Here’s what happened at the July Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon July 10.
Watch the recording here.
 
Cyber salon host and Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery introduced speaker Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, who spoke about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Fadhel is an Associate Professor of economics at Denison and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.
 
Fadhel wrote the piece “How to Design and Pay for a Green New Deal: Modern Monetary Theory Insights for the Biden Administration” also in poetry form here. Fadhel explained MMT and how it basically changes the way the federal government allocates tax monies for projects. Now each project has to have a coordinating tax base. With MMT, that requirement would go away and any federal funds could be used for any project. That way advances to change the way the government supports and subsidizes environmental, healthcare, childcare, education, jobs growth, housing, energy, transportation and other social policies would be easier to pass through legislation.
 
Mark Stansbery pointed out that MMT policies have been successfully used in other nations. When asked if MMT works on a local level, Fadhel noted that if municipalities created their own currency that could only be spent locally on utilities, for instance. Fadhel recommended the book The Deficit Myth and the podscast The Untouchables.