The Agenda of Scott Sumner's NGDP

     Morgan Warstler took it upon himself to answer this for Scott the other day. Sumner has not commented on Morgan-a resident Right wing knuckle dragger over at The Money Illusion. But if Morgan means to help Scott, he should maybe just be quiet. Here is his attempt at helping Sumner explain his position.

    "Remember this, liberal softies, Scott’s real agenda is JUST AS BRUTAL on public employees as I am."

    "Under a level target (4% is much preferable to 4.5%), every time the government deficits spends, that creates calorie-less NGDP growth, and the FED swoops in a raises rates on the real private sector business economy."

    "Under Scott, every single year is Bill Clinton buckling to Alana Greenspan in 1993."

     I sent a comment to Morgan wondering how much he is really helping Scott. He answered me thus:

    "I want you to understand that level targeted NGDP is antithetical to progressive factions but it is not antithetical to progressive ideals."

    "Meaning, level target NGDP forces the govt. to become as productive as the private sector. That means public employee unions eat it."

     "BUT, when public employees eat it, we do get end user citizens (read poor people) MORE FREE STUFF… because some of the money not spent on public employees goes where it is supposed to go."

      Say this for Morgan-he is not shy about giving it to you.

      "Sax, I advocate a Guaranteed Income system that auctions the unemployed in $1 per hour auctions… I talk about it quite a bit here, Scott supports that…"

       I'd love to see the chapter and verse where Scott supports bringing back slave auctions. As I point out to Morgan though:

       "What’s ironic is you’re telling me and the other liberals that this is inimical to our ideals-maybe not smart, but I guess you feel you’re a straight shooter. I know you qualify between “progressive ideals” and “progressive factions.”

        "Yet clearly you have failed to convince your own GOPers about what you’re telling me. If NGDP is the road map to making the public unions eat it and putting us all on the South Carolina Model then you should be making this case to Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Boehner not “liberal softies” like us."

      I wonder if Sumner wants to make Morgan his public liaison? The one thing Sumner has said that might seem to controvert Morgan is he claims to be against austerity-though what this means is unclear. He does say he's for monetary stimulus-though Lars Christensen says that "monetary stimulus" is really the wrong name for what market monetarists want. They want to take away disequilbrium which according to them is caused by monetary policy-but he qualifies this by saying 'monetary stimulus the only stimulus that works."

    So Morgan's characterizations while seemingly "extreme" may well be on the nose. I would take it as being forewarned. I don't say NGDP is not an intriguing idea but clearly the Market Monetarists are doing everything to let us Keynesians know "let the buyer beware."