[S10 E04]
This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff delivers updates on France's successful mass uprisings (Yellow Vests in 2019; mass union strikes in 2020) that forced the French government to back down on changes workers opposed, how endless wars impose huge debts, and how the Catholic Church uses U.S. bankruptcy law to prevent the church's assets from being used to compensate victims of sexual assault.
The second half of this week’s episode features an interview with journalist Bob Hennelly on military spending and debts in the US economy.
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Showing 3 comments
It is too bad these two seem to be completely ignorant of Modern Money Theory. The budget of a currency user is not like the budget of the currency issuer. As an economist, Prof. Richard Wollf should be capable of understanding this.
The “borrowing” that the Federal Government does to support a war is to use the productive capacity of our economy to make war material instead of using that capacity to improve the lives of the people. If our productive capacity is used for war it isn’t and won’’t be available for making lives better. There is no bankruptcy in terms of money when you create the money.
The way that future generations pay for the “borrowing” the federal government does is to forego the benefit of the productive capacity that was diverted to war and not used to develop even more productive capacity for civilian use. Talking about borrowing “money” which the government freely creates only diverts attention from what was really lost.
It is too bad these two seem to be completely ignorant of Modern Money Theory. The budget of a currency user is not like the budget of the currency issuer. As an economist, Prof. Richard Wollf should be capable of understanding this.
The “borrowing” that the Federal Government does to support a war is to use the productive capacity of our economy to make war material instead of using that capacity to improve the lives of the people. If our productive capacity is used for war it isn’t and won’’t be available for making lives better. There is no bankruptcy in terms of money when you create the money.
The way that future generations pay for the “borrowing” the federal government does is to forego the benefit of the productive capacity that was diverted to war and not used to develop even more productive capacity for civilian use. Talking about borrowing “money” which the government freely creates only diverts attention from what was really lost.