Hans Lovejoy, editor
Since the government threw $130b at employees in the form of a wage subsidy on Monday, it raises some profound questions around values and the mechanics of finance.
It also highlights that a hard right government admits that socialist monetary policies are the only way to save predatory capitalism from collapsing. Leaving this economic Armageddon to capitalism alone would never end well. For anyone.
Presumably this huge job bailout, like others, will become national debt. But why not instead use quantitative easing?
In other words, why can’t the Federal Reserve Bank magically create (print) and gift this money to the government?
Last week $90b in cash was given to the banks as quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve Bank, so banks could then use that money to loan its customers, for a profit!
It’s happening worldwide at the moment, and it’s happened countless times in the past.
Not many would have heard of Bill Mitchell, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Newcastle. He’s an interesting chap, because along with hedge fund founder Warren Mosler, he co-founded Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
The theory revolves around the relationship between governments and their central banks.
According to www.businessinsider.com.au in March last year, ‘MMT is a big departure from conventional economic theory. It proposes governments that control their own currency can spend freely, as they can always create more money to pay off debts in their own currency’.
Conspiracies are everywhere at the moment. If there is one that ever needed to go, ahem, viral, it’s this one: the banking cartel and the governments they own are wilfully maintaining misery on the planet.
And it’s only in a time of crisis that it is clearly on display.
Business journalist Alan Kohler interviewed Bill Mitchell just last week on March 26.
Mitchell told Kohler that politicians have ‘got as much money as they want,’ yet will often say they can’t afford to reduce unemployment, for example. That, he says, is a ‘political value statement rather than a factual statement about their capacities as the currency issuer.’
Now the Coalition has adopted a socialist style economic policy to save the country from certain anarchy, keep it going!
There’s no end to what could be achieved if every person in Australia were given opportunities and empowered.
No more poverty. Improved (free) education and health (with free dental). Big infrastructure projects. A decent NBN. Better roads and rail. An electric vehicle industry. Free renewable power and no more utility bills. Or any bills.
And since most corporations don’t pay tax, why not abolish tax altogether? Rainbows and unicorns would suddenly appear.
It could lead to no more wars and then, oh wait… no more psychopaths at the top of the food chain.
Will they willingly surrender to a utopian dreamscape that replaces their predatory behaviour? There’s around six months of solitude in which to find out. Keep safe everyone!
A transcript of Kohler’s interview with Professor Mitchell is at www.eurekareport.com.au/investment-news/has-modern-monetary-theorys-time-come/147104.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
