Macro N Cheese

Bryce Greene was recently arrested during campus protests in support of Palestine. Steve, who believes ignoring the slaughter in Gaza is akin to ignoring the holocaust, invited him to describe his experience and insights into the student encampments and the anti-Zionist movement in the US. Bryce is a writer and organizer currently working towards his PhD in Informatics. His work focuses on media and geopolitical analysis. He emphasizes the importance of dismantling the myths and narratives surrounding American support for Israel and the oppression of Palestinians. He believes that studying Palestine brings understanding of the broader forces and processes that define American Empire. He goes into the impact of social media and alternative platforms in challenging the traditional narratives and gatekeepers that shape the public’s understanding. Or misunderstanding.  They talk about the brutality of the Israeli state, including land grabs, settlements, and military violence against Pale

**On Tuesday evening we’re holding a listening party and informal discussion of this episode. Join us for Macro ‘n Chill. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZArcuqsqD0tH92MxVmJIqj4PHtojQGgFl2l Grassroots political organizer Jay Ponti talks with Steve about his book, "Be the Revolution: How Occupy Wall Street and the Bernie Sanders Movement Reshaped American Politics." Jay maintains that there’s a vibrant network of people doing great work that isn’t covered by corporate media.  “Politicians are not heroes who can save us. We have to save ourselves. That's what the Occupy Wall Street movement taught me. We can't rely on someone else to make the changes we want to see. We have to get organized, we have to get active, and we have to fight for our own rights.” Jay shares his experiences in Occupy Wall Street and the motivations behind it. He describes how the movement emerged as a response to the 2008 financial crisis and the fraudulent practices of financial in

Aaron Good, a political scientist and historian, talks with Steve about the US political system and power dynamics. They explore the roles of the deep state and oligarchy in policy-making and the suppression of democracy.“This is a very low point in the history of democracy. Perhaps the lowest point ever, if you put it in a historical context. The United States was never really a democracy. Democracy isn't so much an either/or proposition, I would say it's a continuum ...“Even in the generic sense of political rights and universal suffrage and basic 'one person, one vote' rules, the US comes up short. The electoral college is a ridiculous system. There are barriers to getting on the ballot.”The conversation includes a discussion on the role of empire and the pursuit of global dominance in shaping US politics and policies. Aaron argues that the US prioritizes its imperial ambitions over domestic issues, resulting in a loss of political power for most of the population.Aaron Good holds a doctorate in political

In a previous episode of this podcast, David Van Deusen spoke about the radical ten-point program adopted by the Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. This time, he and Steve discuss David’s new book, Insurgent Labour: The Vermont AFL-CIO from 2017 to 2023.They look at the importance of working-class unity, the need for unions to be more democratic and inclusive, and the need for a new approach to labor organizing. They touch on the problems of racial oppression, police unions, global labor movements, healthcare, and the futility in relying on the political parties. David's book provides insights and lessons from their experiences in Vermont, offering a potential roadmap for a more effective and inclusive labor movement in the US and abroad.They discuss the global race to the bottom and international solidarity of the working class.“We can't have the US government foreign policy defining our foreign policy as a labor movement. We need to look for those groups that are truly engaged with struggles against the

When most of us think about bail, we focus on the financial burden it presents to the accused. This week’s guest is Jeffrey J. Clayton, Executive Director of the American Bail Coalition. He talks to Steve about the complicated anti-democratic trap that is our criminal justice system.Jeff explains that across the US there are plans in place to eliminate bail. (One would think that’s good news. One would be wrong.) In reality, these plans result in greater violations of civil liberties. Bail is being replaced by pre-trial incarceration and risk assessment tools using computer algorithms (AKA profiling?)In his dissent in United States v. Salerno, Justice Thurgood Marshall warned that we are quickly moving to a criminal justice system where "a person innocent of any crime may be jailed indefinitely." Marshall called the bail system a shortcut to conviction.Steve and Jeff discuss the most obvious ways to address crime – by providing jobs, housing, and education or training. Some caught up in the criminal justice s

**Check our website for upcoming events such as book clubs, RP Live webinars, and the Tuesday evening discussion group, Macro ‘n Chill. https://realprogressives.org/This week’s episode is the audio track of a recent webinar with historian Esha Krishnaswamy. Esha is now living in Russia to research and write a people’s history of the Soviet Union.The discussion begins with the story of the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution. The formation of the USSR as a proletarian state shook the capitalist nations of the West to their core. As a result, the Soviet Union was regularly under threat economically, militarily, as well as propaganda warfare.Esha talks about the history of the Soviet Union and its ultimate dissolution against the will of the majority. She delves into the impact of its fall on various countries and the global economy. She looks at the shock doctrine years of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and the effects of such extreme austerity and privatization on the average citizens. She then goes into

“Assange is being targeted by the US government because he doesn't conform to the dominant culture of the US prestige media. He's not going to be invited to the White House Correspondents' Dinner. He's not going to be given a Pulitzer. He's not going to be treated as one of them.”Steve’s guest is journalist Kevin Gosztola, author of Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange. Kevin has been advocating for freedom of the press since the George W. Bush administration and the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Steve and Kevin discuss the lack of available unbiased information, particularly regarding events like the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the presidential election. They look at the collusion between mainstream media outlets and the government, the demonization of individuals who counter the mainstream narrative, and the targeting of journalists and newsrooms.They highlight the efforts of the US empire to prevent information from reaching the public and discuss the significance of

**RP Book Club is beginning a new series, Sunday April 7, 14, and 21, at 3pm ET/12pm PT. Register once for all three sessions. realprogressives.org/event/rp-book-club-the-communist-manifesto/2024-04-07L. Randall Wray talks with Steve about the concept of value in the context of MMT. Randy discusses the labor theory of value and the liquidity premise theory, saying both approaches are critical to understanding how money works in a capitalist economy.Randy looks at the historical development of economic thought and the neoclassical revolution of the 1870s, which aimed to prove that a free-market economy could reach equilibrium without considering money. He explains why this just isn’t so. He compares and contrasts the intentions and conclusions of Keynes and Marx. He emphasizes the need to look beyond surface phenomena and understand the structure of the capitalist economy to determine the value of money.The conversation also goes into the importance of the federal job guarantee in setting wages and stabilizing

A hundred years ago, John Maynard Keynes predicted we would see a massive expansion of growth and productivity under capitalism. Bingo. He got that right. He said this amazing efficiency would result in a shorter work week with far more leisure time for everyone. Oops. Not so much. The structure of capital ownership will never permit it.Bill Mitchell’s blog post, Keynes Was Wrong Because He Failed to Consider Class Conflict, was the inspiration for this episode. Bill talks with Steve about many of the truths about capitalism economists and historians get wrong, beginning with the idea that capitalism freed workers from the bonds of feudalism.Bill covers the social democratic politics of the postwar era and how the ruling elites then ensured that government would only serve as their agent. He and Steve take a critical look at the dangerous power of institutions like the World Bank and IMF. Bill explains why he supports degrowth instead of “green growth.”Bill believes progressives shouldn’t be working to reform

This episode of Macro N Cheese is dedicated to Steve’s mom, Joan Grumbine. Her kindness, love, and unwavering dedication to her family and community will be deeply missed. May she rest in peace.In his first solo episode, our host and jefe, Steve Grumbine, recounts the story of his political transformation from conservative republican to passionate MMT advocate, to self-identified socialist.He begins the episode talking about his recent experience dealing with the medical system as his mother’s health declined. Both parents’ deaths illustrate the fact that a for-profit system cannot provide the kind of healthcare we need and deserve.Awareness of class discrepancy runs through his story as he develops an awareness of the need to combine MMT with an understanding of capitalism.It's impossible to separate Steve’s political development from his work on this podcast. Many of the guests affect him profoundly. In the episode he ties these insights together to create a radical and comprehensive worldview.Steve Grumbin

** Be sure to check the Real Progressives website’s calendar for upcoming events. On Sunday, March 17th at noon ET/9am PT, we’re hosting a webinar, RP Live with Esha Krishnaswamy: Putin’s Russia. On Tuesday evenings, 8pm ET/5pm PT, come to Macro ‘n Chill, where we listen to the most recent episode of this podcast and discuss it with the community. https://realprogressives.org/rp-events-calendar/ “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” Milton Friedman This quote by the grandaddy of neoliberal economics is from 1963. Some in the mainstream have been dining out on it ever since. According to our guest, author and blogger Brian Romanchuk, neoclassical economics relies on mathematical models and fail to capture the complexity of real-world inflation. He highlights the importance of understanding the supply and demand dynamics in setting prices and explains that inflation can be in

The American people see through mainstream claims of “the greatest economy ever.” They are confronted by evidence to the contrary every day.Steve and his guest, economist Yeva Nersisyan, take a deep dive into the current US economy, looking at the repercussions of the high costs of education, healthcare, and housing.They discuss different perspectives on the causes of inflation and talk about Isabella Weber’s work on “sellers’ inflation” and its relationship to monopoly power. They argue that the drive for corporate profits, leading to abusive price-setting, has been the primary force behind inflation.They also talk about the effect of fiscal policy on income inequality, revealing politicians’ contempt for the working class.Yeva Nersisyan is an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, and a research scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

** Reminder: You are invited to listen to and discuss this episode with friends from Real Progressives on Tuesday, March 5th. Find the Zoom link at https://realprogressives.org/rp-events-calendar/“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.” — Victor HugoDaniel Conceição talks with Steve about Argentina’s economic immiseration under newly elected president Javier Milei.Milei’s aggressive cuts to public spending don’t address the root cause of inflation in Argentina. Because of the country’s dependency on the US dollar, it is mired in a foreign debt trap. Daniel and Steve highlight austerity policies bolstered by the macroeconomic illiteracy propagated by media and politicians (shout out to RFK, Jr).They discuss the current political landscape and touch upon topics such as genocide, neoliberalism, economic conditions, and the role of public spending in promoting prosperity.Daniel Conceição is an associate professor

**To discuss this episode among friends, come to our listening party, Macro ‘n Chill, on Tuesday February 27th at 8pm ET/5pm PT. For the link go to our Events Calendar https://realprogressives.org/rp-events-calendar“But fortunately for us, human nature is precisely the capacity to be creative; to imagine a different way of living together and to bring that into being through our conscious and deliberate actions by working together, by fighting for a different world against the class power that is interested in perpetuating things as they are. And so we can, through acting on the world to transform the world, we also transform ourselves. That's a basic principle of Marxist theory and Marxist politics. By acting on the world to change the world, we simultaneously transform ourselves through the act of struggle, to the act of building collective solidarity, we become different and we also make the world different.”Steve invited Stephen Maher for this interview to talk about some of the basic lessons of Marxism.

** If you haven’t yet come to our Tuesday night listening party, this is the week to do so. Join the Real Progressives community as we dive in and discuss this episode. The registration link is posted on our Events Calendar prior to each Tuesday’s session — it’s usually up by Saturday. Look for Macro ‘n Chill. https://realprogressives.org/rp-events-calendar/This week Steve talks with our friend, economist Fadhel Kaboub. Followers of this podcast will recognize some of the themes we regularly focus on, including the debt trap facing countries of the global South, and the need for climate action and transformative economic development. Current plans under consideration are extractive and paternalistic, continuing the patterns of colonial exploitation.At the root of the external debt problem are three major structural issues: food deficits, energy deficits, and manufacturing deficits. Fadhel breaks down each of these problems, tracing the origins and suggesting how solutions will benefit not just Africa and the

“We've been trying to get people to stop saying ‘mainstream media.’ I’ve got to do it now too, for the same reason that you just described: because there's nothing mainstream about 90 percent of the media being controlled by 6 private, for-profit corporations or 5 other big tech companies. There's nothing mainstream, or Main Street, about the ideas and the views that they platform. It's corporate media or establishment legacy press, and then there's independent media which means very little.” — Mickey HuffProject Censored was founded by a communications and sociology professor in the 1970s. He asked himself how it was that Richard Nixon was elected by a landslide despite ample coverage of his misdeeds and corruption in the independent alternative media. And why did it take so long for the establishment press to catch up?Steve’s guest Mickey Huff discusses the work of Project Censored today and the current state of the press. They talk about how the corporate media's coverage is based on American exceptionalis

“...the question of how to pay for it is a very complicated question but has much less to do with money than it does to do with social structure and industrial structure. And the quicker we can get away from centering the taxpayer as the goose that holds the golden egg money and more towards the questions of labor and industrial structure that are really going to affect how we provide healthcare, I think we're going to be in a better place.” — Rohan GreyIn 2022, Real Progressives helped our coalition partners, March for Medicare for All, organize a three-day educational summit on the healthcare crisis in the US. This week’s episode is from the panel we put together on paying for national improved Medicare for All, featuring Geoff Ginter, Yeva Nersisyan, and Rohan Grey.The panelists discuss:The meaning of currency user vs currency creatorThe money story and order of operationsFinancial restraints vs resource constraintsThe importance of deficit spendingPrivate vs public investment and inflationary constraintsP

**Transcripts and “extras” are available for each episode of Macro N Cheese on our website: https://realprogressives.org/macro-n-cheese-podcast/This podcast’s followers know we cover a range of topics from political theory to international events, but at some point, we always circle back to Modern Monetary Theory.This interview with Warren Mosler was originally recorded for “Let’s Get Ready to Grumble,” Steve’s show on Status Coup.As with any Mosler episode, this one is appropriate for both MMT newcomers and old-timers. They discuss interest rates, inflation, and the money supply. Warren goes over the key principles of MMT, emphasizing that government spending precedes taxation as well as the role of taxation itself.The conversation also touches on rising fuel prices and the role of Saudi Arabia as monopoly supplier setting the price of oil.Warren Mosler is an American economist and theorist, and one of the leading voices in the field of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Presently, Warren resides on St. Croix, in

When we hear the term “blockchain,” we immediately think of libertarians and capitalists. Crypto bros. They have been dominating that space but they don’t hold a monopoly on it, and our guest, Joshua Dávila, AKA The Blockchain Socialist, refuses to cede the ground. In this episode he and Steve discuss the need for bridging the gap between technical knowledge and social understanding because blockchain technology can be a valuable organizing tool for socialists.Joshua suggests creating collective wallets and experimenting with democratic input in economic institutions as a starting point. He also speaks of the potential of blockchain technology in creating a new economic system that challenges the existing power structures.The space of what is economically possible is much wider than many realize. (As MMTers, we agree.) Joshua believes the tools provided by digital systems can be used to create post-capitalist systems that compete with the existing globalized digital economy. He challenges the notion that the

One of the many exciting things about a federal job guarantee is its transformative potential in reshaping society's understanding of work and value. It can provide a dignified job for people in every possible situation with every ability and disability. Of course that’s not all we love about the FJG. In this episode, Tyler Emerson and Steve also discuss the job guarantee’s preventative possibilities in tackling social and environmental crises.Tyler is one of the younger generation of MMT scholars. He works with our good friend Pavlina Tcherneva at the Economic Democracy Initiative (EDI). We recommend everyone check out their website, jobguarantee.orgThe conversation touches on the idea of money as a public resource and the need to challenge the mentality of scarcity that dominates society. The job guarantee will address poverty and provide opportunities for individuals to have agency and dignity in their work.Tyler Emerson is an economist working as a research assistant for the OSUN Economic Democracy Initia