IPPR report

Prosperity and justice: A plan for the new economy - The final report of the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice

Chris Dillow

Simon Wren Lewis

thoughts on SWF + UBD

SWF + UBD by Steve Randy Waldman

"new contributions would be made from a variety of dedicated tax streams and from the compounding of undistributed earnings. Initially the dividend would be quite small, but over time, it would grow."

Bruenig noted on twitter that other commentators failed to note the compounding of undistriubted earnings.

"Bruenig proposes paying out roughly 4% of fund value annually, assuming total returns would generally be higher than that. To generate a $12K per year UBI for US adults in 2018 dollars, the fund would need to grow to about $75T."

[is this Bruenig also or just Waldman?]

"Basically, on these numbers, the fund would have to grow to hold something like 64% of all assets, or 80% of US “net worth”, to finance a “full” UBI at a 4% per annum payout rate."

"It takes the miracle of compound growth that capitalists are always on about and turns it into a miracle of compound taxation, effectively taxing wealthier cohorts (those who would otherwise own the SWF assets) an ever increasing share of income year after year without requiring any new legislation, and with minimal distortion of investment behavior."

Warren vs. Sanders

Thoughts on Bernie Sanders’s Democratic Socialism and the Primary by Mike Konczal

Warren emphasizing women candidates in taking back Congress.

Stop Bezos Act

Bernie Sanders is picking the wrong fight with Amazon by Ryan Cooper

The controversy over Bernie Sanders’s proposed Stop BEZOS Act, explained by Matt Yglesias

Jared Bernstein

CBPP report

Ben Spielberg

Bruenig blog from past

Josh Mound

Jonathan Chait

job guarantee and MMT links

Job Guarantee Programs: Careful What You Wish For by Thomas Palley

SWF+UBD by Steve Randy Waldman

What if you could sue the government for a job? by Jeff Spross

Universal basic income vs jobs guarantees: which one will make us happier? by Cory Doctorow

Should Democrats play it safe with a job guarantee? by Jeff Spross

Reorienting Fiscal Policy: A Critical Assessment of Fiscal Fine-Tuning by Tcherneva

What if the Government Gave Everyone a Paycheck? by Robert Reich

Here’s the one book every millennial and Gen Z new graduate should read (and it’s not Dr. Seuss) by Erin Kaine (on David Graeber)

Do We Need a Federal Jobs Guarantee? A Debate. BY ROHAN GREY & RAÚL CARRILLO REBUTTAL BY MATT BRUENIG

Yes, a Jobs Guarantee Could Create “Boondoggles.” It Also Might Save the Planet. by Kate Aronoff

10 Principles for a Federal Job Guarantee By Angela Glover Blackwell, Sarah Treuhaft, Darrick Hamilton, and William Darity, Jr.

excellent podcast on JG-UBI by Current Affairs

Robert Reich video on JG

Democrats’ Next Big Thing: Government-Guaranteed Jobs by Jim Tankersley

Three Ways to Design a Democratic Job Guarantee by Alexander Kolokotronis

Stephanie Kelton Has The Biggest Idea In Washington by Zach Carter

PUBLIC SERVICE: EMPLOYMENT:A PATH TO FULLEMPLOYMENT by L. Randall Wray, Flavia Dantas, Scott Fullwiler, Pavlina R. Tcherneva, and Stephanie A. Kelton  (April 2018)

The Job Guarantee:Design, Jobs, and Implementation by Tcherneva (April 2018)

Why We Need a Federal Job Guarantee by Mark Paul, William Darity Jr and Darrick Hamilton

The Job Guarantee Controversy by Timothy Taylor

Baby bonds

JOB GUARANTEE: MARXIST OR KEYNESIAN? by Chris Dillow

Some thoughts about the Job Guarantee by Simon Wren-Lewis (2017)

The Long, Tortured History of the Job Guarantee By PETER-CHRISTIAN AIGNER and MICHAEL BRENES

Hyman Minsky’s Views on the “Welfare Mess” by Matt Bruenig

Workfare Means New Mass Peonage by Frances Fox Piven and Barbara Ehrenreich (1987)

The Job Guarantee Is Not a Human Capital Program by Max Sawicky

Posts in Three Lines (see comments too) by J.W. Mason

My impression of job guarantee advocates, which I am afraid you are not doing much to dispel, is that they are not willing to admit that their preferred approach ahas any drawbacks, or that any alternatives have any merits.

A Promise So Big, Democrats Aren’t Sure How to Keep It: Progressives are lining up behind a jobs guarantee—but leaving the details for later. by Anne Lowrey

Everyone Can Have Their Own Job Guarantee by Matt Bruenig

Bernie Gets Socialistic by Max Sawicky

The Job Guarantee and the Wilted Liberal Imagination by Jack Meserve

Job Guarantees, Collective Bargaining and the Right to Strike by Sandwichman

Smile by Steve Randy Waldman

We Work by James K. Galbraith

Dems’ Job Guarantee Isn’t Nearly as Easy as It Sounds by Dean Baker

Larry Mishel disputes costs. 

How the Democrats' big jobs idea could upend the Fed by Jeff Spross

Only 1 in 3 Americans Work Full Time by Matt Bruenig

The whole world was watching – we could have done something special': What Finnish experts say about the country's controversial basic-income experiment by Karin Olli-Nilsson

How much would a job guarantee actually cost? by Jeff Spross

WHETHER AMERICA CAN AFFORD A JOB GUARANTEE PROGRAM IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE by David Dayen

basic income and public job offer: complimentary policies by Fitzroy and Jin

Debate: Is This the Time for a Federal Jobs Program? by Conor Sen and Noah Smith

Need Work? Maybe That's a Job for Government by Noah Smith

The Case for a Federal Jobs Guarantee by Erik Loomis

also see

Economists Don't Say That Automation Will Drive Unemployment Higher by Dean Baker

Two Big Questions About the Job Guarantee: God, Devil, and the Details by Steve Roth

4 big questions about job guarantees by Dylan Matthews

Why politicians should promise every American a job by Matt Yglesias

World Bank on Jefes de Hogar (Heads of Household)

Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America (Center for American Progress)

The jobs guarantee and human-capital “nationalisation” by Alexandra Scaggs

GMI + JG = paid work as a choice for all by John Quiggin

The Call for Jobs for All by Matthew Klein

How do our job creation recommendations stack up against a job guarantee? by Josh Bivens

Why the Cause of Full Employment Is Back from the Dead by Harold Meyerson

Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to guarantee every American a job by Jeff Stein

Cory Booker’s new big idea: guaranteeing jobs for everyone who wants one by Dylan Matthews

Historicizing GovernmentWork Programs: A Spectrumfrom Workfare to Fair Work by Nancy E. Rose (2000)

Why Democrats Should Embrace a Federal Jobs Guarantee by Sean McElwee

A GUARANTEED “JOBS FOR ALL” PROGRAM IS GAINING TRACTION AMONG 2020 DEMOCRATIC HOPEFULS by Kate Aronoff

Need a Job? Just Call Bernie. by Kevin Drum

Yes, The Jobs Guarantee Is Absurd by Adam Ozimek

Democrats Are Rushing Into a Job Guarantee. It Could Be a Huge Mistake. by Jonahthan Chait

Prior Models for Workable Workfare Work by Matt Bruenig

Why is MMT so popular? by Simon Wren-Lewis

A Response to Tom Palley by J.W. Mason

Modern Money Theory (MMT) vs. Structural Keynesianism by Thomas Palley

Israel Nash

Gillum and Mound

Andrew Gillum Pulled Off the Upset of a Lifetime. Now Comes the Hard Part.

(NYTimes no mention of Bernie Sanders even though he backed Gillum)

Andrew Gillum makes history in Florida (CNN)

Resolving the Democrats’ False Choice by Josh Mound

What Democrats Must Do by Josh Mound

SWF free-for-all

Team Bruenig:

Peter Gowan, Carl Beijer, Ryan Cooper, (Steve Randy Waldman) David Dayen?, Mathew Lawrence, Josh Mound(retweeted)? Ben Spielberg

Team Konczal:

J.W. Mason, Henwood, Max Sawicky, Candian Mike Rozworski, (team MMT Raul, etc.)  Matt Stoller, Matthew Klein, Marshall Steinbaum retweeted?, Matt Yglesias

Sandbu on Nordic economies

What the Nordic mixed economy can teach today’s new left

Much of Scandinavia’s success is not rooted in direct state intervention

by Martin Sandbu 

8.28.18

The most predictable phenomena can also be the most surprising. Just look at the revival of “socialism” as a politically viable idea in the US and UK. 

Ten years ago, the global crisis laid bare the failures of financial capitalism. This gave the political left an opportunity to win support for its agenda. Yet almost every established centre-left party in the developed world bungled this shot at political dominance. 

Instead of a comeback, we seem to be getting a throwback. The only leftwing politicians to prosper have been those who reject the “third way” centre-leftism of the 1990s. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn has taken over the Labour party with the support of a hugely expanded membership. In the US, Bernie Sanders’ socialist primary campaign gave Hillary Clinton a run for her donor class money in 2016. In recent local results, like-minded politicians Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have won safe-seat Democratic party nominations to Congress. Polls show that about half of young Americans now favour “socialism” over “capitalism”. 

This has triggered a debate about what the new socialists mean by “socialism”. On one reading, it is just an aspirational label for Scandinavian social democracy, with policies such as universal healthcare or better conditions for workers. 

But some of its most thoughtful proponents argue in favour of socialism because it is opposed to capitalism. The political theorist Corey Robin, for example, advocates “socialism” because it makes workers free, while capitalism leaves them unfree. Such claims see socialism and capitalism as rival and incompatible systems. 

 This semantic difference matters politically. The either/or view may have made sense during the cold war. But even when the dichotomy was real, the Nordic countries were clearly arrayed on the capitalist side of the dividing line. To oppose “socialism” against “capitalism” is to refuse to learn from the experience of the societies that have probably come closest to the new socialists’ own ideals.

The Nordic countries have been called “mixed economies” precisely because they combine elements of socialism and capitalism: state and private ownership of the means of production; public regulation and market competition; redistributive taxes and wages determined by employers and employees. 

If the socialists of today ignore capitalism’s role in that mix, they fail to follow their own leading lights. Here are three lessons they should heed from the Nordic model, whether or not they call it “socialist”. 

First, it embraces globalisation. It was no coincidence that the Nordic mixed model emerged in countries with high exposure to international trade. Public understanding that trade brings prosperity, but that global fluctuations hit hard and unpredictably, increased support for the insurance elements of the Nordic welfare states. 

So if “socialism” it is going to be, it should be a socialism confident about economic openness. The US left’s opposition to trade deals weakens any affiliation it may try to claim with the Nordic model. So does British socialists’ seduction by “ Lexit” — the alleged leftwing case for escaping the rules that smooth trade between European countries. 

Second, while the Nordics’ economic egalitarianism is well known in broad terms, the detail is not. But the detail matters. The achievement of the Nordic model is something very specific: a highly compressed distribution of market wages (before taxes and transfers). In comparison, the distribution of wealth and capital income, and the degree of income equalisation through policy, is unexceptional. The Nordics succeeded not through maximal redistribution but by engineering an economy that did not need to overburden the state’s redistributive power. 

This leads to the third lesson. Much of the Nordic model’s success is rooted not in direct state intervention but in the finely balanced interplay between social organisations, especially in the labour market. Admirers appreciate the role of unions in the Nordic economies; they are less aware of the equal importance of coherent employers’ associations. 

A blinkered workers-against-bosses view of the world suggests anything that makes capital owners better organised must harm the interests of workers. The Nordic experience shows the opposite is true. Coherent organisation encourages employers to recognise how what may seem like a burden on an individual company benefits business as a whole. 

In Scandinavia, a compressed wage structure has been good for productivity. If it is expensive to use labour unproductively, and if high-skilled labour is relatively cheap, companies accelerate investment and quickly adopt new technology. Similarly, an organised employer sector helps workers, businesses and the government to adjust in the face of technological disruptions. If this is socialism, it is one that makes for a more flexible capitalism. 

The Nordics, then, give vindication to the insight of great liberal centrists of the interwar years: that wise government intervention is good for capitalism, and makes capitalism good for workers. Progressive centrism may have earned itself a bad name in the run-up to the crisis and its aftermath. But if socialists reject it out of purism, they will find their own goals frustrated as well.

DeLong and Anderson vs. socialism & Krugman on neolibralism

The New Socialists by Corey Robins

STEERING BY THE SOCIALIST IDOLS IN THE HEAVENS LEADS US TO SAIL NOT TOWARDS BUT AWAY FROM THE SHORES OF UTOPIA: (EARLY) MONDAY COREY ROBIN SMACKDOWN by Brad DeLong

Kurt Andersen

A tenured six-figure government job must be sweet, professor, but this is utopian silliness: “Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Socialists want to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale.”

Capitalism, Socialism, and Unfreedom by Krugman

There is no alternative. The Democratic Party platform is as good as things can get.

Factcheckergate

Fact checkers have a Medicare-for-all problem by Ryan Cooper

The revealing Medicare-for-all fact-check debate roiling the internet, explained by Dylan Scott

Krugman tweetstorm

Bernie’s “Medicare For All” Plan Would Cut Physician Payments About 10 Percent by Kevin Drum

Jake Tapper’s Faulty Medicare for All Fact-Check by Matt Bruenig

Rashida Tlaib

For Rashida Tlaib, Palestinian Heritage Infuses a Detroit Sense of Community

Annie Lowrey on JG and late capitalism

A Promise So Big, Democrats Aren’t Sure How to Keep It by Annie Lowrey

Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere by Annie Lowrey

fiscally conservative but supports single payer

Cory Booker

The Economy During Wartime by J.W. Mason

The Economy During Wartime by J.W. Mason

Mason, Hanauer & Levison. what to do and macro lessons

Democrats Must Reclaim the Center … by Moving Hard Left by Nick Hanauer

What Democrats Still Don’t Get About Winning Back the White Working Class by Andrew Levison

Macroeconomic Lessons from the Past Decade by J.W. Mason

Economics

One of the biggest falsehoods that the economics profession foists upon us is how supply meets demand or Say's Law which Keynes went after. You can have long periods of insufficient aggregate demand or high unemployment.

The government sets the amount of demand via interest rates and the cost of credit. If it's too high, people won't borrow and invest and demand won't be enough.

But if the government does this for too long you'll get deflation. The question is why don't we get deflation sooner.

Instead of deflation advanced economies seem to get stuck in a Japanese rut where they can't make inflation, especially when they don't try very hard.

If the government provides enough stimulus or adjusts rates so there's enough aggregate demand, then labor markets will tighten and workers will see wage increases.

Today though we have oligopolies and monopsony and a taboo about raising wages despite low unemployment.

Take the Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven

Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkmen

Tom Petty - Refugee - Sharp Objects