to use millions of taxpayer dollars on television and radio advertising for the first time, in a move it says will enable regional and rural MPs to communicate with voters more fairly.

    Special Minister of State Alex Hawke confirmed he has overturned regulations that prohibit MPs using their $137,000-a-year, taxpayer-funded office budgets for television and radio ads – which takes effect immediately, in time for the election.

  14. Timmeh

    Gotta wonder when these stories really start coming out of the woodwork…..

    I’m 57, in a reasonably paying job (apprx 160-170k pa) and have income protection insurance

    I’ve got 3 IPs plus PPOR.
    The IPs I built as a triplex development, build strata, finished in 2015.

    IPs are currently likely to sell for around 80K each less than what they owed for the build, plus selling costs of around 12K each.

    Development total cost 1.1M = 367K each
    Current market likely to sell is around 285-295K average days to sell around 30-60 days (so add in another 3K of lost rent when on market)
    Total selling 290 x 3 = 870 K less 3 x 12 = 36 K selling costs = 834K
    Total loans on IPs = 814K (P&I)
    Plus loan for the development against PPOR 325K (P&I)
    135K in offset
    PPOR no debt, value is around 550K which is about what I paid for it 8 years ago.

    Rents are $310-$320 per week
    If I sell, my capital loss will total around 260K – 270K. I have no hope of making that again before I retire.
    Given the poor market I would also need to stage the sell off so I’m not in competition with myself, so likely to be over an 18 month period (and as tenant leases come to an end).

    https://www.propertychat.com.au/community/threads/sell-and-take-the-hit-or-hold.37349/

    This has to be playing out more often than we hear about…

      • Arrow2MEMBER

        He has made an obvious mistake in having his PPOR in another country.

        Well it must be, because it hasn’t changed in value in 8 years…

      • Ino

        Ummm… I hope he’s got some really hip-high wellies… on second thought – they may not help as the crap comes from him, not from outside. 😀

    • footsore

      A colleague told me today that he is ahead on PPOR and behind on the IP. With his children starting to leave home for study he and his wife are considering selling the PPOR and moving into the IP in order to not be caught underwater.

      He compared this to a neighbour who calculates that the purchase and renos on their place have cost high 500s, would be happy to get get low 500s and are having the RE agent say they’d be lucky to get above 490. If they sell now they are 100 down before taking into account anything else.

      The times they are a-changin’.

      • Ino

        Did you reply with “swings and roundabouts™️” ? 🙂 … kinda the “learn to code” response for the australian specufestor species.

      • Arrow2MEMBER

        But swings and roundabouts are both fun. Cant loose.

        Ah maybe that’s what the specufestors thought it meant.

      • footsore

        He was very matter of fact about it. He knows that things are going down (and that property doesn’t always go up) and he has to make a decision about what to do next.

      • Ino

        *laughs at Timmeh*… Location location location, no? how about “supply and demand, matey”… or “in average, if you bought about 30 years ago, you are still well ahead” 😀

      • The Traveling Wilbur

        When the person from work said that to you, how did you restrain yourself from bursting into laughter? I couldn’t.

    • jimbo

      What? I thought property investors were all rich, wealth building and all that. Now they’re even complaining when their banks ask them how much toothpaste they buy.

    • Arrow2MEMBER

      I like the bit where he says he has income protection insurance!

      Does he think it guarantees him an income if he gets sacked or gets his hours cut?! 😂

      Hopefully he has LMI so he gets a cash handout if he defaults on his mortgage too! 😂😂😂

      • Freddy

        +1. Income protection does not cover redundancy or retrenchment. In a year’s time this guy may find himself unemployed, homeless, and zero or negative equity.

    • innocent bystanderMEMBER

      I couldn’t help myself and clicked. Yup. It’s Perth.
      and wot? a lot of the replies say Hold … no wonder the poor fella is confused.

      • Timmeh

        Wait till this exact thing hits the east coast, and it shouldn’t be far away by now I would think. We are going to need a bigger fan!

      • Timmeh

        I think it will unwind quicker on the east coast because the leverage is so much higher. Loosing 10% on a 300k property is much more manageable than 10% on a 1M property.

      • China PlateMEMBER

        “Wait till this exact thing hits the east coast”
        I don’t know why Timmeh but my first thought was that world record line, they show in the pool at the Olympics, racing across the Nullarbor

    • L

      The beauty of these stories is that most people will be hesitant to advertise their losses (and by implication their poor investment choices), so you can be sure that it is happening elsewhere. While these investors suffer in silence, that will hopefully maintain the facade that things might be going ok long enough to put off any emergency government or RBA action.

      • Timmeh

        Yep, but isn’t that the way all credit driven manias end? It’s been depressing yet fascinating to watch this all unfold in front of me rather than read it in a history book. The bitcoin mania was even more horrifying to watch, it showed human greed turned manic in such a small timespan.

      • The Traveling Wilbur

        A) not horrifying; hilarious.
        B) not over; still going (was back at 4K this week).

        Otherwise, agree entirely. Would add; many valuable lessons to be learned from the experience of living through 1) BTC 2) Aussie housing. But I repeat myself.

        And my Android phone (I’ve just noticed) knows how to turn Aussiehous into Aussie housing. That says soooooo much.

      • Ino

        @TTW
        My little SE has learned how to spell Reusa correctly… I don’t know whether to be scared or aroused. .

    • Ino

      Dunno, but looking at those pollies in the pictures, I can’t escape the following (uneasy) feelings:
      * they’re all dead inside – dead eyes, dead faces.
      * it’s not a smile – it’s a rictus – a terrified one at that
      * those with not dead eyes, are really not happy. Really… not… happy!

    • proofreadersMEMBER

      That Guardian picture of housing utopia brings back to mind that 1960s song, Little Boxes, about then middle-class suburbia in the US and the lyrics of which song started:

      “Little boxes on the hillside
      Little boxes made of ticky tacky
      Little boxes
      Little boxes
      Little boxes all the same
      There’s a green one and a pink one
      And a blue one and a yellow one
      And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
      And they all look just the same …”

      Except that they’re now big boxes in Straya?

      • Timmeh

        Gonna need lot’s of Mothers Little Helpers!

        What a drag it is getting old
        Kids are different today, I hear every mother say
        Mother needs something today to calm her down
        And though she’s not really ill, there’s a little yellow pill
        She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
        And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCD3Wa5RvjE

  16. Al

    There is a Facebook page called Tradie mayhem. It’s appalling, They think it’s funny all the terrible standards now, put me well off buying anything less than 15 years old. So much dodgy crap Out there.

    • Timmeh

      My very first thing is if there are no eaves, it’s straight off the list. Next thing is if it doesn’t have copper water pipes.

      • GavinMEMBER

        I keep thinking this… Just buy a block in a semi rural area and build my own mudbrick. Can’t be worse than the crap being thrown up at the moment by qualified tradies.

  19. skippy

    OK who spiked the MB water cooler with acid this week – ???? – reminiscent of heavens gate peeps thinking the space was getting closer.

      • skippy

        I know some have a hard time researching links or reconciling anything that confronts ones environmental biases timmeh, hence every time things get bit wobbly the cackling gets excited.

        Remember all those years ago I showed what a joke the shareholder value meme was yet some aground here argued for it, then gold bugs, anti AGW fundies, et al ….

      • GavinMEMBER

        Everytime there is a long thread with Skippy and others having a debate I feel like I’m watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas all over again. I have no idea what’s going on, but I know someone else out there understands it and is probably enjoying it.

        https://youtu.be/K89dChsgznw

    • SweeperMEMBER

      Is it an accident that notable high priests of MMT have a background in banking and finance rather than academia?

      • skippy

        Thank you for proving Wray’s point, ditto for finally owning your neoliberal tendencies rather than burnishing your image by taking AET to task.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Merely asked a question. You could have answered it if you felt it was simply an accident.
        But you didn’t.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        btw Skippy. Doug Henwood’s article is very good. You should read it.
        In summary; and I feel I’ve made a few of these points:

        MMT is a libertarian compatible theory, which junks the most interesting and insightful parts of PK, demonises taxation (which is the main countervailing tool to fight inequality), it’s proponents don’t write clearly and resort to mockery and insult, and when it all boils down it is just a fantasy “theory” and weak response to decades of right wing anti tax hysteria (probably the centrepiece of neoliberalism) and snake oil for the socialist left

        But apart from that it is just what the Left needs.

        “That fantasy looks like a weak response to decades of anti-tax mania coming from the Right, which has left many liberals looking for an easy way out. It would be sad to see the socialist left, which looks stronger than it has in decades, fall for this snake oil. It’s a phantasm, a late-imperial fever dream, not a serious economic policy”

        .

      • skippy

        To the peanut gallery above having a petite mal over MMT …. what part about mainstream economics not having a functional model of both monetary or financial systems during the neoliberal period, at least, and its effects, say the GFC, is confusing.

        oo7 did you miss Roberts tirade only to have the bailouts pointed out – having nothing to do with MMT. This is the rub for yonks, ideologues demanding MMT take an ideological stance so they can engage in philosophical wankery and antiquarian morality plays. When it doesn’t they have to be made up from whole cloth because that’s how far down the gurgler the deductive process they’ve gone, nothing new, just tired old truisms and hot button talking points rehashed and re-decanted.

        Sweeper … what like the academics at the Chicago school or one of Kochs little induction camps, not to mention Keynes disdain for those approaches, lest we forget he was a new deal architect and worked against the hard money sorts.

        Hint … MMT does not make policy, that is the domain of dominate economics regardless of political party, and has more to do about the donor class taste for self interest. Don’t see much banging on about actual agency in that neck of the woods for some reason.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        MMT doesn’t have any monetary theory. That’s why it’s so poorly labelled.
        It has a fiscal theory, actually a public finance theory which says the government can finance deficits with bonds or cash, so it may as well finance them with cash at any point in the cycle at any level of employment.

      • skippy

        At its core MMT is strictly monetary e.g. sovereign autonomous issuers don’t need to borrow to fund and half the confusion is due to the hybrid system of gold standard hangovers on a fiat system. The only thing about fiscal is getting rid of NAIRU and the gold standard hyper ventilation about inflation everywhere, you know decades of deflationary forces leading some neoclassicals to pat themselves on the back about keeping it under control. Then some around here scratch their heads about sticky – flat wages, never mind wages and productivity diverged in the 70s whilst corporatist were looting the joint.

        Then again all the pearl clutching over QE – bailouts amounting to over 30T-ish et al totally blew that old fear card to smithereens, but yeah, MMT is carrying water for the third way …. sigh. What part about neoclassical economics setting the stage for all that is unfolding around us pre and post GFC is confusing to anyone.

    • Pfh007MEMBER

      Randy really has a way with words.

      “…..It adopts all the usual troll methodology: guilt by association, taking statements out of context, and paraphrasing (wrongly) without citation….”

      He really nails the Empty Pouch right there.

      Keep up the good work Sweeper.

      Most enjoyable.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Henwood’s article is actually very very good. In classic MMTer style they just obfuscate and play the man.
        Skippy won’t address them just like he hasn’t when I’ve made similar points.

        More quotes:
        “Mosler was described by a colleague as “politics agnostic”; by Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, a promoter of the school, as a “conservative.” Wray has said MMT is compatible with a libertarian, small government view of the world. Kelton, in an interview with the activist and journalist Nomiki Konst in which she describes MMT as a “brand,”

        “MMTers junk a lot of the most interesting stuff about PK economics. Unlike Joan Robinson, an early contributor to the PK tradition, they rarely ask what she called “the greatest of all economic questions . . . what is growth for?”

        “Taxation may not be full expropriation but it’s the next best thing in this fallen world. It is a form, however mild, of socialization — transforming private investment and consumption into public expenditures. And divorcing taxation of the rich from the provision of public services throws aside the material and agitational advantages of waging class war through fiscal politics”

        “On social media, the style of argumentation is even more striking. Critiques are first met with the assertion that you just don’t understand — you haven’t read enough of the literature to comment knowledgeably. But they’re quick to resort to mockery and insult”.

        … who does that sound like??

        “More broadly, we have a private economy driven by exploitation, overwork, asset stripping, and ecological destruction. MMT has little or nothing on offer to fight any of this”.

      • skippy

        MMT redresses all concerns for those that actually do the reading and don’t play the semantics mugs game. That’s what neither of you two have actually done, read the expansive literature, better to engage in what Wray points out.

        Its not like I had to point out Ruml to you some time ago Sweeper, so were you just ignorantly assured in your perspective or was it a case of pretending because how that would screw with some peoples framework.

        You both understand your taking the neoliberal stance.

      • skippy

        See you problem is demanding MMT having some bolted on ideology, neoliberals use MMT just fine for MIC and Corporatist machinations, does that mean MMT is neoliberal – no – what it does mean is those in power can utilize its potential to forward their ideological agenda …. just as they could do with any other system.

        Now many in the MMT camp suggest the potential should be administered by social democracy with a dualist perspective to capitalism.

        Then again one might be mistaken for some around here to prefer how labour theory, as noted by Hudson, decides distribution and its attendant function to the power influence of any political or ideological agenda ….. funny that ….

        I seem to remember you having words with oo7 about moralizing money as an A political approach to a political problem Sweeper ….

      • Pfh007MEMBER

        Sweeper,

        “..Henwood’s article is actually very very good..”

        I have it now and will give it a read on the train!

      • skippy

        Very very very good ….

        Yeah how much critical thinking did it take to come up with that free market bias enforcing bit of Bernays PR … hope no faith [tm] was disturbed …

        Do you even know what a gas it is to watch you two occupy the – same space – after all the fracas over the years – like a flick of a switch. Reminiscent of the American monotheistic gathering some 20 odd years ago where they decided to put aside all past grievances because of the shared belief that people turning their backs on orthodox monotheistic religion was a threat not only to their influence and power to shape the social narrative …. it was a thread to humanity as they saw it all together.

        Like many of us have noted, for a few decades, if not pre dominance of mainstream economics that Austrians and neoclassicals were just two groups under the same tent. You even agreed with me oo7 that that bad maths and physics had mangled and distorted your puritan ideological philosophy to incoherence. Now look at you embracing the models you once had such disdain for …. absurdly hilarious.

        Then Sweeper does the same when calling out others for mangling Keynes when the man him self said he was the only non Keynesian in a room full of Keynesians. His main advancement was not to get mired down in orthodoxy and wonky models e.g. his past observations were not immutable empiric stuff without a use by date. Stuff has to be put into context wrt to the enviroment wrt time and space …. or are some arguing that the currant enviroment is a static representation of the enviroment that Keynes lived in …..

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Skippy,
        why are you such a devout convert to MMT?
        You say it’s not a prescriptive political agenda supported by ideology it’s just a description of the monetary system (meaning public finance)
        I strongly disagree.
        But assuming you are right and it’s just a self evident description of reality; why can nobody give clear simple answers to simple questions – without a foray into loanable funds, the natural rate of interest, the uselessness of neoclassical economics, calling people neoliberals who don’t understand the material they’ve read etc..