Eric Tymoigne's guest appearances

Eric Tymoigne

The MMT Podcast with Patricia Pino & Christian Reilly

Macro N Cheese

Rohan Grey

Dirk Ehnts

Stephen Williams

Kairin Van Sweeden

Ellis Winningham

Steve Keen

Brian Romanchuk

L. Randall Wray

Stephanie Kelton

Steven Hail

Robert Hockett

Bill Mitchell

Cory Doctorow

Fadhel Kaboub

Patricia Pino

OwlTail

Patricia and Christian talk to economist and author Professor Eric Tymoigne about the history of money, cryptocurrency, and what makes some monetary instruments more instrumental than others.   Please help sustain this podcast! Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast   For an intro to MMT: Listen to our first three episodes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417 And Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318   All our episodes in chronological order: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643   Eric Tymoigne’s bio and publications:  https://college.lclark.edu/live/profiles/51-eric-tymoigne   Eric Tymoigne On Twitter: https://twitter.com/tymoignee   More on monetary operations: Episode 20 - Warren Mosler: The MMT Money Story (part 1): https://www.patreon.com/posts/28004824   Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318   Episode 13 - Steven Hail: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Banking, But Were Afraid To Ask: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887   Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683 “An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer – 2nd edition” by Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye &amp; Neil Wilson:  https://gimms.org.uk/2021/02/21/an-accounting-model-of-the-uk-exchequer/ Our episodes about “An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer”: Part 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46352183 Part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46865929    More on inflation: Episode 7: Steven Hail: Inflation, Price Shocks and Other Misunderstandings: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41780508 Episode 65 - Phil Armstrong: Understanding Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678 Episode 104 - John T Harvey: Inflation, Stagflation &amp; Healing The Nation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835 Episode 123 - Warren Mosler: Understanding The Price Level And Inflation: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379 Episode 128 - L. Randall Wray &amp; Yeva Nersisyan: What’s Causing Accelerating Inflation? Pandemic Or Policy Response?: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558   More details on Dirk Ehnts’ "Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics” course at Maastricht University:  https://maastricht.dreamapply.com/courses/course/134-modern-monetary-theory-and-european-macroeconomics?search=34057   Sign up for alerts from The Gower Initiative For Modern Money Studies about their forthcoming MMT book: https://gimms.org.uk/   A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757   We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos   Transcript for opening monologue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/69607748   Show notes: https://www.patreon.com/posts/69607717

Patricia and Christian talk to economist and author Professor Eric Tymoigne about the history of money, cryptocurrency, and what makes some monetary instruments more instrumental than others. Please help sustain this podcast! Patrons get early access to all episodes and patron-only episodes: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/MMTpodcast</a> For an intro to MMT: Listen to our first three episodes: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/41742417</a> And Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318</a> All our episodes in chronological order: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/43111643</a> Eric Tymoigne’s bio and publications: <a href="https://college.lclark.edu/live/profiles/51-eric-tymoigne" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://college.lclark.edu/live/profiles/51-eric-tymoigne</a> Eric Tymoigne On Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/tymoignee" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/tymoignee</a> More on monetary operations: Episode 20 - Warren Mosler: The MMT Money Story (part 1): <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/28004824" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/28004824</a> Episode 126 - Dirk Ehnts: How Banks Create Money: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/62603318</a> Episode 13 - Steven Hail: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Banking, But Were Afraid To Ask: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/41790887</a> Episode 43 - Sam Levey: Understanding Endogenous Money: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/35073683</a> “An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer – 2nd edition” by Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye &amp; Neil Wilson: <a href="https://gimms.org.uk/2021/02/21/an-accounting-model-of-the-uk-exchequer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://gimms.org.uk/2021/02/21/an-accounting-model-of-the-uk-exchequer/</a> Our episodes about “An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer”: Part 1: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/46352183" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/46352183</a> Part 2: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/46865929" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/46865929</a> More on inflation: Episode 7: Steven Hail: Inflation, Price Shocks and Other Misunderstandings: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/41780508" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/41780508</a> Episode 65 - Phil Armstrong: Understanding Inflation: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/40672678</a> Episode 104 - John T Harvey: Inflation, Stagflation &amp; Healing The Nation: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/52207835</a> Episode 123 - Warren Mosler: Understanding The Price Level And Inflation: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/59856379</a> Episode 128 - L. Randall Wray &amp; Yeva Nersisyan: What’s Causing Accelerating Inflation? Pandemic Or Policy Response?: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/63776558</a> More details on Dirk Ehnts’ "Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics” course at Maastricht University: <a href="https://maastricht.dreamapply.com/courses/course/134-modern-monetary-theory-and-european-macroeconomics?search=34057" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://maastricht.dreamapply.com/courses/course/134-modern-monetary-theory-and-european-macroeconomics?search=34057</a> Sign up for alerts from The Gower Initiative For Modern Money Studies about their forthcoming MMT book: <a href="https://gimms.org.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://gimms.org.uk/</a> A list of MMT-informed campaigns and organisations worldwide: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/47900757</a> We are working towards full transcripts, but in the meantime, closed captions for all episodes are available on our YouTube channel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEp_nGVTuMfBun2wiG-c0Ew/videos</a> Transcript for opening monologue: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/69607748" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/69607748</a> Show notes: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/69607717" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/posts/69607717</a>

#137 Eric Tymoigne: What Makes Something Money?

Real Progressives recently created a series on fraud and the great financial crisis. To further understand the economic underpinnings of 2008 and other financial crises, Steve turned to Eric Tymoigne, inviting him on to talk about the book he co-authored with Randall Wray, The Rise and Fall of Money Manager Capitalism: Minsky's Half-Century from World War Two to the Great Recession.Alan Greenspan called the financial crisis a “once in a century tsunami,” a huge shock that occurred to the system that had been very unlikely, but, Oops, it happened! And we were not prepared. The Minsky narrative is the opposite. It's a very tiny shock that blew up the entire system. And why? Because over time, the system becomes more fragile, weaker, less able to buffer against even small adverse shocks on the system.Minsky's theoretical framework is really not about the crisis, it's about the process that leads to the crisis. That's where financial fragility comes into play. As Tymoigne explains, the financial crisis wasn’t caused by irrational behaviors, but by the very mechanics of capitalism itself. Milton Friedman said, basically, if you want to understand capitalism, you don't need to understand money. You don't need to understand corporations. You can simply visualize a small peasant economy based on barter in order to grasp the mechanics of exchange within the economic system. You’ll have a decent understanding of capitalism.  Not so, according to Minsky. You have to put finance immediately in the analysis and recognize that capitalism is a monetary economy that has long-lived capital equipment. And so that means that you have to have views about the future regarding the ability of this capital equipment to perform over time and to generate high enough monetary return.Tymoigne talks of the different degrees of financial fragility: hedge finance, speculative finance, and Ponzi finance. These different states relate to expectations of future monetary outcomes. According to Minsky we must consider the role of money, linking it to the future to see how a capitalist economy moves progressively from periods of relative stability with hedge finance, when people are able to pay their debts, to periods of Ponzi finance, with no expectation for the debts to be serviced without forcing a sale of the assets. This brings us back to the mortgage crisis.After listening to this episode, be sure to check out The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files. It’s like a case study of what you’ve heard here.Eric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis &amp; Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His areas of teaching and research include macroeconomics, money and banking, and monetary economics.On Twitter: @tymoignee

Real Progressives recently created a series on fraud and the great financial crisis. To further understand the economic underpinnings of 2008 and other financial crises, Steve turned to Eric Tymoigne, inviting him on to talk about the book he co-authored with Randall Wray, The Rise and Fall of Money Manager Capitalism: Minsky's Half-Century from World War Two to the Great Recession. Alan Greenspan called the financial crisis a “once in a century tsunami,” a huge shock that occurred to the system that had been very unlikely, but, Oops, it happened! And we were not prepared.  <blockquote>The Minsky narrative is the opposite. It's a very tiny shock that blew up the entire system. And why? Because over time, the system becomes more fragile, weaker, less able to buffer against even small adverse shocks on the system.</blockquote>Minsky's theoretical framework is really not about the crisis, it's about the process that leads to the crisis. That's where financial fragility comes into play. As Tymoigne explains, the financial crisis wasn’t caused by irrational behaviors, but by the very mechanics of capitalism itself.  Milton Friedman said, basically, if you want to understand capitalism, you don't need to understand money. You don't need to understand corporations. You can simply visualize a small peasant economy based on barter in order to grasp the mechanics of exchange within the economic system. You’ll have a decent understanding of capitalism.  Not so, according to Minsky.  <blockquote>You have to put finance immediately in the analysis and recognize that capitalism is a monetary economy that has long-lived capital equipment. And so that means that you have to have views about the future regarding the ability of this capital equipment to perform over time and to generate high enough monetary return.</blockquote>Tymoigne talks of the different degrees of financial fragility: hedge finance, speculative finance, and Ponzi finance. These different states relate to expectations of future monetary outcomes. According to Minsky we must consider the role of money, linking it to the future to see how a capitalist economy moves progressively from periods of relative stability with hedge finance, when people are able to pay their debts, to periods of Ponzi finance, with no expectation for the debts to be serviced without forcing a sale of the assets. This brings us back to the mortgage crisis. After listening to this episode, be sure to check out The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files. It’s like a case study of what you’ve heard here. Eric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis &amp; Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His areas of teaching and research include macroeconomics, money and banking, and monetary economics. On Twitter: @tymoignee

Financial Fragility with Eric Tymoigne

Have you seen Eric Tymoigne’s recent tweet destroying the top myths about Modern Monetary Theory? If not, listen to this episode and hear the myths evaporate. Tymoigne begins by giving an elegant explanation of MMT as a theoretical framework explaining how governments issuing their own currency, or monetarily sovereign, operate in the economy.  Understand that and you understand the importance of government policies in promoting full employment and price stability. And now, the myths: #1 MMT ignores Minskian financial instability. Listen to Eric’s explanation of Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis.  He describes why, in the last financial crisis, people took on mortgages they were unable to afford, giving them no choice but to borrow more, default or attempt to sell their assets.  #2 MMT ignores capital controls. Capital controls regulate the flow of money into and out of a country. Ideally, you only allow money that is productive and limit speculative activity through taxes or other barriers. #3 MMT only applies to the US. Wrong. MMT applies to any country with monetary sovereignty. What does that mean? When a country issues its own currency it is monetarily sovereign. Similarly when it issues debt only denominated in own currency, imposes taxes only in own currency, and makes payments using its own currency, it satisfies the definition of monetary sovereignty.  Plenty of nations do that.   Eric explains what’s special about the US is having foreign demand for the US dollar. When the   foreign sector wants to save in US dollars, the federal deficit must increase.  But even the US has constraints making it appear not to have sovereignty. The public debt ceiling, which has been used for political gain, has created disruptions and self-inflicted constraints. #4 MMT says nothing about developing economies. (Editor’s note: anyone who has listened to Fadhel Kaboub knows that this is patently false.) Development involves complex decisions regarding how to develop production and provide for the needs of the people in housing, education and healthcare. Monetary sovereignty gives you some freedom to work through these issues.   #5 MMT doesn’t recognize there can be tradeoffs. MMT economists are constantly confronted with examples of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic. They understand these were unique circumstances; when spending runs close to a nation’s productive capacity, there are potential inflationary pressures. In the US and other developed, monetarily sovereign countries, we are far from full productive capacity today. #6 MMT is for monetary financing of government spending. Eric explains the complex relationship between the central bank and the Treasury. This is a complicated issue, coordinated in an extremely refined manner. #7 MMT says deficits don’t matter. Eric explains that deficits matter quite a bit because deficits inject income into the private sector. The government can always afford to deficit spend. MMT is concerned with the availability of real resources. Eric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His areas of teaching and research include macroeconomics, money and banking, and monetary economics. https://college.lclark.edu/live/profiles/51-eric-tymoigne  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.1639412?journalCode=mcha20&amp;

Have you seen Eric Tymoigne’s recent tweet destroying the top myths about Modern Monetary Theory? If not, listen to this episode and hear the myths evaporate. Tymoigne begins by giving an elegant explanation of MMT as a theoretical framework explaining how governments issuing their own currency, or monetarily sovereign, operate in the economy.  Understand that and you understand the importance of government policies in promoting full employment and price stability. And now, the myths: #1 MMT ignores Minskian financial instability. Listen to Eric’s explanation of Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis.  He describes why, in the last financial crisis, people took on mortgages they were unable to afford, giving them no choice but to borrow more, default or attempt to sell their assets.  #2 MMT ignores capital controls. Capital controls regulate the flow of money into and out of a country. Ideally, you only allow money that is productive and limit speculative activity through taxes or other barriers. #3 MMT only applies to the US. Wrong. MMT applies to any country with monetary sovereignty. What does that mean? When a country issues its own currency it is monetarily sovereign. Similarly when it issues debt only denominated in own currency, imposes taxes only in own currency, and makes payments using its own currency, it satisfies the definition of monetary sovereignty.  Plenty of nations do that.   Eric explains what’s special about the US is having foreign demand for the US dollar. When the   foreign sector wants to save in US dollars, the federal deficit must increase.  But even the US has constraints making it appear not to have sovereignty. The public debt ceiling, which has been used for political gain, has created disruptions and self-inflicted constraints. #4 MMT says nothing about developing economies. (Editor’s note: anyone who has listened to Fadhel Kaboub knows that this is patently false.) Development involves complex decisions regarding how to develop production and provide for the needs of the people in housing, education and healthcare. Monetary sovereignty gives you some freedom to work through these issues.   #5 MMT doesn’t recognize there can be tradeoffs. MMT economists are constantly confronted with examples of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic. They understand these were unique circumstances; when spending runs close to a nation’s productive capacity, there are potential inflationary pressures. In the US and other developed, monetarily sovereign countries, we are far from full productive capacity today. #6 MMT is for monetary financing of government spending. Eric explains the complex relationship between the central bank and the Treasury. This is a complicated issue, coordinated in an extremely refined manner. #7 MMT says deficits don’t matter. Eric explains that deficits matter quite a bit because deficits inject income into the private sector. The government can always afford to deficit spend. MMT is concerned with the availability of real resources. Eric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His areas of teaching and research include macroeconomics, money and banking, and monetary economics. <a href="https://college.lclark.edu/live/profiles/51-eric-tymoigne" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://college.lclark.edu/live/profiles/51-eric-tymoigne</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.1639412?journalCode=mcha20&amp;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.1639412?journalCode=mcha20&amp;</a>