How I came to the Modern Money view.
How I came to the Modern Money view. I wrote this roughly three years ago – three years in October.
I am a 40 year old white male that has slipped through the cracks due to my lack of knowledge and support over the years.
I have had great difficulty in finding work and good social and romantic relationships. At the time of writing I do not drive. This is because I only learned in the last two years that to get your Ls learner licence all you have to do is pass a written test. I am good at those sorts of tests. This is something I should have known since I was 15/16 but I did not. At no point during my life – until recently – was I informed of this. It was just assumed that like all other teenagers that I would like to drive and thus learn to drive. At that age I was not the most confident person and was the victim of much emotional bullying. All I really knew at this point and for much of my life after was rejection.
The Internet wasn’t what it is today back then and barely a blip on most people’s radar. I completed my Higher School Certificate and went looking for work. I took a resume into every local business including when bank branches still accepted a paper form. I never ever heard back from any of them. I did this for six months before studying business and office administration where I learnt to keyboard type and many other skills. So I tried applying for all those related jobs and once again all I received was rejection letters.
From high school bullying and social rejection to rejection for every job I ever applied for. Hope breeds eternal misery.
So I tried my luck in doing a Bachelor of IT. It took me longer to complete than I liked but still no work could be found even after volunteering myself for work experience for some big companies in the web hosting industries in the ACT. Those companies got some short-term free labour and I was still not considered to be put on as a paid worker. One positive interview for the Attorney-General’s department where the interviewers made me the most relaxed I have ever been in an interview and it was a welcome distraction and I even got the job. Oh wait! No I didn’t. For one reason only, the employee that was leaving the role decided not to leave.
So here I am a social and economic pariah. Can you imagine the damage that does to your confidence over 30 years? Eventually I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression that was derived from all my traumas in home life, school life and work life having experienced a number of what they call small t traumas that ended up having a cumulative effect.
During this time I was quite naïve and perhaps still am in some ways as I believed what I was taught in school about civics. That in parliament that legislation is debated on its merits and made into law so from about 2004 to 2009 I followed politics quite heavily and was active under a pseudonym on most political blogs. One day economic journalist Peter Martin linked to Bill Mitchell blog and it intrigued me. Somewhere in there I realised that the merits of anything are rarely debated and most people are hell bent on their own ideals – their own ideology.
Bill Mitchell’s blog gave me a crystal clear explanation of unemployment and why it was not my fault. You might even argue that is when my recovery truly began.
So I managed to switch my main focus from politics which was affecting me negatively to economics which seemed to be the language of public policy that politics is derived from.
In my early days I was always a studious student and I applied that to the things written on Bill Mitchell’s blog and I really could not fault his logic. I tried a number of times but I was usually satisfied with the answers. I then discovered Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton and a number of others and then the Modern Money Network began and much more.
Before I fully understood Modern Money, I was drawn to the concept of the Job Guarantee as it was a decent wage offer for suitable living and I have been drawn to it ever since. Once you understand Modern Money’s Job Guarantee and how the Modern Money scholars came to that conclusion you realise unemployment is a policy choice and the government deliberately keeps people unemployed.
There are many social costs to that but I won’t go into that here.
Officially of October 2019 we have an unemployment rate of about 5.3%. I am one of them. It is a bit difficult to deal in partial numbers so let’s call that 5%.
I learnt a quick parable back in the day that explained the joblessness figures. The short version is if you have 100 dogs that are trained to find 95 bones. You’re always going to have at least 5 dogs without a bone. Perhaps these dogs are not trying hard enough. So they implemented various forms of training and tests for the dogs that weren’t coming back with a bone. No matter what they did there was still always a matter of at least 5 dogs coming back without a bone and not necessarily the same dogs either.
This is exactly the way the employment/unemployment system is set up. There is a deliberate policy to keep many Australians unemployed and then the stigmatising effects of saying they’re not trying hard enough or not all jobs are advertised or they should move. This would not change any outcomes ultimately. There would still be 5 dogs without a bone or 5% unemployment even for those that desire to work.
A guaranteed job with decent wages and benefits would make all the difference to me. I would be able to afford to eat after I pay all my bills including my housing costs. I would be able to afford to travel to meet like-minded people. I would be socially included.
All the things that I was told were my fault are not my fault; it is a feature of the system. I have since sought treatment for my disorders and am on the path to recovery but I very much desire to be paid for any working activities I partake in so I can be more fully included in society.
Thankfully I am now more confident and in the early days of a relationship but my view on Modern Money has not changed as they are the only honest scholars I have found.
Australian Real Progressives 