Debating the Fed and monetary policy
Greetings! I got a yearlong premium subscription when you took your thoughtful show independent. I appreciate how accessible you make financial and monetary policy for listeners. Recently, both of you interviewed Christopher Leonard on your other shows, but have integrated some of those discussions into Breaking Points. I was wondering if you’ve ever considered having guests on BP to debate populist monetary policy. In the past you’ve interviewed Stephanie Kelton, whose work I find inspiring. However, for some of the reasons Christopher Leonard outlines, I find myself at odds with my Modern Monetary Theory friends who support ultra-loose monetary policy and 0% interest rates. My friends insist that it’s necessary to maximize employment. I would REALLY love to see a debate about populist monetary policy. Does loose monetary policy create bubbles/ risks, lead to asset price-inflation, and exacerbate inequality because assets grow in value while wages remain stagnant? Or does it drive down the rate of unemployment and give workers power? Also, I highly recommend the book The Asset Economy by Lisa Adkins, M. Konings, and Melinda Cooper, as they attempt to rethink class through the lens of asset ownership. Cheers, Jackie Wang
Impact of Democrats Voting Rights Legislation on Third Parties
Based on doing some digging around it seems the voting rights legislation proposed by Democrats would greatly limit the ability of third parties to get on the ballot. I’d love to see Breaking Points touch on this topic and reveal if this is indeed the case.
Hypocrisy on the filibuster
I’d love to hear a discussion on the filibuster. For example, Obama recently called it a Jim Crow Relic that’s only used to block civil rights, however, he used it over 2 dozen times as a senator. In 2017, 32 democrats signed a letter as the minority stating that the filibuster needs to be maintained. Even 2 days ago, a bill by Ted Cruz with bipartisan support was blocked by democrats using the filibuster. I am all for a legitimate and reasonable debate on the subject, but it appears that the democrat party is being disingenuous and hypocritical by saying it’s “racist” and needs to be repealed, since they have supported it repeatedly while in the minority. I’m sick of the culture war politics of calling something racist when it works against you but standing for it when it doesn’t.
Have you been experiencing any funny business with the YouTube algorithm lately?
I ask because of a strange experience I've had with your emails. Every email with your full, uncut episodes went straight to my 'promotions' folder for weeks. Every time I got an email, I'd mark it as 'not promotions,' but nothing changed for multiple weeks. I've never had this kind of issue with other emails I marked as 'not promotions.' Finally your emails went to my inbox, but recently, with no explanation, your emails WENT BACK to promotions! It's crazy. Gmail and YT are obviously owned by Google. Can't help but wonder. I'm a software engineer, and I can tell you it wouldn't be hard to generate a sort of 'enemies list' and make life difficult for those content creators.