Dirua ezkerretan: MTM Dokumentala. Dirua bilatuz Maren Poitras-ekin

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Money on the Left: Finding the Money w/ Maren Poitras – MMT Documentary at DocLands DocPitch

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMdoWvOm2P0)

Documentary filmmaker Maren Poitras joins the podcast to discuss and share a teaser from Finding the Money, the first feature-length documentary on the past, present, and future of Modern Monetary Theory. The film is currently under consideration for audience and jury awards in the DocLands film festival. Head to the festival website to watch a longer clip and to vote for Finding the Money by May 10th: https://www.doclands.com/docpitch-fin….

Transkripzioa:

Intro

0:02

[Music] you are watching money on the left proudly presented in partnership with monthly

0:07

review online uh for this special episode i’m joined by documentary filmmaker martin poitras

0:14

martin is currently looking to wrap production on the first ever feature-length documentary film about

0:19

modern monetary theory titled finding the money the film tracks stephanie kelton

0:24

and other mmt economists as they work to take their theory from the margins to the mainstream it also

0:31

does really good work educating audiences about the history of money right and i think together

0:39

those two sort of directions and direct trajectories of the documentary promise to sort of go a long ways toward

0:46

helping the cause to finally dispel some of the founding myths of our

0:52

current neoliberal nightmare we’re thrilled about the halfway point through this episode

0:58

to be sharing a four-minute teaser from that film audio only listeners are invited to come

1:04

check it out on youtube and we’ll include the link in the show notes um but everyone is strongly encouraged to check

1:10

out the film’s website findingmoneyfilm.com and then promptly after this episode

1:18

head over to the docklands film festival page webpage um watch marin pitch the film

1:26

and then vote for finding the money for the audience award and anyone can vote so after this

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episode maybe during this episode if you want to open another tab go watch and vote for

1:39

maren’s clip for finding the money martin poitras welcome to money on the

1:44

left thank you thank good to see you billy and really happy to to be here

1:49

big fan good to see you too so we have you on here to talk about

1:55

your film project finding the money and we’re going to hear a little bit more from you very very shortly about your sort of

2:00

background and how you came to this project but before we get there could you tell us you know what is finding the money

2:06

what’s the story here yeah so finding the money follows stephanie kelton she’s part of a you know an underdog

2:13

group of economists who are seeking to flip our understanding of money debt and taxes really

2:19

upside down we have this debate happening every day over what the federal government can

2:25

afford in terms of covet relief or infrastructure or moving

2:30

into doing something about the crises of climate change and inequality the

2:35

question is often you know how are we going to pay for it where are we going to find the money and of course stephanie kelton says

2:42

since congress is the sole issuer of the us dollar you know finding the money is actually

2:47

the easy part so what we want to do in the film is really kind of have two parallel story arcs where we’re following

2:53

stephanie kelton and mmt economist in the modern day as they have this debate

2:59

over what the federal government can afford and why but this debate really traces back to a

3:05

debate about the origin story of the nature of money itself and so we bring

3:10

in kind of these historical examples and historical interludes which will be animated

3:16

and we go from you know 5 000 years ago in ancient mesopotamia we have clay tablets

3:21

to tally sticks in medieval england cowrie shells in west africa paper in the us colonies to digital

3:29

records on bank balance sheets today stored virtually in the cloud and the main question of this story arc

3:37

is to understand you know has money always been a real thing that we have to go out and find or has

3:44

money always been virtual and that really informs the debate we’re having today

3:50

about how much the federal government can afford to spend every historical interlude will will

3:55

give clues that that propel the modern timeline forward that bring us through this trajectory to

4:01

finally understanding you know what mmt economists say the national debt represents

4:06

there’s this concept that we build throughout the historical interludes that money always has two sides and that eventually builds to

4:14

understand that we can flip the national debt you know upside down to see the other side

4:20

i’d like to invite you to share a little bit about your personal and professional background and how that sort of led you to

4:26

this project yeah sure so i mean of course it’s been a bit of a circuitous path um

4:32

definitely not direct i mean going into college i intended to go to school for film and environment to do you know kind

4:39

of environmental documentaries but i kind of dropped the film part then and just focused on the environment

4:46

environmental science background food and agriculture and that kind of led me more to pursuing

4:52

the food and agriculture part living off the grid producing food farming

4:58

building that sort of thing and then kind of eventually once i had that grounding i feel like more i got

5:04

back to film and activism and and just trying to understand these bigger

5:09

societal systemic issues like climate change and inequality and kind of what’s causing them why we’re not doing

5:16

anything about them and what we maybe could do or what would be the most effective thing to do in terms of

5:21

my efforts and kind of purpose in life i guess um so so always thinking big picture but

5:28

um that you know of course led me to money eventually right and mmt but

5:35

of course you know it took a little while and i guess i originally was very interested in ecological economics and kind of

5:42

understanding economic growth specifically in an environmental context like thinking that we can have

5:48

exponential gdp growth on a finite planet um and why more people weren’t

5:54

questioning that or you know why is this the mantra of economics like the number one goal of

6:01

the field is to get economic growth right and it still is and people do question it and realize that it’s

6:07

maybe not the best metric of economic health and societal you know happiness or well-being

6:13

but eventually you know it’s the big question of what is the economy for um and maybe how could it operate

6:19

differently how could it operate sustainably you know within our planetary limits

6:25

and so i think in order to understand that question of you know how can we have an

6:32

economy that actually works for people and the planet how can we make that happen you have to

6:37

understand what money is right and you have to understand that we do have agency in this thing we

6:44

call the economy um that we’re not kind of powerless under this big natural force

6:49

of this external economy that we have to kind of placate if we

6:54

want to get any drugs you know maybe the film i originally set out to make wasn’t

6:59

about mmt it was maybe more about economic growth and i still want to really pursue that but but mmt is really i

7:06

think the foundation gets to the foundation of economics itself and we have to start at

7:12

the root right i mean start at the foundation of understanding money and the economy what it actually is

7:18

who creates it where it comes from you know who has power um only once we understand that can we

7:24

build upon more complexity right and so that’s what’s always really drawn me you know to this issue is kind of

7:30

unders like how can we have this really really complex science we call economics

7:36

built upon what might be completely faulty foundations right i mean the math is extraordinarily

7:42

complex and i’m like does it mean anything if it’s built upon a false foundation i don’t know

7:50

i’m trying to figure that out i think it’s you know really one of the most important stories not

7:55

being told right now and clearly you know it’s getting more and more attention and moving more and more into the mainstream

8:03

but is still a huge paradigm shift that really needs to reach you know a much wider segment of the

8:09

population from where it’s perhaps confined now within finance twitter or you know or even

8:16

academia but um of course it’s not accepted in academia either and that’s what lends the drama and the

8:23

conflict so important to a film and a story like this and what draw me to making a film you know you need the

8:30

conflict um and this story has plenty of that and it has really engaging characters you

8:36

know real people um and a real you know trajectory that’s unfolding in the present things are changing and

8:43

evolving every day so it’s important to document that process and so that’s where i just decided to jump in and start documenting

8:50

it um and then you know not of course not really knowing where it will lead so i’ll stop there no

8:58

i think that’s great and i think it’s it’s helpful maybe even a bit unusual to

9:03

probably have subjects of of a film kind of give you a narrative arc over

9:10

and over again in terms of and we’re about to watch the clip but um a favorite kind of saying or

9:15

credo for mmt advocates is like the first they ignore you then they uh laugh at

9:23

you then they fight you then you win and and it seems to me like they’re clearly at the

9:28

fight you stage right and that seems to be the kind of conviction here but i think that’s interesting in terms of the narrative arc right

9:35

um there’s something there that’s sort of like they’re ready to to help you shape the story but i i

9:42

wanted to to ask you just a little bit more about coming to mmt i think one of one of my favorite things about

9:47

interviewing people on this podcast and then just talking to people about

9:52

mmt in general is um i like to think of it as like a con conversion story

9:57

you know do you remember what one text or youtube video or what you know what was

10:04

the form or medium of your first encounter with mmt and do you remember kind of was it was it in that moment or was it

10:10

over time and over continued exposure to mmt that you went from this broad sort of interest in heterodoxy

10:16

ecological economics to the money question yeah definitely i guess one the first

10:23

thing i came across in one random book that i checked out from the library local library i just casually mentioned

10:30

that banks create money out of thin air when they make loans and i was just like wait what you know i

10:36

had never heard of that and so i was also trying to understand yeah what the heck happened in 2008

10:42

financial crisis like i was trying to catch up on that maybe around 2016. um and so that

10:49

was kind of my first thing that really grabbed me and i decided to dig into that and understand okay how exactly do

10:55

they do that and so i really just wanted to know the mechanics of how that worked and how they were allowed to do that

11:02

and that really led me more to positive money and public banking

11:07

you know i guess they’re more in the vein that private banks shouldn’t be allowed to do

11:12

this a guy i was working with you know we were both very skeptical of mmt at first and kind of mmt was

11:19

coming in and they were having these debates and i was reading these debates between like randall ray and whoever the

11:25

positive money economist was and so i was like i would like write out on my own you know write essays like

11:31

showing why mmt was like wrong and my positive money was right

11:36

um you know i was like money isn’t debt like that doesn’t make any sense like you know so it took me a while like

11:43

it took me definitely a while to buy in you know one guy i was working with was also very

11:48

skeptical and he was like you know what what if mmt is right and like we’ve been wrong

11:55

and i was like sweet great like if they’re right that would be great to know and we go from there you know i was always open

12:01

to figuring out what you know the truth is or what have you but um but i think uh you know he said

12:09

he kind of introduced this group mmt that i hadn’t heard of you know obviously they seem like a small you know group but he’s like

12:16

they want to supplant the entire field of macroeconomics you know they’re going to be the new paradigm of

12:22

macroeconomics and that kind of got my attention i was like oh wow that’s pretty assertive you know or like that’s pretty

12:29

bold um but sure i guess i’ll i’ll look into what they’re saying

12:34

and so final you know finally reading randy ray’s books and um and and more

12:41

more and more books um actually even felix martin’s book money

12:48

um the historical perspective and randy ray has a two that’s what really made it all come

12:53

together and click for me was kind of understanding the history of money and so that really

12:58

is a big important part of the framing of finding the money is you know why i also call it finding the money is we kind of go

13:04

through this historical exploration to find the nature of money itself because

13:09

i think we have to go back and kind of re-examine the foundational story of

13:14

money the origin story of money in order to understand you know the nature of money and i think that

13:21

is the root of the conflict today when we’re having a debate in 2021 about how much the federal

13:26

government can afford to spend on infrastructure or on the coronavirus crisis or on climate change

13:32

that debate actually directly you know traces back to a thousand-year-old debate about what money is and where it comes from um and of

13:39

course that traces back to to the myth of barter the the story that we find in conventional mainstream economic

13:46

textbooks so for me a lot goes back to there and that’s when things really clicked for me

13:53

so you came by it pretty honestly right you came with a set of questions and and worked at it and kept reading and we’re

14:00

skeptical i think that’s that’s tremendous um so that that brings us to uh maybe

14:08

last spring viewers and listeners to this podcast and

14:14

may have seen uh and maybe even contributed to a crowdfunding campaign

14:20

for finding the money um we are thrilled and part of the reason we’re doing a video as well as audio version of this um

14:27

interview is we’re thrilled to share um a bit of that project and and um a

14:32

glimpse of where it is now and where it it’s going to go and there’s some excitement here because it’s part

14:38

of a film fest called doc land yeah right and and so you’re gonna we’re

14:45

gonna watch a clip um could you set it up for us and then we’ll talk a bit about the the

14:50

competition and how people can get involved so yeah doc lands film festival is happens in san rafael

14:56

california in the bay area a well-known documentary film festival and they have this thing called dock

15:02

pitch where they pick um five films in production to pitch their project and we’re all

15:09

gonna get receive a grant um generously from the california film institute and then

15:15

we all will be showing a three to five minute teaser of our films and talking about our

15:20

projects and encouraging anyone in the world to vote for the project that they

15:26

believe in and there will be an audience award to win a significant sum towards production um thirty

15:31

thousand dollars so this is you know really big opportunity for this project and it’s a really great way to

15:38

you know contribute with without having to give your own money um so by voting um would make a

15:44

tremendous difference to seeing this film uh move forward in production because as

15:49

most people know this is an independent production so it just does take time to put together the

15:55

financing um for a film like this and you know it can people can work on

16:00

these films for a while but i you know i think we know this story is very urgent and timely and the quicker

16:05

we can get it out the better so that’s certainly my objective you know it’s been a difficult year with covid but

16:12

you know we do have kind of a rough assembly we just need to shoot a bit more to fill in gaps and

16:18

then we will go into you know really the main edit and and post-production so um the only

16:24

thing slowing us down at this point is funding so this is huge and and then the momentum that will come

16:31

from this exposure as well is is really important so um so this will just be the teaser for the film

16:37

um at this point it’s about four minutes and i give a little pitch description as

16:43

well on the website that that you can see great let’s watch it

16:54

i mean i’ve been doing this now for a lot of years in front of mostly i won’t say hostile audiences but

17:01

in a sense usually when i show up for an appearance it’s like walking into the lion’s den our next

17:08

speaker is going to introduce this crazy radical idea that we maybe don’t need to tax people

17:15

in order to get their money to pay for things introducing this radical idea is

17:20

stephanie kelton i come with an unconventional message we think of spending and taxing

17:28

as two sides of the same coin if we want to fund a new program the question is how

17:33

are you going to pay for it where will you get the money you have to find the money that’s not how it works okay the way

17:39

that the conventional story goes uncle sam needs money

17:44

if uncle sam wants to spend uncle sam has to find some money he can tax and he can borrow

17:51

once it’s collected the dollars after that it can spend we flip that around completely an

17:58

unconventional economic theory is gaining some traction modern monetary theory mmt and one of

18:03

its leading proponents is professor stephanie kelton she has advised bernie sanders campaign and she argues

18:09

that almost everything we are told about the deficit is wrong over 28 trillion dollars in

18:15

debt there will be a day of record if you’re looking for more coveted bailout money we don’t have it

18:20

how are we going to pay for it congress has spent all the money you don’t find the money it’s not a matter of finding the money

18:27

they don’t find the money they created they create it through a keystroke

18:32

[Music] washington holds the power of the purse they don’t need to come to the rest of

18:38

us to get dollars in order to be able to spend dollars they’re the source of the us currency governments

18:45

have to spend first how can you tax back

18:50

dollars that no one has in a real sense it is as simple as that

18:55

but there’s nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact this idea of so-called modern monetary

19:02

theory that all government debts can be paid by printing money first they ignore you then they ridicule

19:09

you then they fight you and then you win and for many years we felt ignored you can’t

19:17

do what you’re looking to do with 20 trillion in debt we want to lift this crushing burden of debt off our children and grandchildren the

19:23

government debt is not a burden on anyone it is exactly the opposite zimbabwe printed more currency to pay

19:30

its bills too that leads to inflation no no no inflation is the constraint

19:35

but at some point they started laughing at us modern monetary theory i think of all the ideas i’ve ever heard

19:41

in my lifetime that’s one of the stupidest i mean we were always asking ourselves the question do

19:47

conventional economists understand what we’re speaking of

19:52

mmt is confused the problem of deficits of course is that you have to pay back the money

19:59

we do not have to repay the debt or is it that they actually don’t

20:05

understand and then to the fight you stage and so we’re in the fight you stage modern monetary theory

20:13

tells us that the debt doesn’t matter this theory is complete bill gates recently took

20:18

exception with mmt calling it crazy talk how are you going to pay for it america’s broke out of controlled debt the debt that we are going to have

20:25

to pay back we don’t have any money the government doesn’t need money the government needs us to need money

20:31

the difference is not a trivial one it changes everything it changes our view

20:37

of the nature of money the true story of money is not the story that i’ve been told

20:51

so that was really great and there’s there’s a lot to talk about in there um i know our audience is going to be

20:56

interested to hear a little bit about some of the artistic choices that you’re making in the film and so i’d invite you to share about

21:02

those but i think you know watching it again i’m really struck

21:08

by the sort of access that you have to some of mmt’s sort of most prominent advocates

21:15

and specifically stephanie kelton and i think you know a lot of our listeners and viewers will have um

21:22

you know seen talks um um uh from stephanie but not like her setting

21:27

up for a talk or reflecting on talks so i think that’s really remarkable and i’d invite you to share a little bit

21:32

about is that part of your process and part of your thinking it’s sort of getting behind the scenes of

21:38

of the fight as they put it yeah definitely i think you know that is kind of what

21:44

documentary is all about is is kind of showing you the behind the scenes stephanie’s been really generous letting me you know

21:50

follow her around a bit and like i said um you know in terms of aesthetic choices it’s a little bit more

21:56

practical i feel like just grabbing a camera and going you know in a lot of ways and just trying to

22:02

capture what i can you know as efficiently as i can and affordably as i can so

22:08

um so as you know you know i’ve been trying to keep my budget down and you helped with our main interview set up so i think you know a

22:16

lot of the film is really getting to know stephanie you know as a person because

22:21

like like you mentioned you know there are a lot of youtube videos and lectures available online and those are really really

22:27

important for diving into the material but they don’t kind of give you that perspective on the whole story and the

22:34

whole picture and so i think understanding what drives people what motivates them

22:39

and what is the core of this conflict you know the aesthetic choices i made in terms of

22:44

the the interview subject speaking directly into the camera just helps you establish that kind of

22:50

rapport um and they’re making bold statements you know and so you have to you have to kind of decide if you trust this person

22:57

or not um based on kind of what what they say and then and what you see that motivates

23:03

them um so that’s what’s really important for me and understanding myself you know kind of what what motivates stephanie and

23:09

we’ve had some great talks about there was this really nice moment that i thought you know where she talks about

23:16

climate change and she says she thinks you know mmt just grabs you by the shirt and

23:21

shakes you you know when we talk about climate change that you know we’re going to look back in 10

23:26

years with such regret you know if if the reason we’re not doing what needs to be done is just

23:32

because we don’t understand the monetary system well enough you know i mean she thinks it’s it’s crazy right it’s crazy that the

23:39

reason why we wouldn’t spend or do you know do what needed to be done to transform the

23:45

economy to prevent climate change you know the repercussions of that are going to be enormous for our actual children and

23:52

grandchildren right um and so so i think you know that’s a lot of what

23:57

what motivates her and you’re able to see that you know um in in the film and then see behind

24:02

and then of course it is it is the fight so there’s a story arc of you know kind of watching her

24:09

her struggle in a way you know obviously she is on an upward trajectory and succeeding in so many ways and some

24:15

people would argue you know already won in this context of coronavirus and the crisis and the new paradigm kind of

24:22

were in where the government did respond in a big way you know did a lot of

24:28

spending to get us out of the covet crisis and through it and i really think they like i mean

24:33

almost all of the credit to that should go towards mmt folks and and stephanie it really

24:38

shows the work she’s been doing has been incredibly successful you know working behind the scenes with with politicians

24:44

with members of of congress and local politicians to understand that you know they can spend

24:51

more there aren’t going to be crazy repercussions in terms of the national debt or interest rates um that’s not what we

24:59

need to be worrying about and so she has in many ways succeeded you know in in the us responding to this crisis

25:08

much more effectively than they responded to the 2008 crisis right but i wouldn’t say you know they’ve

25:15

quite won yet i think there is a ways to go and we do still hear you know the same

25:20

the same old talking points that oh don’t push it too far don’t push it too far you know any minute

25:25

we could get spiking interest rates and spiking hyperinflation you never know you never know where it’s gonna pop up

25:32

any minute but yes this is the story arc that really carries the film is is stephanie’s story and stephanie

25:39

who kind of you know right is the face of this group and we bring in other voices really important voices of other mmt economists randy ray matt

25:47

forstadter louis you know um foddle kaboom many more that we that we interview um

25:54

who are all you know amazing individuals in and of themselves and so it’s really you know like a small group of underdogs

26:01

right that are kind of taking on the big establishment of mainstream economics and the question is

26:07

you know are they going to win in their in their struggle and in their fight to kind of revolutionize the entire field

26:16

sure so i think um i i’d like to talk a little bit about audience and and i think that relates to

26:23

what you’re talking about there right you’re speaking with some of the sort of primary i mean certainly stephanie is is the

26:30

most prominent advocate and um principal theorist of modern monetary theory and then others

26:36

that we spoke with at the uh the stony brook conference right um but also at those conferences i

26:43

think we we met at the the new school conference in what 2018 and you were filming there

26:48

um there’s so many people there who are interested and sort of i think motivated for a number of different

26:54

reasons a lot like others like you who are there to answer questions right um

26:59

to find answers to questions about like degrowth and you know that sort of stuff so do you imagine i i

27:06

guess i’m sort of setting you up for a specific kind of answer but but can you tell us a little bit about the i think that that’s part of your

27:11

audience am i wrong people looking for answers well yeah so i mean the people who are like so the

27:17

broader mmt community certainly we can imagine as an audience there’s also the the sort of policy

27:23

makers as an audience who do you sort of think of when you’re

27:29

editing and filming these interviews and conceiving of this project is it

27:34

as specific as that or is it more broad yeah i mean honestly i mean i have the

27:40

biggest ambition of the broadest audience possible i mean i really do because this and this film you know we talked

27:47

about the the lectures that are out there and i think you know there is a lot available for folks who are already interested in

27:54

the subject and searching for answers but this is a story that puts the whole thing together in an entertaining

28:01

package right it’s it’s it’s bite size and it’s digestible for the

28:06

the general public so that’s really my whole goal is to is to kind of condense the full

28:12

story into an inner like first and foremost an entertaining film um and so that shows the conflict

28:20

it shows both sides it kind of there are a lot of questions raised about

28:26

you know kind of who knows what or you know is this some kind of a dark conspiracy that we don’t understand these basics

28:32

about who creates the money or you know could this actually be a misunderstanding that goes back much

28:38

much further to our the story we tell about the nature of money itself and so of course not making any

28:46

assumptions that people know mainstream economics yet so and sometimes that’s easier right if you’re

28:51

not steeped in mainstream economics already but then you kind of have to first show okay what do the economists actually say

28:58

um and then juxtapose that with what mmt is saying and how that’s the opposite and luckily you know these aren’t just economic

29:05

sayings that we that we hear only if you are in an economics class i mean we hear this every day from politicians and

29:11

newscasters you know they’re always asking what are we going to do about the national debt you know what about the

29:17

burden on our grandchildren how are you going to pay for it i mean this is the core of our political debate that comes

29:22

up every single day and i just believe you know all voters have a right to participate in this debate and

29:28

we can’t you know in a democracy i think eventually the film really wants to show that the economy itself

29:35

and economics itself you know is really just politics you know is something that we

29:41

create as a system you know to to provision for each other in a society

29:48

you know what is the economy it’s how we decide to share and distribute the stuff that we need to survive and

29:56

the economy itself is not an external you know kind of natural force that we’re powerless against that

30:01

we create it to begin with you know we write the rules it’s not these kind of mysterious laws of the universe that

30:07

we’re trying to figure out right it’s like we created it we should know what the darn rules are um we should know how it functions and

30:14

we should know how we might want to change it if we want to improve any problems that we see coming up which

30:20

i think there are some problems um that we could identify and so i very much think that this is

30:28

the center of the political debate that we can’t have for you know debate around what to do

30:35

about climate change what to do about inequality what to do about a lot of issues when we’re we’re just having the wrong

30:41

debate right the foundations aren’t there to have the correct debate and that’s what mmt i think

30:46

often says their goal is is just to have a better public debate about these issues to debate the real

30:53

issues you know i think it really has a huge potential to shift you know the traditional partisan divide

30:58

that we see in this country between left and right and you know taxing and spending

31:04

and what that means that’s why it’s so important for this story to reach beyond

31:09

you know even partisan divisions and so i wanted to reach the the widest audience

31:14

possible so that we can have a real debate about you know policies no i mean

31:21

that yeah that’s amazing here here broadest possible audience and i think that that clip that you showed

31:26

um you know should put to bed any concerns people have about this being boring right um

31:32

certainly very engaging and and having had um the privilege i guess of seeing some of

31:37

the other footage that you have i can promise that it’s it’s not boring uh that there’s some really really exciting stuff and great

31:44

stuff that that you’ve captured both from mmt folks and others right

31:49

so without uh going too far down that direction i want to i want to you know

31:55

ask you what can people do to make sure that that that the film comes together that that

32:00

this audience award goes to you and that you get the the grant money that that you need to finish this film

32:06

yeah i mean of course just i would appreciate every vote if people can just take the time to go to the website at dockland stock pitch

32:13

there will be a link um in the show notes i assume yeah show notes and a youtube video yeah

32:19

okay so go go to vote for the film on docklands anyone can vote so of course

32:24

share with your friends and family they can vote as well so of course there’s social media and i’m just hoping to reach the mmt

32:31

audience that i know is out there and that have already been really generous in terms of the crowdfunding campaign

32:37

just to even reach a wider audience to start getting folks involved at this stage

32:42

is just important for a film to to show the support and then to to gain funding to to bring the film to

32:48

fruition and all the way through to a successful distribution you know having kind of an engaged

32:54

audience is really important and to ensure that you know there will be an audience and then this maybe this niche audience of mmt fans

33:01

that already exists will help spread the film to the wider audience that we really hope to reach we also have

33:06

our website which will have a link it’s www www.findingmoneyfilm.com

33:12

we still have a gofundme open for right now so if you do feel like giving more financially you

33:20

can do so tax deductible donations you know we’re really really open to that um and i’m of course always

33:26

available to talk to if you’d like to get you know more involved if you have skills to contribute

33:32

or want to talk yeah check out our website and connect you can sign up for our email list to get updates

33:37

so go to the doc lands website first and foremost vote for the docs the doc pitch for finding the

33:43

money yes well yes one one person one vote one

33:50

person and it’ll it’ll go till it’ll be open until may 10th so please get your vote in and share share

33:57

all the way until may 10th so you have a few days after this is published um to make sure

34:04

to get that done i would suggest just do it now right you’re either on your computer or your phone

34:09

click the link go vote yes please marvin poitches thank you so much for

34:14

joining us on money on the left yeah it was my pleasure i feel like we could talk all

34:20

day absolutely

34:43

[Music]

34:51

[Music]

oooooo

ooo

Finding the Money: A Conversation with Documentary Filmmaker Maren Poitras

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLeCLnYLfOE)

The name of the program is “Finding the Money: There’s Another Side to the National Debt”–this also happens to be the name of Maren’s new feature film documentary.

Maren Poitras’s feature documentary debut is “Finding the Money,” which world premiered at Woodstock Film Festival 2023, and received the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Green Film Festival of San Francisco. It will be widely available in May 2024.

Originally from the California Bay Area, Maren has a background in environmental science and agriculture from UC Berkeley. She is Associate Producer with Codebreaker Films on Enemies of the State (2020) and Reality Winner (2023).

The central question “Finding the Money” asks is this: Can a new economic theory revolutionize our ability to tackle the climate crisis, wealth inequality, a substandard health care system and other issues, and help create a more equitable and fair society?

An underdog group of economists is on a mission to do so and instigate a paradigm shift by flipping our understanding of the national debt — and the nature of money — upside down.

“Finding the Money” follows former chief economist to Senator Bernie Sanders, Stephanie Kelton, on a journey through Modern Money Theory or “MMT,” to unveil a deeper story about money, injecting new hope and empowering democracies around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century: from climate change to inequality.

After the film was shown this past October at the Bend, OR Film Festival, the Bend Film Team said: “In an era of dismantling old ideas and exploring alternative solutions, the relevance and timeliness of this doc is remarkable. A conversation starter and an underdog story about money and economy.”

Transkripzioa:

Introduction

0:03

[Music]

0:12

[Music]

1:01

welcome hi everyone I’m Michael Wayne uh this is voices for the future the first

1:06

um program of 2024 that I remember the year um with ad Judith and we’re very excited and

1:14

delighted to have Marin uh pess as our guest Marin is the um filmmaker behind

1:22

the film that’s coming out in the spring finding the money so I’ll I’ll introduce

1:27

Marin um her her documentary it’s a feature documentary debut finding the

1:32

money World premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival 2023 and received the

1:38

audience Award for best feature film at the green Film Festival of San Francisco it’ll be widely available in the spring

1:44

of this year Marin’s originally from the California Bay Area and has a background in environmental science and agriculture

1:51

from UC Berkeley and she is associate producer with codebreaker films on

1:56

enemies of the state which came out in 2020 and reality winter 2023 and I’ll just say a few things

2:04

about finding the money the film the central question finding the money asked is this can a new economic theory

2:11

revolutionize our ability to tackle the CL climate crisis wealth inequality a

2:16

substandard Health Care system and other issues and help create a more Equitable and fair Society the film shows that an

2:24

underground group Underdog group of economists is on a mission to do so and instigating paradigm shift by flipping

2:31

our understanding of the national debt and the nature of money upside down and finding the Money Follows former Chief

2:38

Economist to Bernie Sanders Stephanie Kelton on a journey through Modern

2:43

monetary Theory or mmt to unveil a deeper story about money injecting New

2:49

Hope and empowering democracies around the world to tackle the biggest challenges of the 21st century from

2:56

climate change to inequality so wel welcome Ain uh thanks

3:01

so much for having me yeah thank you for your willingness so the first thing I want to ask is just your own background

3:09

and your journey to making this film and What attracted you to the subject and and you know for many people economics

3:17

is something that just is something they tune out but you’ve made it very accessible very easy to understand and

3:24

also something that people will that mind-bending when they understand when

3:29

they see what you’re saying in the what everyone is saying in the film so anyway yeah yeah yeah so no I guess um the

3:37

spark for me was many some years ago now but um like you kind of mentioned my background is more in environmental

3:43

science and um see myself more as a climate activist and so I think um I was

3:48

really trying to understand these these big picture questions of you know what are some of the root causes of climate

3:54

change and how can we um I think I realized that systemic change was needed

3:59

um and so you really have to look at the the roots of the of the systems that we live in um rather than maybe a lot of

4:05

Band-Aid Solutions or what what they would like to call you know market-based solutions to climate change um because

4:11

always climate and the environment is somehow linked to the economy you know usually they’re pitted against each

4:17

other like they’re two different things like um you know we can’t have a healthy environment if we don’t have a health

4:22

you know or we can’t have a healthy economy if we’re not kind of trashing the environment somehow um and so I

4:29

always saw a bit of a disconnect between economics and and Environmental Studies and so um you know one day when I’m

4:36

perusing more ecological economics literature where which is where I um started from more um which is not to be

4:43

confused with environmental economics two very different things um and it kind

4:48

of they raised a question or a spark around oh you know how Banks create money too when they make loans I was

4:53

like what you know like wait what so that just kind of stopped me in my tracks and somehow led me on this

4:58

circuitous path path to this story about mmt and when I finally landed on um this

5:04

small group of folks they were such characters in and of themselves and the controversy is actually what brought me

5:10

in I guess um that there was so much conflict or controversy around just what seems to be an effort to describe the

5:17

monetary system that we already have today and so my biggest question was always you know who how can we not you

5:24

know if this is a system that we have created why is there kind of this this mystery shroud it and you know there

5:31

seem to be so many mysteries of how the economy works like it’s some kind of you know natural mysterious system that we

5:37

need to play Kate but um long story short you know the the characters drew

5:43

me into MNT and the the simple core of their message which was such a reverse

5:48

of what you know I had heard over the course of my life about the national debt and the nature of money and the way

5:53

I thought of things um you know especially just coming from a public

5:58

policy persp perspective of what the federal government can afford um when we’re talking about enormous challenges

6:04

like climate change and the the green New Deal inequality you know first question is always how are you going to pay for it um so if that’s not the right

6:12

question you know then what is and you know what is actually possible um and

6:18

what can we do to solve these enormous challenges are they solvable on a scale and time frame that we had maybe given

6:24

up on almost already um so I think yeah that kind of led me to on this path and

6:30

so I just you know I felt like before I could even make a film let’s say about ecological economics and some of the

6:37

paradoxes of of an economy that’s growing forever in material output and GDP material throughput um you know

6:45

before I could even talk about that I have to understand this first very root basic Assumption of what is money to

6:51

begin with um and where does it come from so I had to start there I guess

6:57

well then let’s start there what is money where does it come from what’s the basis of the modern monetary Theory so

7:03

people who are not familiar with it at all can you can tell our listeners yeah

7:08

yeah and so in the film I kind of lay it out in chapters as well and the first chapter is You Know M the the first

7:14

point of mmt is that the federal government is the issuer of the currency so when you think about you always have

7:21

to think about a specific currency let’s say Warren Mosler says and and I don’t I didn’t fit this into the film but I

7:27

something that’s really stuck with me that he always says is that you know never don’t he doesn’t ever like to even use the word money um it’s too General

7:35

it’s too vague so you can if you’re if you can practice being specific about what monetary instrument what Financial

7:40

instrument you’re speaking of which currency are you speaking of um then it’s always easier to trace where does

7:46

it actually come from and um and where’s it going and who’s holding it because in the film you know we start to see that

7:53

money if it is issued by a government um which so you can think of you know any

7:58

currency in the world today um there are different levels of monetary sovereignty and we can go over that and that’s also

8:05

not really able to fit in the film so there’s a much bigger world out there but starting with the the basic

8:11

questions of what is money where does it come from in the film we lay out that uh it’s actually the federal government in

8:17

the United States at least that is the issue of the US dollar and you can track

8:22

it because money always has two sides it always is a debt of the issuer and an

8:27

asset to the holder the Creditor so um that’s you know if you start just that

8:33

basic shift of starting to think of money as an accounting tool that always

8:38

has two sides kind of always has a plus and a minus a debt and a credit then

8:43

everything starts to shift when you’re changing your story that you tell about money from being an a natural object

8:49

itself like let’s say gold um something you know you can touch and hold and dig out from the ground and a scarce itself

8:56

um and natural then you start start to yeah to change your whole conception of how the system works but we can dive

9:03

into that more yeah um so so you you mentioned that the question that always

9:09

gets asked how are you g to pay for it and I want to contrast that with the

9:15

title of the film finding the money so what does that mean finding the money um

9:22

and how does that and and especially relative to how are you going to pay for

9:27

it yeah so I think so the the the play on it’s kind of a play on words and then it’s you know Stephanie’s main one of

9:35

her main lines in the film is that you know finding the money is actually the easy part you don’t have to go out and

9:40

find the money it’s it’s so we’re shifting that Paradigm from money is something you have to go out and find in

9:45

nature that the government has to go out and find just like everyone else like it wasn’t the issuer of the currency um and

9:52

so it’s that root story of the nature of money is is it a commodity is it a physical thing or is it um you know a

10:00

social accounting Ledger um then money isn’t exactly something the

10:05

federal government needs to go out and find but throughout this story we’re kind of finding the nature of money as well in my mind um and so it’s kind of

10:12

an exploration but um but the the the film is trying to kind of show that

10:18

money isn’t really something you can go out and find and that’s where uh we need to have a shift and and and change the

10:24

way we talk about money and the national debt and what the federal government can’t afford um so we kind of want to

10:30

replace that question maybe of how are you going to pay for it with how are you actually going to Resource it um what

10:37

are the real resources you really need for this project you’re proposing if it’s a great New Deal um you know if

10:43

it’s housing for all housing if it’s healthare those all have different real resource needs um and so you know you

10:50

actually need to look into it and look into the resources your Society has how much is available how much is currently

10:56

unemployed how much can be put you know kind of put into cultivation let’s say or increased capacity through you know a

11:03

thoughtful investment public provisioning investment um then we can

11:09

start thinking about how you know do we have the resources to do this project because if so you know money is not one

11:15

of those scarce resources that we need to put into that process money is really just the organizing tool um to help

11:24

facilitate the production and organization and distribution of those real resources towards a goal that we

11:30

collectively have to decide I’m sure you dealt with that in

11:35

making the film you had to raise money to make your film you had to find money right and you had the resources you had

11:41

the people you had the intelligence you had the you know skills yeah yeah yeah

11:46

always ironic and frustrating that money is not flowing easily towards me but um

11:52

but whatever you know so so yeah it was it’s it’s definitely been a very independent production um and a bit of a

11:57

shring production itself so um so yeah we were not certainly not uh finding a

12:04

lot of money flowing towards us but uh if we were the issue of the currency or maybe if the federal government like

12:10

some other countries you know decided to fund independent film or the Arts um we would be in a little better situation in

12:16

terms of the diversity of stories that can be told yeah so I want to share my

12:21

screen talking about money and and um a theme in the film always is the Deb and

12:29

and many images from various presidents and and what has always drained PE um

12:35

drilled in people’s mind is the national debt so these are two images the one from Top is from I think

12:43

US debt clock or debt clock. org and the bottom one uh which you show in the film

12:49

this and this actually is ticking I just did a screenshot so it was at a couple

12:56

hours ago I did this and the US debt was 34 trillion and then this is the famous debt

13:02

National Debt Clock in Midtown Manhattan around Bryant um Park and this was I

13:08

don’t know how long ago it was 31 trillion so so you know we we um have it

13:15

drilled in our head as I said that the debt you know we is is gonna take us

13:21

down us is broke we can’t pay for it how you know how are we going to pay for it

13:27

we can’t we can’t do anything that’ll help people we had enhanced child tax credit for a year but we couldn’t

13:34

continue that so so a central theme that gets in the film finding the money that

13:41

gets keep talking about was the debt is is not the question and Stephanie Kell

13:47

wrote a bestselling book the deficit myth so I’m wondering if you could um say more about that Marin yeah yeah and so laying it out in

13:54

the film hopefully you start to see the pieces that need to come together to get to this kind of Revelation almost as as

13:59

it was for myself to really understand what the national debt Clock simply represents um and you know it’s usually

14:05

portrayed as representing our debt you know like the taxpayer’s debt this is a debt that us and our children and our

14:12

grandchildren are going to have to pay back someday um it’s just like if you take out a mortgage on a house you have

14:17

to pay that back um but just like a mortgage on a house it also has two

14:22

sides um so we find through the film um the issue of the currency the dollar the national

14:29

debt simply represents in the end the number of dollars the federal government has created and spent into the economy

14:37

and not yet taxed back that difference is what’s basically left the money

14:42

that’s left circulating in the economy it’s what’s left in our savings accounts um and they get trans typically through

14:49

the accounting I we can show you it gets transformed into treasury bonds today and those treasury bonds build the notes

14:55

we call the national debt that that that accounting record um so so that’s really

15:03

all it is it’s just an accounting record of you know the history of the United States from the beginning how many

15:09

dollars have been spent and not yet Tex back that currently reside you know as Savings of the private sector which is

15:14

you and me taxpayers um and that includes some foreign entities that you know that includes a lot of domestic

15:21

entities businesses what have you so it’s not actually the taxpayers debt

15:26

because as Randy often says the taxpayers debt is the taxes that they have to owe the dollars the government’s

15:33

debt is the opposite it’s our asset it’s our savings and those instruments are what we use to pay our taxes then later

15:40

so without a debt or deficit you can conversely understand um it would be

15:46

very difficult for Americans to have dollars to save in their pockets without the national debt so we we see that it’s

15:53

not uh a limit in terms of borrowing like how much can we borrow to pay for a federal priority it’s more a limit of

16:00

how much money can we create and spend without causing a inflation problem or a

16:05

real resource problem or an ecological problem um so that’s the limit there’s always limit we need to keep in mind

16:12

because this is you know an important accounting record that we don’t want to just you know obviously core message

16:17

here is you can’t just print and spend whatever you want and expect there to be no consequences um that’s often a Trope

16:24

uh um you know kind of put upon mmt but uh that’s not of course what they say

16:30

they say very focused on the limits um when you shift from understanding the limit as how much we could borrow to how

16:36

much can we spend it it it is a very different way of budgeting and a very

16:42

different limit so when you talk about how the federal government should be thinking about and you know proposing

16:47

new legislation and analyzing new legislation today we have the CBO the Congressional budget office who analyzes

16:54

how much is this going to add to the debt and then they kind of leave it there um as if it’s too much then it

16:59

will be terrible um so but they don’t do the hard work and the necessary work of saying what resources would the specific

17:07

proposition use um and are there going to be pressure points and inflationary

17:12

you know inflationary impacts from this spending no matter the size of the debt or the deficit at a certain you know it

17:20

become it does matter what that that ultimate stock is but it’s very important where those flows are going um

17:26

where the spending flows are going and whether there’s capacity in those specific sectors so there’s a lot of

17:31

work you know that the government should be doing today to be more fiscally responsible I think once you understand

17:37

from an mm’s perspective we’re not analyzing our our budgetary proposals

17:42

well enough you know we should be analyzing them more for inflationary impact and be more concerned about inflationary impact every time the

17:49

government spends no matter what no matter whether it’s paid for or not whether it’s offset by certain taxes or

17:55

not um we have to be looking at at the spending and I think um this enables us to be more concerned more proactive and

18:02

more successful at preventing inflation than we would be without

18:08

it yeah maybe you can explain how inflation figures into all this because I think that is most people’s objection

18:15

oh well this is going to cause inflation and then that’s going to hit the average person and put them into more debt

18:21

exactly yeah and so so everyone you know recognizes that we certainly don’t want out of control inflation right and and

18:28

certainly mmt it’s just it was it’s always been very hard to get past you know the first kind of maybe media

18:34

representation of mmt or the first conception that most economists who have heard of it say oh those are those crazy

18:39

people that say you can create as much money as you want and there are no consequences and it will never cause inflation um that’s again not not quite

18:48

true so they really mmt will say we really want us to focus more on inflation um and be more concerned about

18:53

it so they say you know inflation is the limit um to government spending and so

18:59

there you know there has been a big debate within economics now for the last couple years since the pandemic started

19:04

and we started you know to get some inflationary pressures specifically after the you know the start of the war

19:09

in Ukraine and and oil prices there um and so when you look at different inflationary episodes in the US um

19:17

through time you know we have this one we have the last one in the 70s um and then around you know the world wars um

19:23

you can see you know what what what what is you need to look what is causing the

19:29

inflation right that’s like the first thing we should stop and do but economists for some reason don’t want to

19:35

stop and do that because the only tool that they say they have or that they say the government has to deal with

19:40

inflation is simply the fed and its tool to raise interest rates or lower interest rates which is known as

19:46

monetary policy you know it’s basically this one simple tool it’s what they’ve got and so you know if if all you have

19:53

is a h a nail everything looks like a hammer right so I think um

19:59

if this is your only tool to deal with it they want to simplify the story into saying okay you know it’s a demand side

20:05

problem so that’s that’s maybe where uh the theory of the current theory that the FED is using the mainstream

20:12

textbooks talk about of how monetary policy raising interest rates can lower inflation but the problem is you know we

20:18

just aren’t we just don’t see that in in the real world you know we don’t see the consequences of raising interest rates

20:24

as a onetoone relationship to lowering inflation now inflation has come down

20:30

thank goodness you know probably in spite of the the interest rate Rises um

20:36

because as mmt will will point out there’s another side to that where with the stock of the national debt as we

20:41

just saw at 34 trillion um when the FED voluntarily is deciding to raise rates

20:48

from around zero to 5% that means effectively that the go the federal

20:53

government is having to deficit spend create and spend an extra trillion dollars as 5% interest on that stock of

21:00

debt so that extra trillion dollars is being created and put into someone’s pocket to you know uh definitionally the

21:07

wealthier who by definition hold the most savings are getting the most of that deficit spending so it as waren

21:14

Mosler will say you know it’s highly regressive it’s it’s basically univers it’s basically basic income for but only

21:20

for the rich um so it’s kind of the opposite of what you would think um we would want to be doing so so we’re

21:26

putting more money into the economy in a way through that deficit spending um through the raise in interest rates and

21:32

we’re not you know we haven’t the FED hasn’t managed to cause a high unemployment um and uh and that’s so

21:39

that’s what they think the the their High interest rates are supposed to bring unemployment up it’s actually

21:45

supposed to kick people out of work so that you know labor becomes more precarious in a way so they’re willing

21:51

to take lower wages um and so that’s their Theory however in you know

21:56

unemployment has not gone G up um it were you know it’s remained for for whatever reason probably through the the

22:03

fiscal you know the strong fiscal policies that were were put in through covid um we haven’t seen you know the

22:10

effects the the expected effects of of higher interest rates and indeed the FED itself will say you know they just don’t

22:17

have the real world evidence they don’t they don’t have the evidence they they haven’t published a paper that I’m aware

22:23

of that shows you know this this causal link between interest rates and inflation what they have now is

22:29

something called inflation expectations is their theory that the only thing that can bring inflation down is is if we

22:35

expect inflation to come down um and so it’s you know and so they’re just tying

22:40

themselves in these very intricate knots and I it always to me comes down to an

22:45

understanding of what is money and where is it coming from and then we can start to have a much better conversation about

22:51

how we can deal with inflation and deal with our policy priorities um we know we’re talking in in circles if you’re

22:57

trying to to follow mainstream economic experts and I’m really sorry to have to

23:02

say that but um but but yeah it it is unfortunate and so you know on the flip

23:08

side mmt would say there’s this whole Suite of policies that we can use that the Federal Government Can employ to

23:14

help prevent and deal with inflation you prevent it from in the first place or deal with it once we have it depending

23:19

on what’s causing it so in the film we go over a little bit you know and the the pandemic caused specific you know

23:25

shortages of of goods you know people where factories were shut and then we had a shipping backlog um and so there

23:32

are very specific bottlenecks you know we had a very specifically there was a chip shortage you know and that led to a

23:38

huge increase in the cost you know cars fact factories being shut down a huge increase in the cost of used cars so we

23:44

saw that in the the CPI index um and so that was a very specific thing um maybe

23:50

even contributed to by by Bitcoin as well and a lot of Chip demand but um you

23:56

know if that’s the cause of your inflation and all of a sudden you know that’s what’s feeding the rise in prices

24:01

it’s a very specific thing or it’s a very specific thing in energy is usually where US inflation has always come from

24:07

it’s Energy prices oil prices for a very oild dependent economy right um it kind of is the the foundation the economy

24:13

it’s built upon and so um if you’re seeing a spike in Energy prices then you have to address that because otherwise

24:20

that’s going to feed through and so how do you address that um you know in the 70s and today it could have been the same thing it could have been increasing

24:28

supply of green renewable energy um and so that we have an alternative energy

24:34

source that’s domestic that’s sustainable um that kind of capacity building will bring down the need and

24:41

the dependence upon oil um and frankly it’s you know very yeah that the market

24:47

prices and the OPEC controlled price on the market of oil um and so in the 70s

24:52

you know we saw this as well you can either de at the same time you could try policies to decrease demand for for oil

24:58

um so take that demand out but also then um increase the supply of energy so that

25:04

people have an alternative and an alternative public infrastructure to be able to use and not be you know just forced and kind of Trapped in this

25:10

position where you have to pay more for energy because there are no other options um so we have to look at it collectively I think but um but yeah I

25:17

could dive into a lot more details but this this kind of stuff does start to go over people’s heads right so I think the

25:23

film is hopefully sticking as much of this this juicy detail um and clarification in as I can to a 90minut

25:30

introductory film yeah I think your animations in the film make it very clear

25:37

actually yeah yeah so so talking about again debt deficit um one of the things

25:45

modern mod modern monetary Theory talks about and the film really goes into and

25:50

and even has conversations with a few economists who seem to be befuddled by this idea is that as as you were talking

25:57

about Maron the government is can create its own money the US government creates dollars and

26:04

you know Congress creates a budget and the government and they direct the treasury how much money they need but

26:10

they can always find more money finding the money find more money for paying for a war in Ukraine or or or assisting

26:17

Ukraine or assisting Israel or or disaster relief or whatever so so the

26:23

question is and and also the question the film is if the government can create money

26:28

and as Ben bernacki the former head of the Federal Reserve famously said on 60 Minutes years ago he said oh we just

26:35

create money by a few hit hitting the keyboard that’s all it takes few keys on

26:40

the keyboard why does the government need to sell bonds B you know theoretically

26:48

they call it borrowing it’s not really borrowing but why do they if they got the money you know Finding how easy it

26:55

is so yes no great question question it’s a terrific question and one I always struggled with trying to fit into

27:00

the film and how how I could explain it so um you know and and most folks don’t aren’t aware even of the jargon of what

27:06

is a treasury bond um right and so it’s it’s a lot to unpack but that’s the that’s exactly the next question that

27:12

you should have is why does the why does the government need to sell bonds then in the first place um and the answer is

27:18

the simple answer according to mmt is that they don’t um they don’t need there’s no Financial reason for them to

27:24

have to sell bonds um it’s either you know it’s basically a vestage from an

27:30

older way things were done um and it’s just current law it’s just current law that says when the federal government

27:38

deficit spins if it if it spends 100 in and it taxes 90 out then its deficit

27:43

spend 10 and it says whatever you’ve deficit spent you need to basically exchange those dollars for treasury

27:50

bonds you have to issue bonds for however much you’ve deficit spent um so they need to issue 10 in treasury bonds

27:57

and pay whatever interest the FED deems to pay on those treasury bonds so number

28:03

one um the key so if you if you start from the order of things right like the or the order is the government spends

28:10

cash first basically it it the when when the moment that the Congress decides you

28:15

know approves a budget spending uh bill then and it’s appropriated the funding

28:21

is appropriate that money is basically created in that moment uh and when the FED credits the accounts that Congress

28:28

told it to credit if it’s paying construction workers or it’s paying uh a defense contract or whoever um that’s

28:34

when those dollars are created and they’re simply digital dollars basically think of them as as cash uh digital cash

28:40

and so however much at the end of the year once all the taxes come back in however much ends up being that deficit

28:46

number let’s say it’s 10 um they never know at the end of the year how much it’s going to be so then they have to

28:52

issue treasury bonds to equal that number basically so those cash which sit as a liability

28:58

on the fed’s balance sheet so you know we’re always thinking about where’s that plus where’s that minus where’s that

29:03

credit where’s that debt so when the FED credits accounts like banki said it’s just a keystroke they’re crediting

29:09

accounts on the government’s behalf um that cash so digital cash or the cash

29:15

that we use you know in this the paper money we have in our wallets um those are all those all are recorded as

29:22

liabilities on the fed’s balance sheet so they’re recorded there um now when the treasury issues bonds those

29:28

liabilities basically move from a liability of the FED to being a liability of the treasury now um and

29:34

which basically you know it’s the fed and the treasury according to mmt are

29:39

basically one and the same the the FED is the Fiscal Agent of of Congress and they’re both creatures of Congress the

29:45

fed and the treasury um uh and so it’s you know the separation is really helps

29:50

to serve to really more confuse us than anything you know if we didn’t have a separation between fed and treasury we

29:56

may have figured this out a little sooner and it may have been just a lot more simple and clear but because we have this one step removed uh the

30:03

treasury then says oh see I’m issuing bonds and so I have to get the money from the private sector first um I’m

30:10

borrowing from the private sector in order to spend um and I have to pay whatever interest you know those

30:16

creditors those those wealthy looners are demanding um but that’s not the case

30:21

you know the FED is not paying an interest rate set by the market who’s lending the federal government money um

30:27

number one the FED always sets the interest rate um you know maybe the FED wouldn’t exactly put it that way they

30:33

would say they have control over the short-term interest rate that maybe they don’t have control over the longterm but

30:38

that’s complicated we know they they could um so but at at root the thing to to understand is the Fed sets the basic

30:45

interest rate uh voluntarily and then um then the key is the treasury it’s

30:51

basically like moving when when the government sells bonds instead of borrowing money it’s

30:56

just transferring the money that it’s spent that’s sitting in your checking account and now moving that to let’s say a

31:02

savings account which we can call a treasury bond that pays interest like we know our savings accounts now could pay

31:07

5% interest thanks to the FED um so our savings accounts now are paying 5% interest and that’s basically what a

31:14

treasury bond is does the government have to sell treasury bonds financially in order to borrow in order to spend no

31:21

it spent the money first it voluntarily transferred that money that cash into a savings account um so it just could skip

31:28

that second step and just say here we’ve already deficit spent the spending has already happened whether you hold it in

31:35

a checking account or a savings account is not really relevant doesn’t have much of an impact on inflation um you know

31:41

some people will say economists speak would say this is U over you know this is monetarily financing the debt if

31:48

you’re just uh allowing the FED to print money basically instead of bonds but mmt

31:54

is saying no it’s it’s not different in its inflationary impact and the impact of the spending whether people end up

32:01

holding those dollars those excess dollars um that are an accounting you

32:06

know figure whether those are held as checking or savings it doesn’t really matter they’re still assets of the private sector um they can still be uh

32:14

used and you know there’s still wealth there’s still lent you know people can leverage those for more lending what

32:20

have you um and spending and and it’s kind of irrelevant how folks are saving that money because they’re going to

32:26

spend as much as they’re going to spend um it’s kind of irrelevant whether how they’re saving the money um and so again

32:33

this is probably something that Stephanie Kelton and Randy Ray would all be better at explaining so this is a lot of the nitty-gritty but um but you know

32:40

and and as a normal person trying to wrap my head around this I think it’s very important to understand that it’s

32:45

basically just a vestage it’s just a voluntary Choice today that the treasury and Congress continue to issue bonds

32:53

when they really don’t they really don’t have to it really um and and then you know what Stephanie says is if we did

32:59

that you know this is a debate in in mmt should we just do that should we just stop you know just advise the treasury

33:05

stop issuing bonds you don’t need to and then this thing we call the national debt would would disappear it wouldn’t

33:11

exist um so we wouldn’t have this you know this confusing thing called the national debt that we have to debate

33:17

about what it is is it terrible is it a burden on our grandchildren there would still be deficit spending there would still be a

33:24

deficit there would still be a liability on the fed’s balance sheet but we wouldn’t have this thing called the national debt and the and the debt Block

33:31

in New York city so yeah Game Changer right

33:38

there and and I don’t know if you want to mention the name of the economist you talked to in the film a very well-known

33:44

Economist in the film um who when you asked the same question too about why

33:51

does the government borrow why does it create bonds he could not he was totally befuddled by this

33:57

yeah yeah I do think it’s a very important scene in the film and so I encourage people to go go watch the film

34:03

to see it it’s about 10 minutes in um but for me it’s like it’s really an educational moment because I was you

34:10

know and and it’s in you know I I really was genuinely very curious to

34:16

understand why mainstream economists say what they say and why they say the debt is a danger um to our grandchildren and

34:24

our future and so um I you know in in my in my asking uh as many mainstream

34:30

economists as I could you know I was always setting out I I started as fairly skeptical of mmt as well um you know and

34:37

so I certainly wanted to try to to to understand it myself in order to say you know I don’t you know of course we don’t

34:43

want to be kind of spreading some you know dangerous or or conspiracy conspiratorial ideas um if we don’t need

34:50

to and so I think uh I went to speak to as many mainstream economists as I could to understand uh what is their critique

34:57

of mmt just simply where does it go wrong you know where does it go wrong um and and and just just point me to what

35:05

they say and why it’s wrong um but I just couldn’t quite get anyone to to to get there and so the best I could do was

35:12

kind of try to understand why they’re almost talking past each other or not on

35:18

the same you know they’re not coming from the same starting points it’s like how can we start from the same assumptions in a way and so um for me

35:25

that’s why I focus a fair bit in the film on the story of money and the nature of money itself because when I

35:30

talk to mainstream economists today another question I asked the same Economist was you know just what is

35:36

money um where does it come from and and and I and I think he kind of ended that quote by saying just don’t think too

35:43

hard about it because otherwise you’ll be you know you’ll kind of lose the thread um and I and that was very

35:49

interesting for me as well saying yeah if you do think too much about it you

35:54

you’re not able to go along with what what said in the in the mainstream textbooks you have to force yourself to

36:00

not think you have to force yourself to kind of hold these contradictory ideas um which many economists seem to be able

36:06

to hold is these contradictory ideas about what is money and where does it come from um if you don’t think too hard

36:11

about it but if you do you know and you start trying to trace it back um you you do come up with some different answers

36:17

and I think they’re very clarifying and very um rewarding if you can get there

36:22

but um but the main the main point is you know I think the but it’s really the story we tell about

36:28

the nature of money what it is where it comes from is it inherently you know I think the what’s the Assumption what’s

36:35

implied by all the mainstream uh textbooks economics textbooks it it’s implied that money starts um and is

36:43

originated by the private Market um that first we had this this this this system

36:48

this natural system called barter uh it was a private market system you know the market existed first people just

36:54

naturally started Trucking and bartering um and they had to invent money as this means of uh making that barter and that

37:01

trade simpler um uh to solve the double double coincidence of wants they call it

37:06

um and so that’s a very strong story it’s a simple story it’s told in every economics textbook the only problem is

37:13

you know there’s no proof of that that we can find in the historical literature anthropological sociological you know

37:20

you ask any of those professions and they can’t ever point you to a specific time and place where a barter system

37:25

existed and that barter system invented money um and then later a government came along and you know had to tax that

37:32

money and use it for its own purposes you know that’s really the order of the story that the that the mainstream textbook wants to tell and I think

37:39

that’s very important it’s that root story um that everything is built upon

37:44

um is does money come from the private Market or does it come from government

37:50

um and in whatever kind of way you want to call government you know I think there’s many different levels and styles

37:56

but inherently you know a political a powerful political institution be that a

38:01

temple or what or a king or a monarch or you know a smaller system a larger system um there’s we can find it it

38:08

originating there um in historical literature and then um through time you

38:14

know first year the development of of of a type of Taxation and money as a tool for making that taxation and that

38:20

movement and that um production and distribution of resources money is invented really more as a tool for

38:26

helping a society move those around um and then much later do you kind of get a

38:33

market um only once money is invented and you know and it’s enabled to be enforced um and we have laws in

38:39

enforcing private property and what have you that you kind of need in order to have a market um only then do do we see

38:46

markets develop um and they’re after the invention of money and so if if Government if some kind of political

38:51

force is really at the bottom of all of this um that’s where we need to be looking for where um how we should be

38:58

organizing our economy today and where we should be looking to say you know if we want to solve economic problems maybe

39:04

we shouldn’t necessarily be saying this is a market you know we need to solve climate change through the private Market uh maybe that’s not you know the

39:13

Locust of power in an economy even um maybe we’re we’re cutting government

39:18

short on on the ability and the power that it has to solve economic problems you know I think we’re we have a

39:24

tendency to really just kind of say bad you know Market good and um I think

39:30

that’s the ideology of of mainstream economists and I think it goes back to this very fundamental simple story of

39:35

barter for some reason um and this idea that money is is gold something you dig out from the ground um but when you

39:42

start to think about that you start to think about you know why would a society you know if you just do this little

39:47

thought experiment you know why would a society choose to um say it can’t do anything unless it

39:55

finds this shiny Rock in the ground now it doesn’t need that Shiny Rock in order to do that thing so let’s say the

40:01

society they have they have all these doctors and and nurses and they really want to you know they have a health a health problem and they really want to

40:08

train doctors and nurses to help people um and so they need to build hospitals they need to build schools they need to

40:13

train nurses and doctors and so they need to do all those things um in none of those instances is gold needed in the

40:20

process let’s say maybe if as a tooth filler’s maybe okay you might have to go out and find some gold then but um but

40:27

you know if if a society has the real resources has the know-ow to solve these you know this Health Care problem within

40:33

a society but it says oh wait no we don’t have that Shiny Rock that we need to dig out of the ground over here and

40:38

put it back in the ground you know cause all this environmental damage and then put it back under the ground in Fort Knox unless we do that process then we

40:45

can’t train doctors and nurses sorry you know it’s like what kind of a story is

40:51

that and you know uh I you know when you it’s very easy for us to think we want

40:57

money to be real we want it to be tangible we want it to have value in and of itself we don’t like it being you know paper uh we think oh that’s it’s

41:04

like it’s worthless you know it could just disappear and poof tomorrow um it’s true it’s true but if if our government

41:11

disappeared and went poof tomorrow then your money probably would too I wouldn’t expect you know money to the US dollar

41:18

to exist beyond the existence of the United States um and so you know I think

41:23

there’s this idea that that gold or you know there’s some market system of money that’s just natural and can supersede

41:28

governments um and that’s why Mor mler doesn’t like to use the word money because it makes it seem like an international kind of phenomenon or

41:35

natural natural phenomenon um when it just it just isn’t on a societal level

41:42

um but there’s a lot to break down there so I’m not really doing a Justice today I’m a little bit well you’re doing

41:47

you’re talking about a lot of stuff and it’s it’s a lot to take in you talk about how the government doesn’t

41:54

actually have to issue the bonds uh what about taxes so how do taxes fit into it you

42:00

know I mean when we talk about the debt the standard PE standard theory is that we need to spend less and tax more and

42:07

of course we know that we give tax breaks to the rich and we tax the poor people more but what about taxes and how

42:13

does that figure in if if the government can issue its own money and and you know

42:18

why do we have to tax and why do we have to raise taxes exactly yeah yeah so another great question um and one we

42:25

kind of try to address headon in the film with one of our chapter headings um is basically that and it’s you know so

42:31

what is the purpose of taxes if the government can just print money then why doesn’t it just give us a bunch of money

42:37

um and not tax us well taxes are really I I in the film we kind of get to this I

42:44

like to Envision them as almost the the engine and the motor of the whole monetary economy so taxes are really

42:51

important um and when you look at the order of things um at the let’s say you want to go back to the beginning you’re

42:58

starting a new Society let’s say um and Warren you know sometimes they’ll give uh examples of let’s say it’s the US

43:04

colonies or or any Colonial theoretical Colonial Nation um what comes first

43:11

rather than um the government just printing money and saying hey you know I’m let’s say there’s a colonial Force

43:17

coming into this this nation and says we need to we need to build some roads we need to build some forts we need to do

43:22

do some work we need to hire some soldiers um that sort of thing or we want people to work on a plantation

43:29

produce something um so they say here we’re going to we’re going to say we’re going to pay you $10 an hour to do this

43:36

work um and that we need done we need people to build roads we need you guys to do all this stuff and they’re like you know what are dollars and why do I

43:42

need them um so they don’t really want to accept money in exchange for for labor now then the government says okay

43:49

oh right right right first I have to I have to tax you um I have to say you actually owe me a tax of $100 a month or

43:57

what have you um in order to live here in order to be a part of this Society let’s say um however they might if it’s

44:03

a democracy they can collectively decide what they want you know their tax rate to be basically or uh in a monarchy or a

44:11

different kind of situation that’s not democratically decided that’s imposed through very coercive you know Force um

44:18

but taxes are that thing that once you put a tax on on a population and everyone or enough people need that

44:25

thing in order to pay that tax in order to live um then all of a sudden there is

44:30

a demand for that thing whatever it is whatever form it takes um it can it doesn’t have to take any physical form

44:37

um it can just be led it can just be a ledger it says okay you’ve paid your credit you’ve paid your tax um now

44:44

you’re now you’re good for another month or another year um and so it it can take a physical form it doesn’t have to it

44:50

can be paper it can be print it can be a token on a gold coin it can be whatever kind of token the important thing is um

44:57

the tax liability actually comes first you have to tax a population before they need the money and then they need the

45:03

money and then um they’re willing to work for you to earn the money and then at the end of the year they pay the

45:08

taxes back so in that point you know if you trace the credits and the debits you start seeing what’s happening um and I

45:16

try to flesh that out a bit more in the film and Visually remembering the credits and the debits the minuses and

45:21

the pluses and so the thing to to recognize is the taxes are very important um to to really get a

45:27

population to start to start working and to start producing stff sounds like you’re saying they’re an

45:33

incentives yeah I mean and they’re coercive like don’t get me wrong they’re coercive or you know but it depends on

45:38

your system so in the film you know I kind of made this this silly little scene it’s kind of weird but it’s about

45:43

you know imagine a a kind of community or Collective Community almost like a hippie commun or something let’s say um

45:50

and they all want to come together and they all say you know we we all need to do Collective chores right in order for

45:56

to thrive and for our little Community to to function well we need to we need to grow a garden we need to cook we need

46:01

to clean we need to babysit we need to do these different things and we’ll say okay everyone has to do 10 hours of chores per week um now that chore system

46:10

you know kind of thinking of taxes as chores or taxes as you know you do have to contribute in a society in a way

46:17

we’re all contributing service yeah community service um and so there’s even

46:22

an example with UMKC Buckaroo they created a currency based on community service you know requirements and so if

46:28

you think about yeah any anything like that like a chore taxes are are doing your chores and you have to do a certain

46:34

amount in order to be a part of that Society um and so if you start assigning

46:39

then you could say okay well the chore credit is is the liability or the the

46:46

IOU of the issuer of the center of the commune the government or the community center of this commun says okay everyone

46:52

has to pay a chore but now instead of I could just keep track on a ledger when everyone’s done their chores or we could

46:59

create a if it’s more complicated the system’s starting to get bigger and bigger you know maybe we create this

47:04

credit system um and so it’s a credit that if you hold 10 credits against the

47:10

the central the the center of the community um however many you know credits have been issued out that’s

47:16

recorded as a liability of the center the government and it’s and anyone who’s holding it it’s a chore credit for them

47:22

so anytime they need to pay taxes they can bring it back to the center but that means it’s now transferable so you can

47:28

you can buy things from other people in the community because everyone starts needing these tax credits um everyone

47:34

needs them to pay their taxes so they’re willing to exchange different things for them so you start to get a market in a way or or or what have you but um they

47:42

become transferable but we see that the tax is kind of it’s it’s it’s the chore it’s the motor that kind of gets gets

47:48

the whole economy going to begin with and gets a monetary system going to begin with because without the tax that

47:54

money wouldn’t have value it would be just a piece of paper you know an IOU of someone that doesn’t have any power to

48:00

enforce their IOU basically um and so so you have to have that political power first in order to create the system and

48:07

then the taxes um and so the taxes what they say taxes Drive currency taxes drive you know the currency um and

48:15

without taxes if you all of a sudden stop taxing your population that’s probably a bad idea and your tax you

48:21

know your your money will basically lose value um or lose all of its value

48:26

um has happened in different times but um you know maybe the Confederacy in the US was a good example of that but um so

48:34

one point that taxing the rich isn’t so much about paying off the deficit as it is to prevent an oligarchy exactly yeah

48:42

yeah yeah wealth and a few people yeah then you can start thinking about well

48:47

what are we taxing and who are we taxing and why are we taxing what we are you know because you need a certain amount

48:52

of broad-based tax in order to get you know Drive the current you need a broad based tax you need enough people to kind

48:58

of need the money as they say um but you don’t you know you you can start looking

49:04

at it much more as a you know an egalitarian issue it’s it’s it’s it’s an

49:10

issue of democracy how come you know the do the wealthy really need so much because when we start thinking about

49:16

what we can afford in terms of climate change we we we have a tendency to look at oh there’s the rich that’s where the money is we have to get it from them in

49:23

order to do this important thing like feed a child solve climate change you know it’s like oh first we have to get it from them but mmt is saying well we

49:30

can disconnect those fights a little bit and say you know we still have the capacity as a

49:37

society to care for people you know to to feed a hungry child and to to to to clean up the environment different

49:43

things you know we don’t we don’t need the rich people’s money that kind of puts the government in the the kind of

49:49

right this weak position of saying we need the rich people’s money that’s where the money comes from you know we’re very dependent on that kind of

49:54

economic growth to generate money that we can then use a little bit of that for some good over here but like if that’s

50:01

not the way the system quite works then it’s like you know they’re collecting they’re kind of accumulating too much over here we need to bring that down not

50:07

because we need their money you know not because we’re actually going to take that and spend it over here but you know when you you’ll see with the accounting

50:14

once once you collect the taxes that money is effectively destroyed right so the money is created when it’s spent and

50:20

when it’s tax backed it’s destroyed in the same process of coming out of thin air and going back to thin a um and so

50:27

you know we we can’t actually use the rich people’s money to pay for things it would be physically impossible um

50:33

because those dollars are deleted when they’re collected as taxes so once we see that it’s like well okay we still

50:39

you know we still want to tax the rich maybe we should tax them a lot more than we were going to just to pay for this

50:46

just to pay to feed a hungry kid maybe we should tax them a lot more because you know because we’re they’re getting so much political power they able to buy

50:52

off politicians create an oligarchy you know maybe that’s a problem for democ rcy so um so yeah we really want to

50:58

think about what what are taxes for what are we taxing do we need to tax good things we want to encourage like someone

51:04

earning income maybe we don’t need such a high income tax maybe we could have a different kind of tax that’s broad-based

51:10

some people propose something more like a property tax or cubic footage tax that could be kind of more that basic tax

51:15

rather than an income tax um so there’s so all of a sudden it starts opening doors to what are we taxing why are we

51:21

taxing it um and always remembering that those dollars are deleted so think about

51:26

you know where are you trying to kind of pull you know where are you trying to pull those credits from and where are

51:31

you trying to inject those credits into um when you’re when you’re spending and taxing it’s not about getting money to

51:37

spend it’s about injections and and and and returns way and and that that’s a

51:44

really um kind of a mindblowing mindbending aspect in the film that’s

51:49

talked about a few times what you’ve just said Maring too about the government destroying the revenue they

51:55

get from taxes because we’re all like Stephanie Kelton in her book the deficit M right myth right from the beginning

52:01

said that even though the the the government’s budget shouldn’t be what we

52:08

take we first we figure out what we’re going to um get from taxes and borrowing

52:14

and then we figure out how much we spend the real model is spending and then you see what you get in taxes and borrowing

52:20

but in the film as it’s talked about the money and and as you said Mary the money is just destroy so the money isn’t even

52:26

used the revenue from taxes that that the government takes in is not then put

52:32

in the till at all that’s which is and why is that why is the money destroyed

52:38

that was a kind of mind-blowing thing to me in the film that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around like if if you

52:44

borrow from me you know if I if you borrow from me and you pay me back I’m not gonna rip up the $10 you just paid

52:50

back to me right yeah so so that’s good yeah so you’re starting to think about so again it’s still this it’s this

52:56

counting ledger so I’m trying to always visualize it as the the plus and the minus who has the plus who has the minus

53:03

um so uh thinking about it let’s say thinking about it not instead of the government you

53:09

know I have an example of of what we call bank money which is a whole another layer right like Banks create money too

53:15

so when when you take out a loan to borrow a house to buy a house um the bank is effectively creating money at

53:22

that point when you sign your loan um and so let’s say the house is $50,000 ha

53:27

but um if if your loan is is $50,000 the bank has effectively created there’s two sides of

53:35

of each there’s actually each person has a two-sided balance sheet uh what they call a t account let’s say but um when

53:44

and and there’s probably a better way for for me to explain this visually but when you think about the IOU is created

53:50

the the credit the let’s go back to the the the federal government so why your taxes are destroyed it’s because when

53:56

the government deficit spends it’s it’s creating a liability a minus so it’s it’s sitting on on its side of the

54:02

balance sheet um and when that so it’s you know it spends 100 into the economy

54:08

it taxes 90 back out so those yeah it’s at that point those 90 are deleted right

54:14

and you have 10 left um and so basically it’s you know when you think about first

54:20

there’s minus 100 and plus 100 then 90 of those come back so then you’re down

54:26

to to 10 so so it is you know it’s kind of going back to that commun scene of

54:31

why is the money deleted it’s because you know once it’s it’s an IOU so it’s

54:36

it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a liability and once the the liability comes back once it’s paid off those numbers the numbers

54:42

on the balance sheet just go back down so it’s like the numbers grow as it spends you know the more the deficit

54:49

spending occurs it goes from 90 to 100 but then when the taxes come back those numbers just go back back down towards

54:56

zero but maybe not completely to zero because then we’d be running um a surplus but anyway um so it’s really

55:03

numbers go up numbers go down that’s what’s happening when you’re taxing it’s just like this constant turn of numbers going up and numbers going down in the

55:10

spreadsheet uh you know in on this Ledger um and that’s because it’s the government’s IOU it’s it’s their

55:17

liability let’s say you when you you know so you were you were giving an example of if you lend someone something

55:22

well let’s say you know I do borrow a cup of sugar from you and so I give you

55:27

my I you and I say I owe you a cup of sugar um so you’re holding my debt

55:33

basically I have a debt now you have an A that says you you’re owed a cup of sugar and I owe a cup of sugar um let’s

55:39

say next week I come back I give you the cup of sugar that you’re owed I take back my IOU I tear it up and throw it

55:47

away because I don’t you know if I’m my IOU that says I owe yeah I owe you

55:52

something once I take it back I don’t you know it’s not worth anything to me it’s my I it’s my IOU um it’s now that

56:01

relationship that that process is now complete it’s come back tear it up throw it away that was a that was a

56:07

relationship it’s now been completed um the plus and the minus have met back together and they’ve canceled each other

56:13

basically um and so when you when anyone receives back their own IOU it’s not an

56:18

asset to them if if that makes any sense um so when the government the dollar is

56:24

a and is an IOU of the government it’s a tax credit for us so when anyone who holds a dollar has a tax credit um that

56:31

they can use to pay their taxes when they return it to the government they no longer have the credit and the

56:36

government no longer has the liability they now are fulfilling their side of the bargain which says I owe you the

56:44

responsibility to reduce your tax obligation basically when you pay your taxes now you have less tax obligation

56:50

and the government has less credits outstanding um so their number number goes back down of how many liabilities

56:56

how many IUS they have outstanding um when those dollars come back because their responsibility is to accept the

57:03

dollars back in payment of your taxes and to lower your your you know what you

57:09

owe so everyone has their two-sided what they owe and what they’re owed um and so

57:15

sorry I can’t like it would be easier if I could visually draw this out take some time well you do it visually in the movie so in the film you actually when

57:23

you can see it visually makes a lot more sense yeah but I don’t know if that made any sense you know gon go in circles but

57:30

I think that that’s a big one I mean that’s a good question and when I struggled with understanding for a while too it’s like wait why are the dollar

57:37

you know why are the dollars destroyed why why are they deleted and it goes back to the accounting um as the

57:44

liabilities and and the assets and you just always focus on those those account you know those balance sheets they have

57:49

to balance and yet those dollars that I paid to the bank for my mortgage those

57:55

are hard-earned dollars on my part that I do labor for and sell things you know

58:00

that’s my income that I give to the bank I mean it’s horrible think I do all that work and they just destroy it yeah

58:07

basically yeah they do and then they get to keep the interest all the interest um

58:12

so that’s a whole another story is you know what are banks really and why are they why do they have so much you know I

58:19

think yeah in the film we even get to say a little bit that you know Banks B I think of we think a lot of people think

58:24

of banks is more like almost franchises of the federal government or of of the Federal Reserve System and so they’re

58:30

really in in a lot of ways extending Public Credit when they’re creating money they’re not they’re not lending

58:36

money that someone else borrowed worked really hard to borrow up and save and they’re lending it out and they can lend it to whoever they want because that’s

58:41

their money you know that’s their private money so no not exactly like they’re they’re creating new money they’re basically extending credit

58:48

thanks to the power that the federal government has given them through a bank Charter it’s the federal government it’s

58:53

the FED standing behind them that allow allows them to issue that credit um and they’re Bas all the banks are doing are

58:58

basically just running credit checks you know that’s that’s their only purpose is to run a credit check decide whether you

59:04

you can pay back this loan if you if they think they’ll you’ll pay back the loan and then they can reap the reward of whatever um the FED sets the interest

59:11

rate at um and and they said they go above that to get their profit on the mortgage um but are they doing so much

59:18

work for it not not in my opinion and are they you know yeah do they should they get to choose who gets Lending and

59:24

who doesn’t in a lot of ways I think that could be a lot more democratized um and I think there’s you know a big

59:30

movement for more public banking um there could be a lot more regulation on on private Banks of who they’re lending

59:36

to you know do we should private Banks be lending billions and billions of dollars towards new fossil fuel

59:41

infrastructure pipelines that you know are maybe not a good investment for our society that are going to be stranded

59:47

assets a huge amount of resources going into this this infrastructure because in their calculation they’re going to make

59:53

a buck off it um but you know is that their choice to make is that really their choice to make um because they’re

1:00:00

really EXT if they’re extending Public Credit rather than you know this kind of their own money that they get to decide

1:00:06

what to do with you know I think that changes the debate a little bit when you think about whose money is it and and as it said in the film at the

1:00:13

very end of the film I forgot which of the um economists the mmt economists said that but they said that money

1:00:18

should be a public utility and you have the segment in the film with his named delman coats is that

1:00:25

with the organization our money you know talking about the same thing that you know this this is again money should be

1:00:32

a public good you know Banks create and I’m glad that you went into you know had the whole segment in the film about

1:00:37

Banks Banks create 97% of the money in circulation is created by Banks and they

1:00:43

can do what they want and as you said Marin they most of that money goes to fossil fuel companies or you know just

1:00:51

things that are not benefiting humanity and um and in in many ways yeah and and

1:00:57

especially if we’re thinking about inflation too you know it’s it’s an important tool there to say um you know

1:01:03

is it really different for the you know we’re worried about the federal government spending money and causing inflation maybe we should also be

1:01:08

worried about private Banks creating money and causing inflation um especially on fossil fuel infrastructure

1:01:14

projects or you know things of this nature um you know that are not only

1:01:20

infl you know have inflationary potential but are damaging in other ways so I think there’s a lot of work could be done there um and it really important

1:01:26

work to say hey like let’s look at this spending too if we want to be if we’re serious about preventing inflation and

1:01:33

and and lowering inflation if we have it I think that’s a really important place to look and you know Nathan tankis is a

1:01:38

great mmt writer and um he has a great paper out on what he calls you know

1:01:43

these kind of I’m forgetting the name but it’s like you know non-fiscal monetary tool something I don’t know but

1:01:50

it’s it’s basically saying you know the FED through its regulatory oversight of banks has a lot of possibility there to

1:01:57

actually do some some work on inflation through bank you know Bank lending

1:02:02

policy and creating qualitative and um other type of regulatory functions or

1:02:08

you know I think inherently needs to be more democratically decided of you know where credit should be should be going

1:02:15

but um there’s a lot of room there to say you know point out where there’s inflationary Potential from this private

1:02:21

private money creation um that that’s that’s really allowed you know it’s really funded by the public at the end

1:02:28

when you get back you know if you trace it basically all the way back um so yeah

1:02:34

if that makes any sense it’s again it’s back to to inflation and and we can use a lot more tools to tackle it than we

1:02:39

are today with with just the interest rate and somehow we’re skating by um

1:02:45

yeah but that’s a whole another whole another debate yeah so we got some

1:02:50

questions or questions and comments um uh early on Patricia had commented when

1:02:56

I said I think we were on camera when I said your the film finding the money Marin should be required watching for

1:03:04

economics 101 and Patricia commented how about living 101 I thought that was then Georgia

1:03:12

Georgia asked and this is a really important question when it or comment when it comes to the military requests

1:03:18

or money for war no one ever asks where the money is going to come from because they know the US Treasury will just

1:03:23

issue it that’s um yeah so it’s it’s often proof right it’s you know so it just kind of

1:03:31

shows oftentimes Congress members do understand that they have the power to create money um when it comes down to

1:03:37

something that they see as really essential right or during covid no one really asked where that money was coming

1:03:43

from and who was you know how were they going to borrow and tax to afford $5 trillion doar of new spending that

1:03:49

happened during covid you know um that was all created new money but uh and we

1:03:54

should be thinking about the inflationary impacts of that and I think you can break down you know maybe if there was some inflationary impact from

1:04:01

that spending that’s that’s a good debate to be having um and how we could have done that better maybe more precisely um and so forth but um anyway

1:04:10

it’s always it’s not never like a typical onetoone spending versus inflation it’s it’s much more complicated than that but um but yeah to

1:04:18

to the to the point um which was I’m trying to remember treasury just create

1:04:23

money I follow Stephanie Kelton on Twitter and I subscribe to her substack and she talks about this a lot on

1:04:29

Twitter since you just say short thing she has said oh they’ve had no problem finding the money like as Georgia points

1:04:35

out for for war yeah yeah so that’s all it all then at that point you know once we understand how the system works you

1:04:42

know then we really just have to hold our Democratic Representatives accountable you know because it’s it all comes down to where do we want the

1:04:48

funding to really go and if if we really wanted to go to war then I guess that’s democracy but if we think there are some

1:04:55

other priorities or that would be much more efficent you know a much more efficient use of real resources than

1:05:00

creating tons of bombs that we that Go destroy you know just to destroy other people’s lives and infrastructure and

1:05:06

you know terrible thing like this is maybe not an use of resources when we could be using it to build and improve

1:05:12

Society rather than destroy Society um so yeah I think we should be having that

1:05:18

debate not about whether we can afford it or not um is is a different question so yeah so and Veronica asked when can

1:05:27

we see the film um you have we haven’t even talked asked that question so yeah yeah when will it be you think available

1:05:35

to see yeah I should put that up front but yeah so our website is finding money film.com ww. finding money film.com and

1:05:42

so we’ll have more U screening info on there we’re screening through the spring um and we just signed with the

1:05:49

distributor so um we’re figuring all this out right now but it looks like we are aiming for a theatrical release a

1:05:55

limited theatrical release in the beginning of May um so we did really want to hit this kind of election year

1:06:00

where hopefully this kind of um subject matter will be more in the public conversation um and so I think uh we’ll

1:06:08

have if you want to organize you know a screening in your town or Community we’re also very open to you know educational campus screenings through

1:06:14

the spring um Community screenings so you can go to our website which is finding money film.com and there’s a

1:06:20

host a screening tab where you can fill out if you’d like to host screening or find out more about where to watch it

1:06:25

we’re going to update there’s some exciting screenings happening we’re going to have a big tour actually in Australia the beginning of March um

1:06:32

Stephanie and I will be down there for um several City tour in Australia that that there that some folks are

1:06:38

organizing um some great Folks at modern money lab and so um we’ll be down there and then maybe in Europe and then back

1:06:44

in the US and so um so there will be opportunities to watch but if if you um

1:06:50

feel inspired to organize a screening that’s what we really depend on is you know this kind of Grassroots spreading

1:06:55

By Word of Mouth um tell your friend to to watch the film so um so once once

1:07:00

it’s really out there uh we really want to make a big splash with some you know headline events and get some hopefully

1:07:06

get into the public conversation in the beginning of May um before it’s too late before it’s you know kind of hitting

1:07:12

we’re a little late maybe on the election cycle but what have you so I think um it’ll be out in theaters for a

1:07:18

little bit and then um available to rent wherever you rent movies so definitely it’ll be so important to to share once

1:07:24

we’re on all those rental platforms like iTunes Google Play you know Amazon once we’re on there certainly that’ll be so

1:07:30

important for folks if they can to go out and and drop the five bucks on a on a movie rental yeah so Veronica says it

1:07:38

would be interesting to see Bernie Sanders take on this but Bernie Sanders actually wanted Stephanie Kelton to be

1:07:44

her his economic advisor and brought her on the team isn’t that correct right so she was his um Chief Economist on the

1:07:51

budget Committee in 2015 and um and then was a economic adviser for his two

1:07:57

presidential campaigns and so yeah so they’re very close but you know it is it is interesting and I think um I I don’t

1:08:05

know the full story of of how much he how much he’s kind of absorbed the mmt

1:08:11

um thinking or language or how much he feels comfortable saying it publicly um so I think that’s an interesting topic

1:08:17

of conversation is you know can can politicians come out and say stuff like this like oh actually you know your

1:08:23

taxes are tax dollars are destroyed when we collect them like he’s going to be laughed off the stage right so I think

1:08:29

you know it’s hard for Bernie or any politician to come out first and say um start trying to explain this especially

1:08:36

when the mainstream economists would would would say you’re crazy you know what are you talking about so um so it’s

1:08:43

it’s it’s an interesting dilemma where I think hopefully this story you know may need to come more from the Grassroots

1:08:48

and more from us so that we’re kind of demanding the truth from politicians or or once you know maybe if Stephanie is

1:08:54

successful and getting you know getting the word out a little more about this information that then a politician could

1:09:00

go in you know in front of an audience and say we’re going to pay for the green New Deal by resour you know here’s how

1:09:06

we’re going to Resource the green New Deal and here’s where we’re going to get this many you know solar workers or this

1:09:11

many you know trains and buses and this you know here’s how we’re going to Resource it all and start talking about

1:09:17

it that way instead of where’s the money going to come from so um hopefully that’ll be that’ll be up to us to kind

1:09:23

of hold our our politicians accountable so we’ll see if we can if we can get there and change the conversation a

1:09:28

little bit yeah you do have a clip in the film I think towards the end where you showed Bernie Sanders saying we need to go back to or we need to recreate the

1:09:36

new deal policies and I think that was right after the clip from FDR in 1945 a

1:09:43

month or couple months before he died talking about the second Bill of Rights so know they weren’t necessarily mmt

1:09:50

which wasn’t around then but it was kind of um can and John Mayor keyy and influence ideas of for FDR but it’s you

1:09:58

know it’s in that ballpark of government deficit spending to create a society

1:10:04

broad-based society that works for all yeah exactly and I think that’s maybe a great vision you know it’s like what is

1:10:09

your vision you first have to start with a vision and then how do you you know how can you use money as the organizing

1:10:15

tool to achieve that Vision successfully without causing inflation and while you know bringing everyone along and so I

1:10:21

think this you know having that Vision that says we can do this you know and money is the organizing tool that we

1:10:27

understand that we humans have created in order to help us do this um it changes the conversation but yeah like

1:10:33

the the important thing is coming together around a vision like that that we could have you know as FDR says you

1:10:40

know decent health care for all and housing for all and um and uh yeah Med

1:10:46

you know he says Medicare for all housing job guaranteed jobs um and all of these things are you know those

1:10:52

things were you know know he proposed those right after the Great Depression you know and we seem to be so poor and

1:10:59

so destitute and so you know at our lowest almost like we could have accomplished those things we could have always accomplished these things um and

1:11:07

so I think we we almost did back then you know I think it with a little shift in history we could have gone we would

1:11:12

have gone even more down that path um but it’s important to have even just the vision of of what’s possible I think

1:11:19

what economics often serves to do is constrain our vision of what’s possible and just not even let us think that we

1:11:25

could have something better um that it’s just not affordable just so don’t even think about it um but I think if we can

1:11:31

Envision that better future then we have a chance of figuring out the organizational um facets of getting

1:11:38

there um yeah so Veronica asked um or Patricia asked about recommending any

1:11:45

easy to understand books uh before the film comes out I would recommend Stephanie kelton’s book the deficit myth

1:11:51

I don’t know if you Marin you have any other books you would recommend but Stephanie C’s book is great and really

1:11:56

you know goes into it in detail yeah definitely I would start there the deficit myth and then I do have on the

1:12:02

website if you go there again the finding money film.com there’s a little resources tab where we list some more books and we’ll continue to add to that

1:12:09

um add more resources because there’s a lot if you start going down this this Rabbit Hole there’s a lot of great books

1:12:15

we list a few and then a lot of great um you know intellectual thinkers on this and so great videos podcast you can kind

1:12:21

of get lost for a while if you want to so be careful yeah um yeah we still have a few

1:12:28

more questions if we’ll power through us down okay um

1:12:34

see Veronica asked she’s curious about why economies fail our stock Mark crash

1:12:40

Germany’s crash before the rise of Hitler Japanese Yen Greece’s debt is there a common

1:12:45

[Music] denominator good question yeah and I think the important thing is there isn’t

1:12:52

always a common denominator you know you always have to look at the specifics of the situation the historical you know

1:12:57

significance where they you know what’s happening where they are and so you know you could analyze why my Germany why

1:13:03

that kind of hyperinflation happened um you know maybe I won’t get into it now but yeah it’s there’s always certain

1:13:10

causes right and it’s not just a blanket oh the government printed too much money and that is what causes hyperinflation

1:13:17

um you know there’s never really uh been they’ve never shown an example of that

1:13:23

being the case where it’s just oh the government decides to print a bunch of money and it causes hyperinflation um there’s usually problems on the supply

1:13:30

side right and so um let’s say why my Germany I’ll just briefly say you know their infrastructure was gutted you know

1:13:36

in World War I so much of their capacity was diminished and then they were also told they need to produce so much to um

1:13:44

to export to get foreign exchange to pay off their reparations that were put on them from the after World War I um and

1:13:51

so they had huge external debt that they have to pay not in their own currency but you know in a hard an external

1:13:57

foreign currency basically um so they they basically had to produce and Export way more than they could produce and

1:14:04

Export and feed their population at the same time so they were in a fundamental problem that wasn’t wasn’t going to be

1:14:11

solved something was going to have to give so um so the printing of money you know in that situation was really a

1:14:17

causal effect of just trying to survive with just trying to have their population survive um through that

1:14:22

period and so that eventually you know had to break down if they if you just can’t produce enough to on from this

1:14:29

imposition from World War one so um so there’s kind of that and then Venezuela

1:14:35

you know you can look at what are the the historical Colonial facets of that and then the oil comes in the Embargo

1:14:41

comes in and it’s it basically comes down to a supply shock Supply that you know they just didn’t have food

1:14:46

basically it’s very important thing um in an economy and so yeah I can’t go into too many specifics but it’s always

1:14:52

like look at this the specifics of um what’s causing the historical significance of of each each episode you

1:14:59

might be thinking of and there’s good information out there especially from the scholars you know that are featured

1:15:04

in this film um but it is it is hard to Wade through because right it’s all there’s there’s always folks saying

1:15:10

different things so I know yeah it gets there’s a lot out there you know especially a lot of I think um worry you

1:15:17

know the 2008 financial crisis what caused that oh you know like no one saw that coming well I mean a lot of the mmt

1:15:24

economists did see that coming um because they were seeing the sector balance graph which is featured in the

1:15:30

film that the government was running surpluses for a while in the Clinton era which means they were pulling you know

1:15:35

savings out of the private sector um and then so in order to keep going at the

1:15:41

same rate they were or to stay you know the same the private sector was starting to borrow a ton more um just to kind of

1:15:47

stay afloat borrowers to stay afloat and then of course there was tons of fraud you know in the housing sector and and

1:15:53

that exploded it was a real regulatory failure um in that aspect of you know

1:15:58

Banks lending very fraudulently um in that in that era so uh a couple of

1:16:04

things combining but you can see what happened and you can see what our Solutions were and how our Solutions at the time did not work you know all the

1:16:11

FED cut interest rates uh they did QE but the none of that was enough to fill

1:16:18

the hole that was left in spending um you know it’s almost like the it’s similar to the depression there’s a fo

1:16:25

in spending basically and the only person that can come in at that point and spend is the federal government and the federal government at the time

1:16:30

wasn’t willing to spend you know during the Obama era we had the tea party we had everyone starting to freak out about

1:16:36

the national debt at precisely the time you know when the federal government could have spent more than than ever

1:16:42

before because we had so much underutilized capacity so many factories empty so many unemployed workers that

1:16:48

could have been hired by the federal government to do important work to do important climate work and instead instead you know the government’s

1:16:54

sitting there saying Oh look The debts increasing um and that yeah that was simply a product of people being so

1:17:00

unemployed um that that that budget’s going to automatic that deficit spending is going to automatically go up but that

1:17:05

that’s a point where it’s that’s where you really see the difference between mmt and mainstream economists advice

1:17:11

political you know economic advice the mainstream economists are saying we’ got it we still we have to tighten our belts just like everyone else we have to reain

1:17:17

in deficit spending just like you and your household have to re in your spending well you know that’s kind of the opp of what you want to be doing um

1:17:25

and so you know Jason Ferman in the film he says you

1:17:30

know let’s say you know let’s let’s accept the mmt premise that uh deficit

1:17:37

spending causes inflation um or you know the the main thing is he he really

1:17:44

proposed that we cut the deficit during a time of recession a Great Recession um

1:17:51

which is a time when it wouldn’t be necessarily inflationary to spend a lot of money even though the size of the

1:17:57

debt was was growing that was kind of irrelevant because there was so much Capacity open um for room for government

1:18:04

spending without causing inflation that that’s when it really matters um what you’re looking at if you’re looking at

1:18:09

inflation as the limit or if you’re looking at a simple number of deficits and debt as the limit um then yeah it

1:18:16

starts really shifting so I think the the de Greek debt crisis is similar and that um a lot of these terrible crisis

1:18:23

are basically unnecessary um the Great Depression the Great Recession greatek

1:18:29

debt crisis all these things are very much politically created um problems and

1:18:34

really coming from a misunderstanding of the monetary system I think which is which is interesting and and um uh yeah

1:18:40

something to really delve into more yeah I I’ll just add one thing about Germany

1:18:46

and and a lesson that could be could be applied now but is not the difference between postor War I and post post World

1:18:53

War II with Germany was post World War I Germany was expected to pay back all the war debts you know as he pointed out Mar

1:18:59

the economy was deficit devasta it led to a demagogue rising up who Hitler who

1:19:05

said he’d make Germany great again post World War II Germany was given a debt

1:19:10

Jubilee and given debt forgiveness for I think 90% of their debt you know we

1:19:16

could have done the same thing in the 2008 crash for individuals we gave it for banks yeah we could do that for

1:19:24

student loans now we could do a lot of debt forgiveness or debt jubilees David Graber has WR a lot about that subject

1:19:31

so yes so so it really is the temperament and who are we you know is money a public utility as we were

1:19:37

talking about earlier yeah yeah exactly so yeah you start thinking about it very

1:19:43

differently yeah so I think depression you know depressions a really a good place to look where you know the difference between if money were gold

1:19:49

and government did have to go out and find it in order to spend it you know um it’s a very different scenario in in a

1:19:55

Great Depression when you know you still have you have the same number of of people in your Society you know we had

1:20:01

the booming 20s right or the Roaring 20s you’re doing all this you’re doing all this all of a sudden a stock market

1:20:06

crashes and a depression hits and all of a sudden you can’t do anything as a society you know it’s like all of a sudden we can’t Farm we can’t feed

1:20:12

people we can’t you know take care of you know have doctors or nurses that didn’t like the the capacity of our

1:20:18

economy didn’t fundamentally change an asteroid didn’t hit you know there was a dust bow which was bad you know a real

1:20:23

environmental disaster but um but if the government you know the government basically moral of the story the

1:20:29

government could have spent a lot more I mean FD spent a lot in the new deal but he could have spent a lot more even to

1:20:34

get all those people employed um and producing the society we wanted and instead you know we realized we really

1:20:40

needed to spend once we hit World War II then that spending really started flowing out and then everyone was really

1:20:46

fully employed but you know what all those resources went to destroying another continent and world you know so

1:20:52

all of that production could have always happened in 1930 you know instead of 1940s uh it could have happened in 1930

1:20:58

during the Depression we could have produced um and utilize so much to maybe build a peaceful prosperous sustainably

1:21:05

prosperous Society um at that time rather than you know crazy amounts of War

1:21:12

spending um so yeah so we’ve had you on on for yes a long time Mar we really

1:21:19

thank you and Grace has a few question I think I just want to boiled down to want try to distill because she had we we’d

1:21:26

probably go for a lot longer if I asked all R’s questions but one um one I

1:21:31

thought of and um that she asked and sorry Grace if I if I’m not asking everything but but it’s something I’m an

1:21:38

advocate of the concept of universal basic income and Grace asked and and I want to preface it by saying the French

1:21:44

Economist Thomas petti has advocated not only Universal basic income but um what do it call it Universal minimum

1:21:50

inheritance that everybody has given a certain amount of money about $150,000 at Birth I think payable at a

1:21:56

certain age but Grace asks could Universal basic income be made a reality

1:22:01

through the distribution of Treasury bonds to everyone and I know modern monetary Theory does not talk about it

1:22:08

but I just you know Grace asked have you so yeah so the government could always

1:22:14

give us as much money as we wanted right so it could credit everyone’s account with $100,000 tomorrow the question is

1:22:22

yeah is that going to be optimal um and what problem are we trying to solve I think um you know so through Universal

1:22:28

basic income I would always ask you know what problem are you trying to solve um and then think about the best way to do

1:22:34

that um Universal basic income is interest you know I think there’s a really interesting conversation there to

1:22:39

have because a lot of times mmt folks are a little more skeptical especially of universal basic income like giving

1:22:45

the same amount of money to everyone um no conditions uh no questions asked um

1:22:52

they say that could be problematic and that let’s say you know you give everyone that same amount number one could that make inequality worse you

1:22:59

know like were were you trying to solve inequality because that that that policy could make inequality worse if you think about it where you know if if everyone

1:23:05

gets the same amount the rich are able to save it invest it the poor are going to spend it and it doesn’t change the power dynamics in an economy so you know

1:23:12

the landlords could say oh great you have1 more thousand rent just went up $110,000 you know so that could kind of

1:23:19

disappear or just be an inflationary impulse and not really shift the Dynamics or the the distribution of

1:23:26

wealth in an economy so if you give you know that could just even make inequality worse let’s say um if you if

1:23:32

you did it a certain way so I think you know mmt economists they come in all Stripes but most most of them are very

1:23:38

on board for this idea of a jobs guarantee so a federal jobs guarantee where it says you’re not just guaranteed

1:23:44

cash but any you know we shouldn’t have anyone who’s Vol you know involuntarily unemployed so anyone who wants a job

1:23:52

should be able to get a job in the public interest doing something that our community deems you know necessary and

1:23:57

good and you know we can all think of there’s a lot of work that needs to be done I think we can all look at our community and say Hey what if we did

1:24:03

this and this and this you know we anyone who’s unemployed should be able to I think find um a a job in the public

1:24:11

for the public good um and that that can be matched you know the work of Pina chernova is great on this so you know

1:24:17

matching people’s strengths to to what’s needed and there’s a lot of of work there and this this has you know trialed

1:24:23

in different areas and you know the closest we got to it was maybe the WPA and the Great Depression in the US um

1:24:28

employing a lot of people but um that would kind of be a basic that would be that would kind of replace the minimum

1:24:34

wage in a way um and there’s different different ideas of how the job guarantee could work but um but it would be the

1:24:40

floor um and and there’s a lot of things where they prefer this because it would be less inflationary actually um the Ubi

1:24:47

they’re concerned about inflationary impacts and so the jobs guarantee they’re looking at it is really something that could actually help

1:24:53

stabilize inflation stabilizes kind of the value of the currency in a lot of ways um it creates what they call this

1:25:00

buffer stock of of employed people um that that businesses can pull from when

1:25:05

when business is good you know the private sector maybe there will be very few people in the jobs guarantee program

1:25:10

when when business is good but when a recession hits it’s automatic um people can always fall back in the job

1:25:16

guarantee that deficit spending can increase um and so it’s what they call a counter cyclical you know um policy

1:25:23

where government spending and taxing is automatically going up and down with the needs of the private economy so you

1:25:29

don’t you also don’t have to worry as much about this question of Congress passing the right legislation at the right time and in order to spend and tax

1:25:36

kind of at the right time to deal with inflation something like the job guarantee would be much more automatic the spending and the taxing would happen

1:25:42

automatically um so there’s a couple reasons why they really like that policy

1:25:47

um especially as compared to Ubi and and you know but maybe they would look at a basic income for folks who can’t work

1:25:52

you know um that sort of thing but yeah a lot to discuss there yeah yeah so um

1:25:58

yeah sorry Grace like like we’ve gone long probably one of the longest we’ve

1:26:04

ever gone but um so so um and and the film is brilliant Marin and thank you so

1:26:11

much for for your commitment to making it I mean than it’s all the mmt

1:26:16

economists and and I think your your film will really help bring it out even

1:26:21

more even more than Stephanie kelton’s book was probably the most public um face yet so it’s going to be really

1:26:29

great when it gets out there and people can see it and yeah yeah looking forward

1:26:35

to getting it out yeah yeah bet how long did it take you to make it too long too

1:26:40

long so started in like 2019 um most of the shooting happened before the pandemic so the pandemic kind of slowed

1:26:48

things down but um but we kept chugging through so yeah and it was mostly a process of trying to find money that

1:26:54

took a while so had to find the money as well yeah well I just want to say that

1:27:00

if you know some of these ideas seem complicated they’re broken down chapter by chapter in the film and with the you

1:27:08

know animations that you have and the visual illustrations it makes it a lot easier to understand and so you know

1:27:14

watch for this film um hold a screening in your home or your local library or

1:27:20

Church community or what wherever you can and uh I think films are just a great way to spread ideas uh more

1:27:27

rapidly than books and I think you’ve done a great job and thank you oh thank you yeah and especially with the films

1:27:33

like we can have you know panel discussions or if you want you know holding a screening is always nice it’s actually a nice film to watch with an

1:27:39

audience I think and you can kind of re react and then you can discuss after yeah I’ll definitely want to organize

1:27:45

something my so great yeah all right yeah no thank you guys

1:27:52

interview for your intelligence thank you very much and let’s hope this film spreads far and wide yes thank you thank

1:28:01

you guys so much for having me thank you thank you everyone for listening

1:28:07

and we’ll see you next time the recording will be sent out in a few days

1:28:12

and uh if you’re not on the mailing list and you got here by somebody else uh go to voices forthe future.org it is.org

1:28:19

right yeah yeah and you can sign on to mailing list yeah all right all

1:28:25

right okay thank [Music]

1:28:35

you

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