MrOllie, Avatar317, BBB23, and Knitsey vs MMT aka Modern Monetary Theory

[journo]

MrOllie, Avatar317, BBB23, and Knitsey seem to have an issue with modern monetary theory, an economic school supported (in public) almost primarily by leftists to argue for stuff like universal health care. They are also trying, so far successfully, to WP:OWN the page and make the lede sound negative. While not a perfect economic school, it's also arguably the only left-friendly economic school which has any conscious, broad and stated public support in 2024 outside academic circles no one cares about. The school alone has moved the entire economic discussion on federal government debt in America to the left and one of their primary economists, Stephanie Kelton, was (is?) a primary economic advisor to Senate Democrats. What is surprising however is that the lede of the Wikipedia article reads negative about the school in a way that is bizarre even after summarizing sources, and has for years.

So, a few people tried to source the article properly to remove misleading and inaccurate statements, but were met with resistance from aforementioned patrollers. This is also not a new phenomenon.

Anyone familiar with those behind the scenes of this Ayn Rand-lovers founded wiki know it is not left-wing wiki, it is at most a 2009 liberal wiki, with some juvenile antifa ppl thrown in. There's tons of left-wing editors but it doesn't manifest much outside liberalism due to the more prominent editors and admins. There's a left-wingish admin i won't name who was afraid to jump in to that page for fear of being outnumbered.

The first part of the MMT page some page patrollers didn't like was mentioning Stephanie Kelton's history in the Senate. As an aside, Kelton's influence in the Senate is arguably the only meaningful Congressional result of the Sanders' campaigns of 2016 and 2020. Although Sanders did have influence beyond that in state laws about minimum wage.

The second, more important, thing they have an issue with MMT about, seemingly including BBB23, is something about taxes, which is not clear, but they want the wording to be as negative as humanely possible.

Original MMT economists usually advocate broad tax cuts, and the founder advocates for a complete abolition of income taxes. A few more tax-friendly MMT economists like Randall Wray allegedly advocate tax increases during inflation, but not to everyone. Anyway, Knitsey, MrOllie , Avatar317, and BBB23 insists the page state that MMT supports "increasing taxes on everyone" (which is false) , and that a WSJ source says Wray advocates an "everyone-tax" during inflation, which the source they keep inserting does not say. It's also worth noting that MMT ecnomists disagree on things, which the patrollers refuse to contemplate. An example beyond taxes being Wray was against broad portions of the stimulus that Kelton liked.

The lede of [[MMT]] after the first sentence has been carefully constructed to tell a bizarre story about MMT. I'm well aware of nuance.

The lede is constructed to make the reader assume MMT advocates issuing treasury securities, and printing money to avoid default on that interest. First, every MMT economist does not think it is possible for the USA to default. Second. the originator of the theory is categorically against treasury securities and only argues a limited amount be issued for political purposes. The rest of the sentences are constructed to imply inflation would result from paying interest on treasury securities, among other things, and that MMT would subsequently raise taxes on everyone to compensate. In other words, they are trying their hardest to make it seem that debt dovishness is always a lose-lose through misrepresentation and misquoting.

[journo]

It's also possible BBB23 is involved because he doesn't care at all about taxes and thinks this is all from this forum, which is not accurate. The thing they didn't like was inserted by a drive-by editor who made a somewhat decent edit named Nlewis1111, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1245197745, reverted first by Avatar317, who is attempting to own the page for weeks.

Avatar keeps saying MMT is a "fringe theory" blah blah, clearly dislikes it.

[journo]

Anyway, public purpose, why this matters. congressmen and women DO care about MMT, including ones who have not stated so in public. Budget Chairman Yarmuth credited Kelton personally and privately for his willingness to push the 2021 climate bill past the finish line. Budget Chairman Yarmuth told Kelton he probably wouldn't have have had the courage to push it past the finish line without reading Kelton's book.

Wikipedia doesn't decide the future, but if in the small chance one Kelton admiring politician in Congress looks at that page and thinks "hmm MMT advocates increasing taxes on everyone?" That's such a stupid outcome. Inflation is coming down, and the original MMT economists at least advocate for tax decreases.

tl;dr MMT article was unnecessarily negative and improperly sourced for years, veterans and admins refuse to do anything about it and seem to like it's negative

[ericbarbour]

Anyone familiar with those behind the scenes of this Ayn Rand-lovers founded wiki know it is not left-wing wiki, it is at most a 2009 liberal wiki, with some juvenile antifa ppl thrown in. There's tons of left-wing editors but it doesn't manifest much outside liberalism due to the more prominent editors and admins. There's a left-wingish admin i won't name who was afraid to jump in to that page for fear of being outnumbered.

Well put. People who bitch about how "liberal" it is know nothing about the real, miserable history. WP content has the bias of whoever is the most successful at biasing it.

Some things attract the same crazed leftists, repeatedly; some things attract the same crazed "libertarians"; some things attract the same crazed pro-Israel and anti-Israel freaks; etc. etc.

[Archer]

Every Wikipedia article having to do with monetary policy reads like an exercise in obscurantism. Likely no accident; if the public knew how US monetary policy worked they'd be furious.

[journo]

Yea MrOllie is definitely doing WP:OWN, there's been 1-2 more people not associated with Wikipedia trying to fix the page and he reverts them until he slaps them with edit warring notices, and refuses to finish discussions on talk . A look at MrOllie's talk page and contribs shows he's been doing worse types of edit warring for years.

After a few weeks MrOllie found a quote by an MMT economist saying "raising taxes on a majority of people would be more effective than x to control inflation" during a specific inflationary period. "x" is not explained in the source. They use this to falsely imply MMT proponents and economists typically advocate raising taxes on everyone during inflation over *all* other methods. It's a particularly bizarre claim as User:Andresintheory points out, because MMT does not typically blame demand side issues as causing inflation. Instead, it typically blames supply, like foreign crude oil cartels in the case of the 2021 inflation.

MMT proponents usually only recommend regulating demand to control inflation in the presence of a continual (month by month) cash handout outstripping supply, such as the large positive federal funds rate, which acts as a UBI for the wealthy. Given we've had a large federal funds rate for quite a while now, the primary MMT proponent response to inflation has been to simply reduce the federal funds rate to 0. The only other realistic demand-side circumstance I could see MMT proponents recommending "raising taxes on everyone", above all solutions, would be after some sort of massive UBI that was going on for months or something.

The other, and most common, MMT response to inflation, which would also be appropriate for the lede, is implementing long-term foreign price contracts.

Additionally, the secondary source MrOllie wants to use for the "raising taxes on everyone" claim, makes a few more claims which he edit warred to take out, specifically about MMT's presence in the federal government.

[Archer]

MMT does not typically blame demand side issues as causing inflation. Instead, it typically blames supply, like foreign crude oil cartels in the case of the 2021 inflation.

Hardly seems like the cause of inflation should be some sort of mystery. You don't think this might have something to do with it? If banks have no reserve requirement, then what stops them from simply lending as much as they can? If money is not issued by the government but loaned out at interest (which it presently is, but need not be and should not be), then how can the money supply ever be stable? Wouldn't there always be debt in excess of the currency supply itself, or at least a very strong tendency toward that condition? Wouldn't that create an artificial demand or need for more currency? These are not rhetorical questions.

At any rate, the combination of fractional reserve banking and debt-based currency is essentially a fraud, and seems to be tolerated as the status quo for no reason except that it is obfuscated from the public, being so grossly avaricious and anti-social that most people would never imagine such a fraud in the first place.

[journo]

The new guy on the page trying to fix MrOllie and BBB23's mess on the MMT page seems to be the New School NYC professor Andrés Bernal. His additions could have used more neutral language, but at least he tried. He was reverted over and over.

BBB23 was quick to try to discipline the professor and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez advisor, accusing him of transgressing MrOllie's edits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk ... ember_2024

Andres is probably the only person there who has even read more than 2-3 news hitjobs on the topic, let alone even tried to understand the sources in question. Their resistance to people who actually know what they are talking about it bizarre. They usually give academic experts at least some leeway if they are good faith.

[journo]

You know, for a month there, the Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver (of all people) led his entire platform with an MMT thing about interest rates. I thought I was imagining it because it wasn't there today, but it's in the waybackmachine for last month.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240723031 ... /platform/

The last party you'd expect to do that.

[ericbarbour]

Yea MrOllie is definitely doing WP:OWN

AND HE WILL FAIL. The article will end up a long, unreadable mess.

BBB23 was quick to try to discipline the professor and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez advisor, accusing him of transgressing MrOllie's edits

Inevitable. Someone who actually knows something about a contentious subject MUST be chased off and harassed.