Kelton’s Substack

Me: This is good exegesis of the creation and flows of money, but it’s still a “missing of the mark” because its full of ifs, buts and maybes. It shows that theory within the current monetary paradigm still thinks you can only be pulled five ways from the middle and so accomplish little…or nothing. It’s monetary “epicycles”.

I’m sorry, I absolutely affirm that MMT and all of the other progressive theorists and reforms go in the right direction. To paraphrase Alan Ginsberg in his epic poem Howl!

I saw the best economic minds of my generation destroyed by the madness of Debt ONLY, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through its theoretical negro streets at dawn looking for an angry reformist fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo AKA a paradigm change in the machinery of neo-classical night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating the jazz of the new concept, that applied, would enlighten and actually resolve,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, but forgot that the new paradigm requires the recognition that conceptual opposition is the only route out of the current reality,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of the current paradigm,

*****************

Stephanie, Steve, Warren, Michael and Ellen, I’m with you in Debt ONLY

where 6000 years of acculturated slavery forces us onto “all fours” and prohibits us from “standing in the light of the required new reality,

I’m with you in Debt Only,

where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our cogniting on the fact that the effect of every historical paradigm change has always been the expression of an aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace…like Gifting.

Keen’s Podcast

Me: Nice to see you using the word paradigm so often recently. Ptomaic cosmology never actually changed until helio-centrism was conceived, Gallileo observed it in the temporal universe and Kepler discovered elliptical orbits.

As fiscal deficits, debt jubilee and UBI are all monetary gifting, then:
1) the discovery that direct and reciprocal monetary gifting utilizing accounting at retail sale is the single marco-economic/aggregative policy point in the entire economic process because everyone participates in/experiences its economic effects and
2) a high percentage discount/rebate policy, say 50%, at that point mathematically implements beneficial price and asset deflation.

So why not advocate for that?

Be happy to discuss and attempt to rebutt objections to any of this.

Me: The only reason it’s debt is because the plain old MONEY created is immediately transformed into debt by making it become treasuries. Just change the law. Keep it what it actually is A GIFT OF MONEY TO GOVERNMENTCONTRACTORS AND EMPLOYEES.

What everybody needs to wake up to is 1) the new monetary paradigm is GIFTING

2) that strategically implementing GIFTING into the Debt Only based system in the various ways I’ve posted here many times is not only the political football resolution to the ignorant and demagogic right’s blather but

3) mathematically the end of inflation which is the biggest problem in economics

4) the freeing of the individual from enforced austerity,

5) the greatest boost to GDP in history

6) the opportunity to form the greatest political coalition the country has ever seen, which will enable the bulk of liberal reforms unrelated to money/economics to be enacted

7) Clear the way for the kind of fiscal “deficits” necesarry to upgrade the infrastructure and confront climate change

8) create a solid everyday individual opportunity and temporal universe reality to feel gratitude everytime you purchase something instead of grudging resentment toward business and government. Imagine an economy based on and evocative of grace as in Gifting.

And that’s why the new monetary paradigm is a MEGA-paradigm of which there has only been 2 others in human history.

JB: Steve

I have no idea what you’re talking about here. Do you ??

And, please, what does any of this have to do with MY comment? Please, any reference to something I said here ??

I have not read whatever you wrote here repeatedly, so these memes mean nothing to me. Sorry

And this …

“”The only reason it’s debt is because the plain old MONEY created is immediately transformed into debt by making it become treasuries. “”

Wow ! First, I thought, in error I guess, that you understood that all money created BY BANKERS, MUST BE in the form of a DEBT, before it is entered into the account of the Borrower – where it first enters circulation as part of the nation’s money supply (M-1). It’s called ‘debt-BASED money’,

Or to Adair Turner ( an Uber central banker), called Debt-Contract Based Money.

BEFORE that ‘money’ can happen, the Borrower must sign the Promissory Note (Debt to Lender) to make all the (Debt-Service ) payments in the loan contract . THAT bank-money requires the DEBT as a pre-condition to making the loan and deposit, MEANS that everything you wrote there is a WAN, supported by neither proof nor logic.

And then, the Math. Although Treasury borrows a $TRILLION each year now in ordinary(*) times, that would only be less than 5 percent of the money put into circulation BY THE BANKERS that year, so the notion that the money issued becomes Debt “by making it become Treasuries” …. I mean, WOW!

(*) Neither Crisis nor Pandemic)

Thanks

Me: “I have no idea what you’re talking about here. Do you ??”

Yes.

“what does any of this have to do with MY comment? “

1) It’s obvious that you cannot think outside of the present monetary paraigm of Debt ONLY as the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of new money.

2) Neither the Fed nor the Treasury are private banks, and other than to be a legalized handmaiden of the private banks and to obscure the private banks’ monopolistic paradigm there is no actual necessity to immediately transform the money of the deficit into treasuries, i.e. debt.

Money as Debt as in a burden to repay is a concept. Monetary Gifting as in no necessity to repay is conceptually in complete opposition to the Debt ONLY concept. One of the signatures of historical paradigm changes is that they are always in complete conceptual opposition to the present paradigm.

JB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwyPmENzBQ4

Me: Joe, I’m with you in so many respects. Minsky? Yes via listening to every one of Steve Keen’s videos for the last 10 years. Stephen Zarlenga? Yes, bought and read the book, and yes whoever controls the money system controls the nation. I even agree that MMT has some definitional and hence communication problems with their policies and presentation…but its a progressive reform, so lets not pick at it so much as find a way for it to integrate with the rest of the reforms and theorists.

All of Minsky, Keen, MMTers, Hudson, Graeber, UBI advocates, Public Banking want the same things. So how do you consolidate and integrate their reforms? You awaken to the new operant paradigm concept and how it is best applied. But you have to start analyzing on the paradigmatic level in order to do that. That is the missing link in the chain that will win the day for progressive economists and reforms. New paradigms change the nature of ENTIRE PATTERNS and resolve the major problems of the present/old paradigm. Lets do that.

WG: Steve, You may disagree with everything I’ve written on this site–and you may be right–but I have attempted in my own ham-fisted way to write in plain English. For the life of me I don’t understand a word of what you’re trying to say. If you think you have something profound to say, then say it plainly. I’m not suggesting that you don’t have something important to add to the conversation, but your post gives me no guidance. If you do have a keen insight, I don’t want to miss out because I can’t decipher your difficult prose. Please help me out by writing in the simple words I can understand. Thanks, Wally

Me: Wally, I’m in agreement with virtually everything you say and want to see happen. The only difference between Stephanie, Mosler, Keen, Hudson, Graeber, Minsky, Ellen Brown etc. and me is they are talking about separate reforms and I am analyzing on the paradigmatic level and advocating for the best/resolving applications of that single new concept.

Visualize a blank piece of paper. On that page put pencil points labeled with all of the above names. Then make a big circle around those names and label that entire circle New Paradigm Concept. The circle’s concept and its resolving policies is what I am talking about. The labeled points are all valid researches, theories and reforms…but they’re separate, aligned in many ways in their pursuit of solutions, but they’re still missing the new concept and its applications which, if its an actual new paradigm concept, changes the nature of the ENTIRE pattern, system, body of knowledge, area of human endeavor and resolves the problems/orthodoxies that have grown up around the old/current paradigm.

The Copernican cosmological paradigm concept was from geo-centrism to helio-centrism. The paradigm change from nomadic hunting and gathering was accomplished by homesteading, urbanization and agriculture. The current paradigm for the creation and distribution of new money is Debt ONLY. The new paradigm concept integrated into the current debt based system is Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting.

CVA: We should run as nominees of the Monetary Reality Party!

Of course, that would require creating a Monetary Reality Party . . . .

Me: Or the New Monetary Paradigm Party. Or maybe the Make Systems Serve You Party.

In our technologically advanced society all a paradigm changing idea and its reflective policy program requires is a platform. That’s why if you could get a Steve Keen, Stephanie Kelton, Randall Wray, Michael Hudson etc. to see its efficacy, and just get people to do the simple math of how it benefits them Hugo’s famous saying: “Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” …will carry you through.

KC: “If deficits don’t matter, why do we need to tax anyone’s income at all?”

Me: Because MMTers are still stuck in the old paradigm that says we have to worry about inflation. MMTers are right about money mechanics and you are wrong, make no mistake about that, but neither you nor them are looking at what a policy of a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale would do. It would end inflation forever. That would free us to run the kind of fiscal deficits to renew our infrastructure and confront climate change. It would also claw back the purchasing power everyone has lost over the last 50+ years due to inflation and shipping jobs overseas.

I’ve rebutted every misconception and every critique, here and elsewhere, that is simply the assertion of an orthodoxy that the new monetary paradigm destroys. Neither Stephanie not Steve Keen will answer my posts. I suspect that’s because they don’t actually have answers to my new paradigm’s policy program…except in their own minds which again still have orthodoxies that the new paradigm destroys. I’m happy to be questioned by them. Bring it on. Lets see whether I’m a crack pot or the monetary version of Copernicus, Gallileo and Kepler all wrapped up in one.

The clock is ticking on our socio-economic and political instability and on climate change. It’s time to “go long, go deep.” And remember, to hold onto a good reform like MMT when a paradigm change is possible is an unethical act.

KC: Where in the Founding documents will we find the language saying governments job is to protect the weak from the ruthless? If MMT works, we never need to tax again. Just print money.

Me: Its simply a matter of elementary ethics that government should protect the weak from the powerful. Conservatives and libertarians often forget that ELEMENTARY consideration. That’s also how they can always manage to side with the powerful in the maintenace of their power.

The truth is both liberals and conservatives are mostly stuck in the obsessive dualism of thesis vs antithesis instead of seeking a genuine synthesis. And of course Finance loves the fact that both sides love yelling at each other instead of LOOKING for the synthesis of a paradigm change.

A genuine synthesis benefits EVERYONE and SOLVES problems. You have to decide whether you like solving problems more than arguing about them.

the power of accounting’s formula that equal debits and credits summing to zero

the macro-economic nature of the point of retail sale

forgeting/not being aware of the fact that, historically, the key to perceiving and understanding paradigm changes is simplicity not complexity

Being so sold out to science that they don’t realize that Wisdom/the integrative mental impulse, which includes scientific thinking and actually better enables scientific breakthroughs…is the superlative human mental discipline

That both being deep simplicities, wisdom insights and new paradigm concepts are synonymous phenomena.

Many of my new paradigm policies are innovations and extensions of a man named Clifford Hugh Douglas who started a world wide movement known as Social Credit back between the two world wars. John Maynard Keynes was a contemporary of Douglas and Keynesianism was actually the fall back position of Finance against Social Credit whose policies were nascently aligned with the new paradigm concept of Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting. The point of this post is that:

1. Keynesianism, which was a significant reform, was undoubtedly helped by Social Credit because it forced Finance’s hand
2. This is politically instructive because if Social Credit had not been there to threaten nascent and eventual full consciousness of the new paradigm by Social Credit Keynesianism probably would not have become a reality
3. So reformists who fear radical change is not likely, need to at the very least see that a new paradigm is actually the major impetus for significant reform
4. And most importantly they need to recognize the overweening power of a new paradigm and never back off its advocacy…because we all know what happened to Keynesianism, it got morphed into neo-classical macro…because it was just a reform NOT A GENUINE PARADIGM CHANGE WHICH IS ALWAYS PERMANENT.

Another litany of horrors, all of which are accurate but cannot resolve the deepest problem, namely the current monopolistic monetary paradigm CONCEPT that applied creates, controls and compels all of that litany.

Change the current operant, defining APPLIED CONCEPT with a new APPLIED CONCEPT and you change the nature of the ENTIRE pattern of economics and historically the problems that have grown up around it.

Yes, paradigmatic analysis flies in the face of reductive scientific, empirical and mathematical analysis, even correct and insightful such analysis, because its the discovery of a deeply effecting simplicity…instead of a mass of correct but still largely uncorrelate-able reforms…because they are unconscious of the specific guiding new paradigm concept itself and also perhaps the best places to apply it.

How about a podcast examining the signatures of past historically verified paradigm changes and how we might learn from and even copy them?

Thank you for confirming the fact that inflation is the key and biggest ECONOMIC problem we face and that changing the MONETARY paradigm with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at the point of retail sale (and the rest of the new paradigm program) is inflation’s empirical, mathematical, macro-economic and temporal universe solution. Thank you.

Doing the above will also enable the accomplishment of the goals of MMT, UBI, Public Banking, Steve Keen, Michael Hudson et al. while additionally resulting in spillover positive and beneficial effects in our social, political, psychological and ecological systems. That’s why I refer to it as probably only the third Mega-paradigm change in the history of the human species.

Money DOES make the world go ’round…and Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Grace As In Gifting will finally make it serve us by enabling it to accomplish the Common Good.

With a 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale the purchasing power of your social security check is immediately doubled. Those that have paid into social security for many years should be able to entitled to continue to receive their checks so lets say you get $1000/mo. in SS check that gives you $2000/mo. of purchasing power. In the new monetary paradigm program you also receive a $1000/mo. universal dividend which is doubled giving every retired person at keast $4000/mo. in purchasing power. And remember, retail sale is the terminal ending point of the entire economic process and hence by definition the terminal expression point for all economic factors…like for instance inflation so a 50% discount to the price of everything forever ends inflation. We’ve never had 50% inflation y/o/y let alone moment to moment, and there are plenty of hard and fast tax incentives and disincentives to herd commercial agents into competing on price instead of just letting them willy nilly committ the economic vice of price inflation.

Time for a genuine paradigm change instead of 5 or 6 reforms that ryhme with the new paradigm but do not resolve its deepest economic problems.

The policies of the new monetary paradigm destroy orthodoxies on the left and the right, enable the integration of the particles of truths in our normally opposed economic and political agendas. We need integration not further disintegration.

C’mon, who here is willing and able to embrace the vision which a new paradigm is instead of only being a critic who is caught up in the problematic dualism that Finance would love to have us argue over forever???

DFWcom: Money = debt and as Mosler says (I think) the national debt is simply the national money supply. So why don’t we frame it this way? “Senior economists think there is too much money in the economy and the answer is to take some of yours”. I suspect it wouldn’t be a long debate.

Me: The Money=Debt ONLY calculation is at the heart of the real and deepest problem we have actually. The word ONLY designates the calculation/paradigm concept as a monopolistic one. All monopolies are problematic because they are expressions of Lord Acton’s dictum that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And of course there is systemic power and then there is REAL power, namely the power of a paradigm concept which is harder to grasp and perceive than the obvious temporal universe power a monopoly demonstrates. In fact the Debt ceiling/National “Debt” controversy arises out of the difficulty in discerning paradigms, in this case the current/old paradigm of Debt ONLY as the sole form and vehicle for the creation and distribution of new money.

The quickest way to break the mental spell of an old/current paradigm is to look and keep on looking at the problem resolving applications of the new paradigm until the grip of all of the educational and cultural orthodoxies that have taken root in your mind around the old paradigm are answered by the obvious benefits of the new.

We live in an age of advanced financial dominance. It’s not that people in general don’t resent the banks, they do, but they just don’t know how to rectify the situation. And neither do the economists who are supposed to be able to identify the real problems we face.

This is because they’re so focused on the problems that they fail to recognize deep and lasting solutions, and because they are innured to the reductive mode of research and inquiry AKA science. Science is good and necessary of course, but scientific breakthroughs only occur when a new tool and/or insight is perceived and applied that becomes the new operant concept/paradigm that changes the nature of an entire pattern/system.

Why did I recognize the new paradigm before economists did? Partly luck, but just as much because I have always valued and tried to apply wisdom which is the superlative human mental discipline that 1) resolves opposites resulting in a thirdness greater oneness of truths, workabilities, applicabilities and highest ethical considerations of a problematic duality/problem and so is 2) a deep simplicity which is also the definition of a wisdom insight. And 3) paradigms are single concepts that resolve problems/dualities and hence are themselves wisdom insights.