Presentation to the New Zealand Fabian Society, August 16, 2020

It’s Wednesday and my light blog day produces a video or two. The first is a presentation I recently made to the New Zealand Fabian Society and the second is some exquisite trumpet playing from Chet Baker.

Presentation to the New Zealand Fabian Society, August 16, 2020

I was asked by the Fabian members to talk about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) (what else!) by way of a simple introduction and to then extend the discussion to cover the concept of buffer stocks in monetary systems and the Job Guarantee.

The presentation was via Zoom and I relied on the recording at the Fabian’s end (over in New Zealand) for this video.

Overall, the sound is not too bad.

The presentation runs for 42:05.

Music – Chet Baker

This is what I have been listening to while working this morning.

It is from the April 1980 album – Leaving – by the incomparable – Chet Baker – which was released by the German Intercord label and recorded in Munich.

It is one of my favourite albums and I play it regularly.

The differentia specifica, is that there is no drummer involved.

Chet Baker first experimented with this band format the year before and started to minimalise the solo work on his albums. This album extended that experimental trend, which I found really interesting when I first encountered it in the early 1980s.

The quarter comprises:

1. Dennis Luxion – piano

2. Ricardo Del Fra – bass.

3. Nicola Stilo – Alto flute.

4. Chet Baker – Trumpet with Harmon mute and vocals.

All long-time associates of Chet Baker and Stilo even became addicted to heroin, following Baker’s lead.

The song – Leaving – was written by American jazz pianist and composer – Richie Beirach and is a classic understatement.

Eight years later, Chet Baker died at the age of 58, lying on the street in Amsterdam after falling from his hotel room. He was a lifetime heroin addict.

What a sound though.

That is enough for today!

(c) Copyright 2020 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.

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This Post Has 9 Comments

  2. “Reflecting on the early-1980’s money supply experiment, Lawson quotes
    Robert Burns: ‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft agley’.148 If the Prime
    Minister had allowed him to explain in September 1980, John Fforde, the architect of
    the previous money supply experiment, would no doubt have agreed.”
    “Alan Walters, recently arrived as Margaret Thatcher’s economic adviser, confided in his diary:
    Told MT about JN’s seminar and his findings. MT very defensive: NO ONE
    must know about it – especially Bank of England. Why? Frightened of calls
    for relaxation or sops to the wets. Am rapidly learning the political game –
    never admit an error.142
    His colleague in the Downing Street Policy Unit, John Hoskyns, elaborates:
    Niehan’s advice was not politically welcome. Despite the diplomatic
    language in which it was couched, it advocated actions that could be seen as a
    public admission that the Government had done the economy a great deal of
    damage by mistake.”143
    “Lawson claims that the Niehans’ report had little impact at the Treasury.144 However,
    it was harder for Ministers to ignore the conclusions of a recently-completed Treasury study into the causes of inflation.”
    http://www.econsoc.hist.cam.ac.uk/docs/CWPESH%20number%2010%20Sept%202012.pdf

  3. Bill, may I ask, how you would expect Elon Musk’s vision of the future (if it were to manifest) would impact global economic thinking? Do you think a human universal income would be even possible if the workforce need were to be depleted in such a vast way? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H15uuDMqDK0

  4. Our finance minister here in NZ has stated publicly that he does not believe in MMT. He also tells us on a daily basis that borrowing is financing the government despite the central bank undertaking tens of billions in QE. How he resolves those two issues in his head I do not know.

  5. @Ruru can you link to Grant Robertsons statements?
    Not really worth sweating the small stuff of course. In a literal sense he is of course correct, but when the deficit exploded during lock down the the RBNZ ensured it was financing it with almost exactly to right figure in QE. Its as if it was coordinated. So the NZ government is financing itself, just the finance minister prefers for this to be marginally harder for the public to understand.

  6. I saw Chet in London at Ronnie Scott’s in the 80s, went out of my way to see him when I could, as I was, then, a jazz trumpeter (sadly a skill long forgotten now) and he was one of the great lost talents due to heroine – he looked like James Dean in the 50, maybe if James Dean had not died this is what he would looked like in the 80s?. You are one of the few who still remember him too, thanks for the reminder. I have not heard that album since 1982,

  8. I found this study rather worrying concerning the full reopening of UK schools. The possibility of a much larger second wave will have both medical and economic repercussions. The test and trace system will have unbelievable pressure placed on it, whether it will cope with the influx should be evident quite quickly. At what cost? I would err on the side of caution at this present time. The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30250-9/fulltext

  9. Great lectures. And wow, Chet Baker was a true artist. You can tell artists like that, they’re still there in the music

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