This article by Prof. Fadhel Kaboub goes a long way to explaining why the economic rhetoric of Republican politicians and their libertarian economists has held back needed public investments in healthcare, infrastructure, education and environmental protection. Of course deficits matter, but so do all the assets they create in both the public and private sectors. Yet in GDP education is classified as a cost, and expenditure, instead of the most fundamental investment all societies make in producing healthy responsible citizens.
GDP still has no asset to account for all these vital public investments in healthcare, infrastructure and supporting small businesses and innovation. So these valuable investments in growing a prosperous, sustainable future are ignored and recorded only as deficits and debt. This allows Republican opponents to obsess about incorrect “debt to GDP ratios“ which could be cut by up to 50% with a stroke of a pen! See our global surveys with GlobeScan on “BEYOND GDP“ in 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2020, all showing that the public favors expanding GDP beyond money to real scientific statistics on health, education and the environment. Let’s correct these misleading macroeconomic statistics and the policy errors they perpetuate!
The need for Green New Deal investments in transitioning from fossilized sectors to cleaner, greener, knowledge-richer and equitable societies is as vital today, as was our investments in the NASA moonshot and interstate highway systems of the 1960s and the New Deal in the 1930s, without which investments in energy and water infrastructure, e.g. the Hoover Dam, Los Angeles would still be a village. See also our Green Transition Scoreboard® annual reports on private investments in green technologies and companies from 2009 until 2020. (free at www.ethicalmarkets.com ). Our research fully supports Biden-Harris investment policies to make this transition to the next Age of Light we call the Solar Age.
~Hazel Henderson, Editor“
Backbone is honored to have the opportunity to discuss Modern Monetary Theory with Economist Fadhel Kaboub.
We will be sharing a current recording of this webinar to our website.
This interview is part of a 4-part study group on Modern Monetary Theory. Please watch the two excellent videos from the series HERE.
While most policymakers believe that the federal government’s spending capacity is limited by tax revenues and borrowing capacity, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) argues that our spending capacity is much larger than that (but it’s not unlimited). Dr. Kaboub will explain that the Biden Administration can significantly expand its current spending plans without causing inflation, but only if we strategically invest in key sectors (healthcare, housing, energy, transportation, and higher education), if we tax and regulate abusive market power, tackle corruption, and enforce the democratic principles of a Government of, by, and for the People.