Millions of U.S. households are already facing desperate crises.
Author Archive | Nathan Tankus
Congress is a month away from cutting the economy’s fiscal life support
The most important economic problem the United States is facing is the failure to contain Coronavirus and the unethical decisions politicians have been making to reopen without the administrative capacity to limit the virus’s spread.
What are the three concurrent crises of the coronavirus depression?
The Keynes crisis, the Minsky crisis and the Means crisis
Avoid austerity to prevent a state and local coronavirus depression
Local budget cuts enacted a decade ago left states and cities dangerously unprepared for COVID-19. We shouldn’t make those same mistakes again.
The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus crisis actions, explained (Part 5)
Muni Purchases Are Finally Here
The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus Crisis Actions, explained (Part 4)
Ten days after the last central bank swap line announcement, the Federal Reserve followed up with an announcement of another facility meant to help a lower tier of central banks. In this facility the Federal Reserve would make a standing offer to temporarily purchase U.S. treasury securities from central banks (and supranational monetary institutions) and […]
Stanch the bleeding from local and state finances with local currencies
At the risk of making it seem like central bank swap lines are the solution to every problem, a swap line for local and state governments is the perfect tool using the Federal Reserve’s existing legal authority and can facilitate supporting these local currencies.
The Coronavirus depression requires a new approach to budgeting
Congress recently passed a 1.5-1.7 Trillion dollar stimulus bill (as I wrote about last week, the reported headline number is including a useless accounting gimmick which provides no additional support to the U.S. economy). Part of the reason we can report such an exact number is congress budgets in exacts.Take a look at these two […]
The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus crisis actions, explained (Part 3)
The International Aspects
The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus crisis actions, explained (Part 2)
Hear comes the corporate debt purchases.
The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus crisis actions, explained (Part 1)
The Federal Reserve has taken an extraordinary amount of actions over the past two weeks (most of which have happened over the course of 8 days from March 15th to March 23rd) to calm financial markets and sustain the flow of credit to households and businesses to respond to the coming Coronavirus-induced depression.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)—A Response to Henwood
Neither a Job Guarantee nor a Green New Deal will be won without brave, strong social movements. When it comes to building these movements, we joyfully follow the leadership of more capable community organizers and politicians.
