Superstar MMT Economist Phil Armstrong on the MMT101 Podcast - Are Economists Useful?

Today I’m chatting to my favourite economist - and one of my favourite people - Post Keynesian and Institutionalist economist John T. Harvey. John is Professor of Economics at Texas Christian University, editor of the World Economic Review and author of several books, including Currencies, Capital Flows and Crises and Contending Perspectives in Economics. He writes the Pragmatic Economics blog at Forbes as well as hosting a YouTube channel called The Cowboy Economist - which takes a different approach to educating people about how the economy works. The Cowboy Economist dispenses ‘folksy wisdom on contemporary economic issues.’ On this episode of the MMT101 podcast I’m chatting to John about his new book, US Business Cycles 1954-2020, in which he uncovers the levers driving our boom-and-bust cycles - as well as offering solutions to temper the effects of those recessions. John’s book is one of the best books on economics I’ve read: it’s easy to understand, not long-winded and full of ideas we need to make a better world. If you would like to support me in my quest to teach people about how our monetary system works please become a paid subscriber, and in return I’ll do my best to make content that is easy to understand and helps us all understand that we can indeed afford to make a better world. Why do we need to understand it? Because if we don’t we are all doomed! It’s the only way we will be able to fund the mitigation of climate change - and save ourselves from being burned to a crisp. If you have any questions or if you disagree with anything we talk about, I want to hear from you. Please add your comments in the discussion area. Contrary views are welcome. Links to some of my most popular newsletters * Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in 67 Bullet Points * My MMT Top Ten: Modern Monetary Theory’s Best Ideas Explained * Killing the Myth of Government Borrowing Stone Dead: Gilts, T-Bills, Interest Rates and the Truth About Money Printing * An Explanation Of Why Taxes Don’t Fund Spending—And Why Elon Musk Is Wrong About The US Government Deficit Become a paid subscribers for access to additional content: * A Permanent Home for MMT101 Paid Subscriber Resources – Factsheets, book recommendations, academic papers, MMT podcasts and more. * MMT Factsheet 1: Currency Issuers vs. Currency Users * MMT Factsheet 2: The Origins of Money * MMT Factsheet 3: If Taxes Are Not For Spending What Are They For? * MMT Factsheet 4: What Does Full Employment Mean?

Undermining Economic Resilience – The Economic Impact of Adopting the European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact in an Independent Scotland In this episode of the MMT podcast I am delighted to be talking to economist William Thomson, co-founder with Kairin Van Sweedn of the Scotonomics organisation. Scotonomics aims are described as “Exploring how our economic system really works—and how it could work better.” William has - through his energy and commitment - become a leading character in Scotland’s heterodox economics community - spreading the word about how we can use our knowledge about the economy to make people’s lives better. As well as organised economics conferences in Scotland, William has also been busy writing and co-writing discussion papers and articles on Scotland’s economy - including the one we chat about today called “Undermining Economic Resilience – The Economic Impact of Adopting the European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact in an Independent Scotland.” co-written with one previous podcasts guests, Dr Dirk Ehnts - Dirk is a German heterodox economist and an accredited parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament in Brussels for Fabio de Masi (MEP). As well as chatting about the paper William will also be telling me about the upcoming festival of economics called. 'Scotland’s Festival of Economics' - a nice literal title for the conference. The conference takes place from March 19th to 21st 2026. I’ll be attending the conference myself for the Thursday sessions. Ok, here’s me chatting to economist William Thomson. MMT101 Podcast Links Scotonomics Scotland’s Festival of Economics Discussion paper: Undermining Economic Resilience - The Economic Impact of Adopting the European Union’s Stability and Growth Pact in an Independent Scotland (2026) Modern Money Theory: A Simple Guide to the Monetary System - Dirk Ehnts (2024)

Welcome to this week’s MMT101 Podcast. Today I’m bringing you a recent chat I had with Anne Maxwell and Kevin Gaynor of the RadioMMT podcast, a podcast based in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve been a regular listener to Anne and Kev’s show for quite a long time. In fact, the first time I came across Kevin Gaynor was when he was on the same Modern Money Lab economics course as myself a few years ago. That was the Economics for Sustainable Prosperity course run by Steven Hail. If you have heard of the course you will know it has the MMT perspective embedded within it. The focus of Anne and Kev’s show is to explain what can sometimes be quite complex economics topics in a way that most people can understand, which is what I aim to do myself. That’s why I was so delighted to be invited on for a chat. I was also delighted that they agreed to allow me to publish this episode on my own Substack MMT101 podcast. Anyway, that’s enough from me. Just one more thing before we jump into our chat. Don’t forget to subscribe if you are not already a subscriber, and if you have any spare change please become a paid subscriber because that will allow me to continue to publish my weekly MMT101 articles and podcasts. Note that this is an audio-only podcast. Hopefully you are ok with that. Ok, so here is myself chatting with Anne Maxwell and Kevin Gaynor of RadioMMT.

In this episode I am delighted to be talking to Bill Blain - bond trader, CEO of Wind Shift Capital Advisors and publisher of ‘Blain’s Morning Porridge’ - which is a daily commentary on global finance and markets. Just a few things to say before we get started. Bill is an unusual guest for the podcast, in that he’s not an MMTer though he does have some views that are similar. But Bill is a man who has been working in finance for 4 decades and as they say - that means he knows a thing or two. We don’t need to agree with the framework within which his ideas spring - and to be honest - there’s much that we don’t agree on. However, that does not mean that we can’t learn from Bill’s experience. You’ll notice that I do steer clear of ‘arguing the point’. Instead I try to keep quiet - because I want to hear what Bill has to say - whether or not I agree with it. Bill is sincere in his beliefs - he is not disingenuous and as you will discover as we chat - he’s a nice guy. And he knows a lot about the finance sector. One other thing I will mention- so as not to confuse those who are MMTers who know a bit about Quantitative Easing - which we chat briefly about: is that it sounds as if I agree that QE is about the government dumping lots of money into the economy. I don’t agree. What I’m saying is: in relation to QE the central bank swaps government bonds for reserves. Commercial banks can’t spend those reserves on houses or stocks, but the investors who sold the bonds now hold cash or deposits instead of gilts, and they spend that cash on other assets: pushing up the price of assets like housing and shares, contributing to inequality. I used the word ‘liquidity’ as a short-hand for that story. Ok, before we get into our chat - don’t forget to subscribe to MMT101 and if you can afford to - please become a paid subscribers, it really helps me to continue with this work. MMT101.ORG - Learn Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Hi, I’m Jim Byrne and this is for people who believe we can build a fairer, greener world by understanding how the economy and our monetary system work. Subscribe for free to get my weekly post.