Tally Sticks, Paper Money, and Central Banking - Dr. L. Randall Wray, Levy Institute, DSPod #288

L. Randall Wray is a professor of Economics at Bard College and
Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute who is a long-term
proponent of Modern Monetary Theory, a heterodox macroeconomic
theory that teaches the government should not worry about
accruing debt, because it is always able to print more money to
service that debt. This is one of those theories that sounds too
good to be true - how could it be that there’s nothing wrong with
debt, and that there’s nothing stopping a country like the United
States from spending as much as it wants on social services and
public works projects? At the heart of the theory, the piece that
makes the whole thing go, is a huge shift in the way that we
understand money. Instead of seeing it as an immutable unit of
exchange, MMT theorists argue that money is primarily a money of
account - which is simply a ledger system for keeping track of
who owes what to whom. We take apart Wray’s story of the history
of money, with a detour into Medieval tally sticks, how barter
systems evolve into monetary ones, and how central banking sealed
our economic fate, and how debt is far more valuable than we
realize. Sign up for our Patreon and get episodes early + join
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through this link: https://amzn.to/4g2cPVV (00:00) Go! Who is
Randall Wray? (00:05:03) Money's Origins and Importance
(00:13:55) Development of Writing and Record-Keeping (00:26:00)
Tribal Justice Systems (00:35:51) Ledger and Barter Systems
(00:41:58) Tally Sticks and Medieval Finance (00:52:30)
Transition from Tally Sticks to Central Banking (01:02:33)
Central Banking and its Origins (01:19:17) The Role of Central
Banks in Preventing Bank Runs (01:26:57) Tax Liabilities and
Money Demand (01:37:10) Currency Redemption and Economic
Circulation (01:46:08) Fiscal Policy and Future Burden (01:56:20)
The Role of the Federal Reserve and Treasury (02:04:40) Bond
Market and Fiscal Management (02:13:22) Government Spending and
Inflation (02:20:22) Oil Price Shocks and Policy Responses
(02:30:03) Dollar Dominance and Financial Trust (02:35:00) Future
Economic Questions #sciencepodcast, #longformpodcast,
#ModernMonetaryTheory, #EconomicsExplained, #MoneyOrigins,
#CentralBanking, #FiscalPolicy, #GovernmentSpending,
#DebtEconomy, #WilliamOfOrange, #BankOfEngland,
#InflationControl, #FinancialHistory, #EconomicInsights,
#MonetaryPolicy, #TaxSystem, #BondMarket, #TribalEconomies,
#MoneyAndDebt, #Hyperinflation, #DollarDominance, #FinancialTrust
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