Macro N Cheese

The consequences of income inequality extend far beyond economic disparities. Stephen Bezruchka focuses on its effect on health. Stephen is on the faculty of the School of Public Health at University of Washington and is author of Inequality Kills Us All . Much of this interview looks at these issues in the US. Stephen directly ties inequality to mortality rates, disease, and early childhood devel...

Charles Derber, author of " Dying for Capitalism ", talks with Steve about the intersectionality between capitalism, environmental destruction, and militarism. He argues that the capitalist system, particularly in its neoliberal form, is inherently connected to the threats of environmental catastrophe and war. He emphasizes the historical context of these connections, tracing the shift from water-...

David Fields talks to Steve about “Economists for Palestine,” the statement released by the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE). They emphasize economists’ responsibility to take a stand against the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinians. They look at the connection between Zionism and the global capitalist system, debunking misinformation while highlighting the difference be...

This week’s episode is the second half of Steve’s interview with Hamza Hamouchene about his book, Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region . Steve and Hamza agree on the importance of reckoning with the realities of the current capitalist imperialist system, which has proven to be a failure in addressing the most crucial needs of people and planet. Hamza argues...

When we talk about the climate crisis, common wisdom says we’re all in it together. That implies that everyone is responsible, and everyone needs to do something about it. Our guest, Dr. Hamza Hamouchene, attacks this notion unequivocally: “The historical responsibility, of course, in the climate crisis lies within the industrialized capitalist West.” Most of the impacts are felt by communities in...

This week’s episode is another webinar from our RP Live series: Inside a Failed State, with Michael Hudson. Michael prefers a Q&A format. Attendee questions revolved around US political economy, domestic and global. He discusses topics such as healthcare, de-dollarization, and the impact of economic policies on the working class. He emphasizes the need for a change in economic philosophy and h...

As a society we are conditioned to believe we can f*ck with nature, with the living world, but the economy is immutable. We dare not try to change it. As MMTers we say: hahahahaha... *sob* These two assumptions explain why we’re hurtling towards ecological catastrophe and why austerity has become a way of life. Steve’s guests this week are Colleen Schneider and Christopher Olk. They are co-authors...

Carlos García Hernández is the author of Fiat Socialism: Achieving the Goals of Socialism through Modern Monetary Theory . He lays out the five goals of fiat socialism: Full employment Full and prudent use of material resources The guarantee of the five essentials to every citizen: food, housing, clothing, health services, and education Social security at all major exposed points in the social str...

This week’s episode welcomes back Fadhel Kaboub, a valued friend of this podcast. He and Steve discuss the concept of just transition and the problems with carbon markets as a solution to climate change. They stress the injustice of historic polluters buying carbon credits to continue polluting while displacing vulnerable communities in developing countries. It is yet another capitalist solution....

A head of state whose economic policies promote austerity and fiscal responsibility is: Conservative Progressive N/A (not applicable) Daniel Conceição is with us for his third visit to Macro N Cheese. He and Steve discuss the failures of both right and left governments. Some broad strokes of Brazil’s historical patterns are not so different from those in the US. The last left(ish) president, Dilma...

“The impossibility of economic catch-up does not imply that the citizens of the global South are condemned to suffer from poverty and inequality. It only implies that capitalism has nothing to offer as a prospect of a decent life for the vast majority of humanity...” In this webinar from our popular RP Live series, Ndongo Samba Sylla tells us of the challenges facing Africa through the story of Th...

Understanding how monetary sovereign governments create and spend money means looking at the Treasury department and the central bank or, in the US, the Federal Reserve. Economist Eric Tymoigne explains two approaches to understanding the relationship: the consolidated and the collaborative, or cooperative, version of the Treasury and the Fed. The consolidated approach merges the Fed and the Treas...

When someone associates Modern Monetary Theory with left or right wing politics, they’re signaling they know nothing of MMT and are simply associating it with some of its proponents. MMTers are political, MMT is not. Regarding degrowth, this week’s guest, Bill Mitchell, explains: “The way I think about it is that MMT is compatible with deep, hard industry pollution and massive growth if you want i...

“I think within every labor struggle is a kernel of a broader transformation of society. So, it's interesting because Harry Bridges, who was the longtime leader of the longshore workers on the West Coast from the 1930s to the 1960s, when he talked about strike, he said every strike is a mini-revolution.” On the eve of the strike authorization vote by American Airlines flight attendants, Joe Burns...

Activists and organizers know that effective communication depends on connecting with people’s real needs. But we’re often baffled when people don’t act in their own interests or don’t identify others’ interests as intersecting with their own. To grapple with some of these questions, Steve turns to Stephanie Preston, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan and author of The Altruisti...

RP Book Club spent four weeks on The Case for a Job Guarantee , by Pavlina R. Tcherneva. Each week featured a different guest expert who led the discussion and answered questions. Listeners to this podcast will recognize their names, including Pavlina herself, Fadhel Kaboub, Ben Wilson, and Rohan Grey. We were also honored to have Bill Black and June Carbone join in. For this episode, Macro N Chee...

“...Because we recognize that taxes are not a funding operation, there's this myth that people who support MMT don't want to use fiscal policy to promote equity. Of course, taxes are redistribution … Things have gotten way out of hand, so taxation is also intended to promote equity, to affect distribution and allocation. Resource allocation.” Mat Forstater was on this podcast four years ago (episo...

The title of this week’s episode is taken from an article to be published in September’s Monthly Review. The author, Jason Hickel, talks to Steve about the topic in his third visit to the podcast. Before we look at the double objective of ecosocialism we must analyze the double crisis we’re facing – ecological and social. Both are caused by the same underlying issue: the capitalist mode of product...

It will come as no surprise to our listeners that countries of the Global South are mired in a foreign debt crisis and that default is directly tied to the lack of monetary sovereignty. Our friend Ndongo Samba Sylla, a Senegalese development economist, talks to Steve about the situation, how it came to be, and how it can be overcome. Countries of the Global South usually are tied to debt in a fore...

This week we’re bringing you all three sessions of the Real Progressives Book Club on L. Randall Wray’s Making Money Work for Us. RP Book Club is run by our volunteers with guest experts leading the discussion and taking questions from attendees.   This is much longer than our usual episodes of Macro N Cheese, so we’ve included the time codes for each session.  [1:43] — Session One...

“People talk about campaign finance being the problem as to why ‘progressive’ politicians can't get elected. But that's more of an effect of this rather than the cause, because let's say, Citizens United, the court ruling which now allows corporations to pretty much give unlimited donations to candidates. That's just the most recent evolution of a system which precludes all possibility for radical...

Is the US a failed state? Well, with a paralyzed economy, debt deflation, and a ruling elite waging class warfare on labor, what else should we call it? Economist Michael Hudson often writes and talks about the US role as a global force bending the rest of the world to its will. Or trying to. This week he and Steve bring the focus home, looking at the state of affairs in the US; breaking down the...

In this episode, David Correia and Tyler Wall, co-authors of Police: A Field Guide , lead a webinar about policing in the US. The common narrative about the police is intentionally misleading. Without a class analysis and an understanding of history, it will remain a problem with no solution. Policing isn’t a side-show to capitalist political economy. It’s part of the main stage. Far from engaging...

If you’ve recently chatted with a well-informed liberal – the kind who reads the NY Times or watches PBS NewsHour – you’ve heard encouraging things about the economy. You’ve heard that Biden’s doing a good job. Unemployment has gone down, wages have gone up. Why can’t you be happy about it all? To celebrate all this good news, we brought back our friend, Yeva Nersisyan, associate professor of econ...

It’s always interesting to get the insights of someone whose job places them near the beating heart of the imperial behemoth. Especially when they’ve begun to pull back the curtain and take a hard look at reality. Paul Gambles lives in Thailand where he specializes in emerging markets with MBMG Group. Paul and Steve talk about the clarity that MMT provides. The public is kept intentionally misinfo...