Stephanie Kelton
The Catalyst
Ideas with a spark, energy, range and the ability to start things.
Stephanie Kelton is The Catalyst because her career is an attempt to ignite a fundamental rethink of how governments understand money, waged not from a think tank but from senate briefings, bestseller lists, and public debate. Her core claim, that inflation rather than deficits is the binding constraint, directly challenges a fiscal orthodoxy both parties treat as gravity.
“It's exactly right. I go back and I consult books now mostly for the purpose of working on this book, but I'm an old school, you know, like. I think people should read Veplin. I think they should read the theory of business enterprise. I think they should read the theory of the leisure class. I think people should read Minsky.”
“And so Stoneybrook had a position for an endowed share in the history department, and he interviewed for it and they liked him. And then the provost at the time was an economist. I think he had been Jamie Galbraith's roommate at Yale. And he found out who Paul Kelton was married to.”
“Yeah, I mean, we have words for things like this when the labor market experiences a really negative shock. And then it doesn't sort itself out. We talk about labor scarring and hysteresis and this sort of stuff. I don't know that there's a term to use for stuff like this, but maybe there needs to be. And you're right.”
“And would truncate the downturn, it would replace income or a portion of income, probably not replacing full income for most people who lose jobs, but it would be a very powerful automatic stabilizer. Those people could transition into paid work. They'd have a job record, future employer could call and say, what kind of work is buried?”
Masters in Business: “US Fiscal Policy and the 'Deficit Myth' with Stephanie Kelton”
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