Yanis Varoufakis in conversation with Stephanie Kelton | DiEM25
Welcome to DiEM TV’s Another Now. The program that owes its existence to a mindless virus that placed capitalism in suspended animation, something not even WW2 managed to do. The one-hour discussion every Monday where, together with a weird and wonderful guest, we rant and rave with one ambition in our souls: To prevent a return to normality once the pandemic passes.
This week I have the honour and the privilege to be joined by Stephanie Kelton - an academic economist who felt the need to throw her lot in with Bernie Sanders, become his chief economic adviser and use her economic knowledge to fight the good fight not just in academia but wherever economic mystification is utilised against the many.
SUPPORT US
---------------------
Join DiEM25: diem25.org/join
Donate to DiEM25: diem25.org/donate
Subscribe: / diem25official
#stephaniekelton #yanisvaroufakis #capitalism
It's a true privilege to get this type of content daily.
Christos Papaspyrou : i am going to start my day with music 🎶 then this show, and then ease into democracy now, putting mine own foot down on my own Twitter time thieving hands. ❤️✊🏾🌍✌🏾plus, there is no normalcy on a mad mad mad mad mad mad world overrun with: humans.
@Mr. Spock Still better than a world with neither content and neither change...
@Mr. Spock Aren't you a little off topic here: "art of the problem with so much content is people are so focused on the superficiality of all the new content, people become numbed to new scandals and the like. "? I don't think the content we are talking about here is either superficial or about any "scandals and the like"
Two knowledgeable people. What a pleasure to listen to.
That was a really good segment. Stephanie Kelton shined again. Her arguments are really clear, short, well trimmed, or air tight. Yanis should acquire as much as he can from her, and from MMT. MMT in her presentation really is the only game in town. It was a real pleasure to see these two smart persons..
You can't have MMT without military empire to back up your money as the international reserve currency. Cycle of currency devaluations to inflate debt away ain't fun either, especially for the poorest.
@@santerisatama5409 Yes, and that is just an excellent opportunity to remember all the military empires, and all the historical military and financial empires applying MMT.
@@santerisatama5409 MMT is unrelated to status of "empire" or "global reserve currency". This is discussed at about 35:00 in this video
@@Misuci what gives you the impression Dr. Varoufakis is ignorant to what Dr. Kelton knows about money? because it is an interview? it seems that you, according to reply to Santeri, are ignorant to what Drs. Kelton and Varoufakis know/discussed
@@AM-sy8bu What is your point here ?
Good diacussion. If anyone wants to learn more about MMT look up videos from Stephanie Kelton, or Warren Mosler, Bill Mitchell, L. Randall Wray, Pavlina Tcherneva, and also Steve Keen who talks more about endogenous money which is nicely complementary.
Thank you! DiEM25 brings me hope. The next few years are such an opportunity, and we CAN change the system.
Amazing guest, and really valuable insight!!!
Yanis asks: Where can we go from here, politically? I believe there's only one choice, at least in the U.S. The only real power "we the people" have left is the power of numbers, together in the streets, demanding the overthrow of the existing corporate oligarchy. Why the only choice? Because the ruling elites have captured and now control all of the traditional levers of democratic change. We find ourselves in the era of manipulated elections, a paid-off congress, politically appointed judiciary, corporate-controlled mass media, and so on. We must organize now for sustained mass demonstrations of non-violent civil disobedience, to begin as soon as the need for social distancing is lifted. A million or more in the streets of N.Y and D.C., demanding change. Again, it's the only logical choice that remains.
Hey, Russ, I am 64 years young and I couldn't agree with you more. It's the only way. But consider this, start a new party? Build up the membership, get the members who want to run, to run in local elections, then get them to run is State elections, etc. as independents outside of the current two party system? We need to do something. What is happening is totally unacceptable. One other thought, I love Bernie, but when he pulled out of the race he broke my hart. Which tells us that regardless of the approach the pull of the "dark side of the force" sometimes can be irresistible to some people.
@@vincesiciliano6363 This 74-year-old totally agrees. Let's also elect 3rd party candidates locally and work our way up. I'm thinking this is the way meaningful social change has always been accomplished: from the bottom up.
Finally, someone with a similar thoughts. Thx
false-consciousness.
@@RussCR5187 Funny thing by the time I saw this the 'people in the streets' weather pattern as certain as the coming crash was a couple of months ago has already started.
Recommend Micheal Hudson as guest.
Another good choice especially on the public debt.
Yanis bring on Richard Wolff pls. would be great to watch your discussion and analysis of modern political economy. And, almost forgot, huge thanks from a very poor country for the hope you provide.
Yes. Please! Richard Wolff!
1984levani : Nathan J Robinson would be an excellent and colorful youthful addition from the USA. 💕
where are you from? I'm from Australia
Indeed
I dont know whether my request was a trigger or not but Thanks for inviting Richard Wolff on your program :)
Stephanie Kelton's Angry Birds video brought me to MMT, which brought me to Real Progressives & Real Progress in Action.
Don't forget 'The MMT Podcast' which is also excellent (as well as Real Progressives' 'Macro n Cheese' podcast). Shout out also to other MMT developers Bill Mitchell, Warren Mosler, Pavlina Tcherneva, L. Randall Wray.
Invite Mark Blyth!!
Yes!!! And Michael Hudson, please!
@@surrealistidealist Ditto Michael Hudson, he is excellent, pure logic.
Him and Arno Wellens.
Mark Blyth , Richard Werner
...And Anand Giridharadas
Jane McAlevey has a plan on how to get the power we need. You should invite her on your show. She's quite amazing.
Oh nice, what's the plan. I like plans
Saved this on you tube for my wife and friends who i can pass this on to.
Excellent analysis
Great event!
Another recommendation for a guest is Prof. Richard Werner .
Richard is another excellent one but might be difficult to invite because I have not seen him in the public lately only some in German language interviews. Maybe he is very busy advising governments.
Let's use this time we've never had to really consider how we live and what has to change. And come out ready and energized for new hard-hitting activism in favor of working people and the planet. It's now or never!
loved the talk!
Unbelievably wonderful thank you
I love "In time" too
It will be my pleasure to listen to this program, these 2 great minds & speakers, as I missed so much either in translation, or bc my hearing is going and there are no captions. Thank you Yanis ~
yes I loved In Time!
Thank you both, brilliant dialogue.
Loved the video. Thank you DiEM25!!! One question that I didn't hear an answer to is related to the payment of interests on the "debt". Since it is proportionate to the amount of money "borrowed", it seems to me that a growing debt would inevitably become an unsustainable burden. Help please?
my problem with mmt is that it does not address the question of redistributing power and eliminating class.
Yes! MMT only serves to enable the illegitimate distribution of wealth under a system of property rights having supremacy over human rights. MMT is only an amoral tool at best; it is a derivative of monetary policy and serves mainly to maintain an unjust monetary system.
2 Economists, I greatly admire. This is still relevant in 2023! Stephanie is such a doll & both R Truthtellers N their own way. Yannis is still Yummy in his 60's, such a beautiful soul, & you can tell how feisty he still is! I would like to see Stephanie after she retires & can "let her hair down"! #VivaLaRevolution!
holy shit i changed in 2 years my earlier comment might have lacked understanding, but most of all, love compassion and humanity i deleted it it kinda nice to see actually, one can still grow and improve at 30 "they" helped a LOT, and its nice to see 2 that i now perceive as Lights together
Awesome discussion
thanks Yanis
The American Public and Leaders (and World) need to learn from Dr. Kelton before we make the mistake of Borrowing the money we need so much. Print it, instead of making corporations, Banks, more rich. Will these truths get out? Please get it public and all over.
Starts at 18:30
yes it does thank you
It starts a minute in
Money is a handy medium of exchange. When it's hoarded it becomes blackmail.
Stephanie and Yanis both lookin' great!
Something I don't get is that when the U.S. sells treasuries they are ultimately bought by people (the rich) who expect to earn interest off of them. The debt itself might not matter, that is, the "principal" of the treasuries, because that just get passed around in the bond market. But what about the interest on the debt? Seems like this would matter. I never hear this explained in any MMT videos.
Hello! Would you kindly turn on the automatic captions feature please? Thank you so much!
I live in the UK and we have had "austerity" for 10 yrs now under a Conservative Government . I can tell you it is not nice. Our public services suffered and people had less money .
25:00 debt problem _JC
When Stephanie mentioned "numismatists", you can't see it, but I guarantee you that Yanni had a twinkle in his eye.
35:00 you cant always print to the agenda (policy still matrs & is still important) _JC
45:20 months after. Raising the question of whether Sanders was threatened with a coup before super Tuesday. Did he know he was going to be couped? If he continued to campaign until mid April with this knowledge, why drop out when he did?
We now see how incompetent his 2nd in command, Jeff Weaver, is against the status quo. He now promotes it by forming a superpac. He told Bernie to not go for the jugular against Biden, keep it "civil"
The best thing about this has been the song at the beginning: Alan Price's 'Poor People' from one of the greatest films ever. Tony Lawson is great, too. But I wish Kelton would decouple full employment from monetary policy or any economic policy: Just make a decision that whoever wants to work gets a job. The rest will take care of itself. The job guarantee is crucial, otherwise the necessary de-growth of the economy's biophysical throughput will have terrible poverty and joblessness as a result.
I would challenge these 2 brilliant thinkers to spend time developing the critical "So what?", "How do move forward?" part.
@30:30 hell, even Yanis doesn't understand. There is no need to "balance" public (gov) and private (non-gov) debt. The government deficit is an accounting residual, nothing more, it's the total dollars spent into the economy less the amount taxed (or fined) back. So the government debt (accumulated deficit) is private savings, to the dollar. So it's already sectorally balanced, logically, it cannot be any other way. The proper economic balance is how real resources (energy, food, water, housing) and net wealth are distributed, it is these *distributions* which need to be better balanced. Point is, neoliberal monetarism simply cannot do the job, only government fiscal policy (informed by MMT) working for the poorest (informed by Marx/Keynes) can do it. State currency really makes poverty a choice of government, not a necessity of free markets.
Has your question/observation been answered by Yanis.
Kelton keeps on pretending that national currencies exist in vacuum and international purchasing power of your currency does not matter. Not so long ago it was standard operation for governments to regularly devaluate their currencies to inflate away their debt burdens. When external purchasing power of a currency is cut, prices of imported goods rise, and the poorest who live from hand to mouth are hit hardest. MMT is theory of American Exceptionalism, which requires Petrodollar empire, alliance with Saudi's, Invading Iraq etc. blood bathes to preserve the status of dollar as the reserve currency of military empire.
@@santerisatama5409 Governments spend money into their economies all the time. How does it effect their currency value vis a vis other currencies? Simply it doesn't. How is Gov'ts devaluating their currency to releave their debt burdens, when they have monetary sovereignity relevant to MMT? MMT is applicable to any sovereign currency. You don't have to be the reserve currency.
@@crosstraffic187 US trade imbalance is funded by money printing, because of global demand for petrodollars. If there is no artificial global demand for your local currency, you can't paper away trade imbalance and keep on importing more than you export. Trade imbalance normally (with floating currencies) balances by inflation of monetary supply eating away the purchasing power of the currency. Ie. cutting down the domestic demand for imported goods. Devaluation of your domestic currency can also help to make the goods of your export sector more competitive in the global market. This inflationary multiplayer logic is often referred to as the "race to the bottom", as all players keep trying to devaluate the purchasing power of their labor force to stay competitive in the global market, and leads to collapse and depression, as aggregate global demand for goods collapses. 101 level stuff from the old days when real economy and main street still played a role in the minds of financial wizards.
@@santerisatama5409 US trade imbalance is funded by consumer spending, not money printing. And trade is more than exports. It's also investment. The fact that the US is mostly a service economy, like all western economies also plays a role. Global demand for petrodollars, I'll agree creats a strong $ and does not help. In other words, MMT or money printing is not for buying foreign imports but for infrastructure spending. Govt's do infrastructure spending all the time. I still fail to see how trade imbalances are really relevant to MMT. I think you're right about the old days and the real economy tho, seemed to make more sense now that there is depression level unemployment and record stockmarket gains.
44:42 ahhh indeed
I am new. Gj!
@Diem25 Try changing the thumbnail in all your videos, so that people can see who are talking. You will gain more viewers that way!
One hour ago CNBC just ran this story: Debt will be a burden on Western societies for decades. Here's the link: kzhead.info/sun/Z7eDpM-oq4eJpZs/bejne.html
John Henry (folklore): still a hero
39:30 UBI is a kind of employment _JC
We can write a simplified Individual Tax Code to eliminate poverty and save time for all as currently what we have is a Tax Code written during Gold Slandered era. Begin with a 20k tax credit for 100%, no taxes on the first 40k of gross income and then tax progressively the gross income over 40k at various levels. Tax will be on gross income (both active and passive income) and there is no need for taxable deductions. So people can do their taxes in one single form in 5 minutes. This will make MMT worth understanding.
When they print insane amounts of money, causes weaker currency
ceteris paribus, you would be correct. MMT economists understand this and as a result they advocate for other measures, such as more aggressive tax reform, in order to limit the effects of inflation and control this outcome so it does not happen.
here. _JC
Enjoyed the video but... I've been studying money or as I prefer to call it, the money system since just before the global credit crunch. In the UK, there were all sorts of intellectual discussions about money but the end result was (at least so far) no change. I even called my local council, met my MP, and did everything I could to get initiate discussion. The reality was that peoples eyes just glazed over because everyone knows the government has to tax to pay its way and that's it. People don't have the time nor the curiosity it seems to think anything other that what central government says and the media won't rock the boat. Too many powerful vested interests. What to do about it? Perhaps time will tell. When the current crop of economists die out, with better thinking, it may pave the way to something better.
Government has to tax to fund the parasitic central bureaucracy of government and the thugs that do the collecting. Like mafia has to collect protection money for The Family. Yanis is correct that funding UBI with taxes makes no sense. Solution: create money directly as UBI and cut all the banksters out of the deal. UBI co-op that creates positive money as mutual gift.
Can everybody be a capitalist? That question alone debunks the myths of capitalism. I used "can everybody be a CEO?", but her question is better,jthx!
why not subtitles?
You should have Arundhati Roy.
Julian Assange did his part - WikiLeaks. What about us? What about WikiTube? How long are we going to cry and still use this CIA media ???
Violent revolution is the only way that we can take power from those who have it and don't want to give it up. But revolution has it's own risks an example being the French revolution.
Good as a description of how money works only. Kelton and Yannis admit they have no "so what" regarding MMT. Without ideas on how MMT can improve people's lives economically, politically, what's the point?
answer to first viewer question: this is what it could look like (Stephanie says she doesn't have an answer): ssrn.com/abstract=3561330
Maybe someone can explain to me - I understand what stephanie kelton says and think she has the right priorities at a time of pandemic. But what she talks about sounds a lot like QE, and so how would she avoid massive inflation? It seems unsustainable to me?
Invite Max Keiser or Mike Maloney if you dare?
There is some stuff in his books that can be completely discredited by MMT’s insights
Can you elaborate?
Yanis, in that prison camp barter, somebody produced those cigarettes! Why should work make you unhappy? Once your work is rewarded fairly, you have good living and work conditions, you have opportunities to develop, your work is suited to your talents and aptitudes! As regards precious metals, they are an illusion people buy into!
actually, no, those cigarettes were not produced by anyone in the prison camp; they were donated and/or found (artifacts) within the camp, traded, and consumed
Juhan, the cigarettes didn't magic out of the air, they were grown, manufactured, distributed, sold: the prison camp is not an isolated economy!
Once your work is rewarded fairly - well that is the problem, is it not?
Toto Now, my interpretation of the first part of the interview was that Stephanie was stating work was a bad thing, and we be better off, that the end goal was the equivalent of the metaphysical heaven with full automated society, where we are free of the burden of work! For many this is a nightmare, they need work to occupy, for purpose, for direction: for those who think it's a dream, they just might find they have too much time on their hands! Maybe l heard wrong?
@@James_BAlert increased automation should reduce "drudgery", allowing people to find truly inspiring things to do... You are probably right that some people cannot or will not choose to do anything productive? What do you do with them? That is a problem. Apparently US military determined that IQ less than 83 (IIRC) cannot be trained to do anything... without endangering themselves and/or others.... if the military cannot use them (even to peel potatoes?), who can? This is likely a serious issue: we all need to find something to do to make our lives meaningful.
Some want a commodity to be used as money, the powers that be insist on credit being used for money. We who value democracy want money issued as money ...by freely elected governments. Money, beyond whatever currency is used to represent it, is an abstract social power embodied in law as an unconditional payment system. It must be issued as an asset, a permanently circulating exchange medium spent or gifted into the productive economy for public purpose, the general welfare, not created as a debt for the profit of a few. Now more than ever our money needs to come under public control. Oh that is right, we don't have to borrow it, we just need to change the law so Congress can create it. NEED Act HR2990 - Monetary Alliance
Are you discounting the possibility of an non-commodified monetary system? Commodification of money is part of the problem, and has fundamental flaws by design that enable all possible futures to converge on civilization collapse.
Well, here is my critique of Kelton's elevator speech of why we shouldn't be worried and preoccupied by the national debt. When people are going on about the debt they are being gas lighted or are gas lighting themselves. Her explanation is too weedy in my opinion. It's not weedy for economists or people in finance but one or two words that are foreign to regular people then they're lost. Average people need images and explanations that have power and metaphors that regular people can relate to. That is why the "government is like a business or like a household" metaphor hits home immediately and couldn't be more logical at first look. And I think that delusion is a big obstacle to explaining the MMT perspective. One of the sticking points with understanding sovereign debt is that it is called debt. That word is part of the gas light problem, am I right? If you are a politician and you are trying to convince regular people to think about this differently a good question to ask is "who is benefiting from the so called deficit of the government? " And who is "purposely being left with the bill?" People know they are being played for fools but they are also being led to think that they are benefiting from the status quo, they're not. This venture of effective communication is no easy project.
yanis bring chomsky on
When issuing interest bearing bonds to match the deficit 10$ (in her example 100-90=10$), somebody has to pay the interest on those 10$, so it is debt, isn't it?
Well, yes the $10 would be debt, but only if the interest could not be paid by more borrowing. But, that can't be done, the interest can always be paid with more borrowing. Warren Mosler says that the interest on the debt is a form of UBI for the rich. Someone said that this all began in around 1680 when the rich in England decided they'd rather loan the Gov. money than have to pay taxes. England, now UK, has had aa debt at the end of every year since 1694, so for 329 years. It has never had to pay it off. OTOH, MMTers say that there are 2 leakages in an economy. A trade deficit and savers. Both take money out of circulation. Those leakages need to be offset with Gov. deficit spending to keep the real money supply from shrinking. Note, modern banks are licensed to create money when they find a borrower, the 2 together create money that is then destroyed as the principal is paid down.
@@stevefitt9538,thank you very much!!
her juices got turned on :) i like her so much, but this innuendo, .. i just had to :)
Arundhati Roy must know that the male half of the human species gets his rapture from a substitute for war called football. 🌈🦉
Great opening song--it sums up Trump to a T. So glad to hear Stephanie's critique of Yang's version of UBI forcing the poor to choose between their existing benefits or UBI. I'm bugged by her acceptance of bond sales as a way for governments to inject money into the system, though: why should we pay interest to wealthy lenders?
And Bernie Sanders suddenly bottling out? The mystery remains...
I'm still mystified, and grieving. (10 Dec 2022)
New norm post-Covid19: Henceforth all economic planners have to mesh economic-social-ecological issues before implementation. Economic-only plans have assumptions and when we ass-u-me, it makes an ass out of u and me.
Still supporting the Bern?? 96-0 in the Senate for the 3rd Corona Bailout!!! Come on Yanis, I love your work but stay on point.
Don't confuse free-enterprise with capitalism, I don't think hiring workers makes you a capitalist, I think having the power to create and direct the allocation of money for profit makes you a capitalist so very few of us are capitalists. Industry is subordinate to finance.
Someone has to tell yanis to speak less than the guest
Yanis Varoufakis I dont trust this womans explanation.
I don't hear Yanis or the daughter of a military family, who studied the art of war and finance, mention money as monopoly currency. That monopoly currency is maintained by concentration camps for migrants and militarily enforced Exclusive Economic Zones. That monopoly is unjustifiably profitable for the offspring of so-called sovereign bankers. The forced securitization of people into plantations, that most people know as 'my country', is the result of WWI and WWII and extremely profitable to the sovereign's offshoot banks, investment and insurance companies. They profit from the artificial disparity in the value of people created by the forced separation of people from markets then traded, as cattle, on 'stock' markets. Global Apartheid is how the cult of sovereignty maintains itself financial. #EndGlobalApartheid on Twitter for more information.
@15:00 no Yanis. Kelton is right. Money is not "power". It has always been a *social power relation,* specifically that of "credit + debt". This is what State currency is, a unit of account for credits and debts. That's your quasi-spiritual aspect: money formalizes our societal obligations and redemptions. But at the same time alienates us from each other, since the bankers intermediate, making us accountable to numbers in our accounts rather than to each other. Unfortunately that's absolutely necessary in a population of millions. The role (in part) of the democratic State is to make up for this alienation, adjudicate and establish conditions of justice, to wipe out fraudulent loans, to cancel debts which cannot be repaid, to establish economic justice.
Yanis, you are not paying the person who sits on couch for sitting on couch. You are paying him to not to split your head open on a dark alleyway for some pocket change and your smartphone. Or not to organise in all sorts of nasty political or criminal organisations. Sometimes paying people for doing nothing is just the cheaper option than policing or fighting them in civil war.
@43:00 this is rubbish. A Universal Social Dividend is not a UBI, do not call it such!!!! UBI raises the wage/price floor. So it is completely pointless, it just regauges the currency. So it is not eliminating *relative wealth inequality* in fact it makes it worse, since a rich person can invest their UBI to earn interest, a poor person is more likely to need to spend it all. It's f__king insane. DiEM25 should adopt a Basic Guaranteed Income alongside the Job Guarantee. The BI only goes to those who are unwilling or unable to enter the JG workforce. There is absolutely no reason to enrich the One Percent with a UBI. It only raises inflationary pressure, which devalues the currency purchasing power. Remember, the government in the monopoly currency issuer (banks issue $ in the form of loans, but not net dollars), so government is always the price setter. UBI is just a pointless exercise in raising the price floor. It does nothing for economic justice, although, and this is the only thin one can say positively about a UBI, it does at minimum ensure no one is utterly destitute, but that is very weak progressivism, we can aim much higher. Maximum wages for instance, combined with the Job Guarantee which sets a de factor minimum wage. That'll reduce inequality in a fair way. There is no need to give people something for nothing unless they are unable to contribute to society. The other great thing about a government funded JG program, is the freedom to choose what work you want to do is an option, it should not be government dictated work. So, for example, parenting is a social purpose job, every parent should qualify for a JG wage + benefits. Public art work and public entertainment is another job which demands a JG wage, and so to anything that fits our collective idea of public purpose. Not sales or profits need to be made when the JG wage is government funded.
Furthermore, to add to the insanity of a UBI, when the people on a meagre income spend all their UBI where the hell does their money go? It goes to whoever is selling them goods and whoever they are in debt to, i.e., the top Ten Percent, the bankers, rentiers and capitalists. So this EXACERBATES the wealth inequality distribution to become more Pareto-shaped. If the point is to flatten the distribution of wealth to be more gaussian (random luck distribution) you have to tax the crap out of the rich and the rentiers, and provide more income at the bottom. While taxing the rich is politically a difficult thing to do (while their is oligarchic capture), a Job Guarantee is not nearly so difficult to get broad support for. Folks we gotta push for the Job Guarantee (and raise the Basic Income guarantee, aka. pensions, unemployment and disability benefits) and call bulls* on the UBI.
@@Achrononmaster hmm, "taxing the crap outta..." sounds like armed jackboots? I suspect that to get started with UBI one has to convince many of the rich folks to concede some control? Truly universal UBI would probably not make much difference? If a rich person is already investing $10M how much difference if he also invests all of his UBI? Next to nothing! Remember you have already defined that "rich" person. It is much simpler to manage UBI if you don't add complicated rules. That is why tax codes are such a nightmare: all the ifs, ands, buts, etc. OTOH, tithing is probably not the best answer either... I'm just an EE, not an economist.
@40:00 Don't push for a "job guarantee" - it will become a "forced-to-work guarantee"! UBI on the other hand, comes with social benefits that has the potential of truly transform society, away from the drudgery of our current work-or-die capitalis system. If you want to theorize about "another now", we need to theorize about the society where wage-labor is not mandated, where we instead can focus on learning, teaching, socializing, developing artistic skills etc. Please Yanis, make sure DiEM25 does NOT go for the "job guarantee"-option!
You didnt actually listen then.
30:00 +++ EU beyond MMT review _JC