Name and Link	Type of Resource	Description

Marshall Auerback, Going Off on Rogoff – There is No Hard Debt Constraint for Fiat Currency Available Here also watch Busines News Network interview, Fighting Deficit Hysteria Here	Online article	""
L. Randall Wray, Teaching the Fallacy of Composition: The Federal Budget Deficit New Economic Perspectives, August 10, 2009 Available Here	Online article	Summary "One of the most important concepts to be taught in economics is the notion of the fallacy of composition: what might be true for individuals is probably not true for society as a whole. The most common example is the paradox of thrift: while an individual can save more by reducing spending (on consumption), society can save more only by spending more (for example, on investment). Another useful and very topical example involves the federal government’s budget deficit. Politicians and the media often argue that the government must balance its books, just like a household. If a household were to continually spend more than its income, it would eventually face insolvency; it is thus claimed that government is in a similar situation. However, careful examination of macroeconomic relations will show that this analogy is incorrect, and that it would lead to improper budgetary policy. This example can drive home the fallacy of composition. "
Bill Mitchell Why pander to the financial markets? Feb 11th 2009, Author's Web Blog, Bill Mitchell is the Research Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the University of Newcastle, NSW Australia. Available at this page ---- Also see The “gas now, pay later” myth Gold standard and fixed exchange rates – myths that still prevail Fiscal sustainability 101 – Part 1 Fiscal sustainability 101 – Part 2	Author's Blog	EXTRACT"….Underpinning this policy slant is the aberrant notion that the nation will be unable to resume growth unless new (outside) financial capital is forthcoming. A sovereign government is never hostage to the dictates of financial capital. A nation that adopts its own floating rate currency can always afford to put unemployed domestic resources to work. Its government may issue liabilities denominated in its own currency (for interest-rate maintenance reasons), and will service any debt it issues in its own currency. Whether its debt is held internally or externally, it faces no insolvency risk. Further, the floating currency gives domestic policy an additional degree of freedom. This does not mean that the nation will necessarily ignore its trade balance or movements of its exchange rate, but it does mean that it can put domestic employment and growth at the top of its policy agenda……. " EXTRACT"....Note the household (private sector entity)-government analogy again. Flawed at its very essence but continually wheeled out by the gold standard logicians. They ought to take a break from their desk and read some history. They could focus on the 1970s and they might find out that Bretton Woods collapsed, that convertibility went with it, that fixed exchange rate regimes are mostly gone (certainly as a world standard) and all of that. Then they might understand that they just sound plain ignorant when they make these statements. They might be better saying … well governments for political reasons – to appease the rampant neo-liberalism that they helped to create – place voluntary constraints on themselves and act as if they were still in the Bretton Wood’s era – that is, they might voluntarily impose artificial financing rules on themselves. But in reality this is a denial of the essence of the fiat monetary system that we now live in and there is thus no economic basis for these constraints........"
Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau, Operation Twist, Part Deux?, March 30, 2010 Available Here	Online article	"Who funds our budget deficit? It is a question taking on increasing significance, given the recent back up on longer-dated bond yields, which has been explained by many as a “buyers’ strike” in response to growing government profligacy. We think this argument displays a seriously lagging understanding of how much modern money has changed since Nixon changed finance forever by closing the Gold window in 1973. Now that we’re off the gold standard, neither our international creditors, nor the so-called “bond market vigilantes”, “fund” anything, contrary to the completely false & misguided scare stories one reads almost daily in the press……"
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, The Vicious Circle of Debt and Depression Available Here	Online article	Extract: "......What is rather unique in the case of the current global sovereign debt is that it is largely private debt billed as public debt; that is, debt that was accumulated by financial speculators and, then, offloaded onto governments to be paid by taxpayers as national debt. Having thus bailed out the insolvent banksters, many governments have now become insolvent or nearly insolvent themselves, and are asking the public to skimp on their bread and butter in order to service the debt that is not their responsibility. After transferring trillions of dollars of bad debt or toxic assets from the books of financial speculators to those of governments, global financial moguls, their representatives in the State apparatus and corporate media are now blaming social spending (in effect, the people) as responsible for debt and deficit!......"
Yeva Nersisyan and L. Randall Wray Deficit Hysteria Redux? Why We Should Stop Worrying About U.S. Government Deficits Levy Institute Public Policy Brief No. 111, May 2010 Available Here	Article	EXTRACT "This brief argues that deficits do not burden future generations with debt, nor do they crowd out private spending. The authors base their conclusions on the premise that a sovereign nation with its own currency cannot become insolvent, and that government financing is unlike that of a household or firm. Moreover, they observe that automatic stabilizers, not government bailouts and the stimulus package, have prevented the U.S. economic contraction from devolving into another Great Depression. The authors dispense with unsubstantiated concerns about deficits and debts, noting that they mask the real issue: the unwillingness of deficit hawks to allow government to work for the good of the people."
Ann Pettifor, Standard and Poor’s – a voice of sanity on government debt, Huffington Post 3rd May, 2010. Available Here and Here	Online article	EXTRACT "It might seem extraordinary, but in the midst of deficit-cutting mania it is a rating agency, Standard and Poor's, that is talking common sense about government debt. By doing so they are challenging members of the international Austerity Party -- a political party that dominates economic debate across the world. ......"
Warren Mosler, G20 rules out fiscal expansion, June 7th, 2010 Available Here	Online article	EXTRACT "The G20 has dropped its support for fiscal expansion. The deficit hawks are prevailing. But why is that? We all either know or should know that operationally Federal spending is not constrained by revenues, as Chairman Bernanke stated last year, when asked on ’60 Minutes’ by Scott Pelley where the funds given to the banks came from : “…we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed.” We know that when the Fed spends on behalf of the Treasury it simply credits a member bank or foreign government’s reserve account at the Fed. We know that a US Treasury security is a credit balance in a securities account, also at the Fed. We know that buying a Treasury security means US dollars (numbers on the Fed’s spreadsheet) shift from a Fed reserve account to a Fed securities account, which adds to the ‘national debt.’ We know that government deficits = ‘non government’ saving (net dollar financial assets) to the penny, as a matter of national income accounting. And we know paying off the Treasury securities happens continuously when Treasury securities mature and the Fed simply shifts those US dollars from the securities account back to a Fed reserve account (including the interest). So why should we care if US dollars are in a Fed reserve account or a Fed securities account? We should not, yet most still do. ......... "
Marshall Auerback The United Kingdom Draws the Wrong Lessons from Canada, 9th June 2010 Available Here	Online article	""
Victoria Chick and Ann Pettifor The Economic Consequences of Mr Osborne, 6th June, 2010. Available Here	Online article	""
Paul Krugman Invisible Friends New York Times June 27, 2010 Available Here	Newspaper article	EXTRACT "I’ve written before about the strange power of invisible bond vigilantes: 'It’s one thing to be intimidated by bond market vigilantes. It’s another to be intimidated by the fear that bond market vigilantes might show up one of these days, even though you’re currently able to sell long-term bonds at an interest rate of less than 3.5%. Yet that, according to rumors, is what’s happening.' Since I wrote that post, by the way, the long-term interest rate has dropped to 3.12%. But even stranger, in a way, is the power of invisible bond market friends, who will reward you if you just scourge yourself hard enough..... "
Jan Kregel Fiscal Responsibility: What Exactly Does It Mean? Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Working Paper 602, June 2010 Available Here	Article	ABSTRACT"The use of government fiscal stimulus to support the economy in the recent economic crisis has brought increases in government deficits and increased government debt. This has produced an interest in sustainable government debt and the role of deficits in the economy. This paper argues in favor of a concept of "responsible" government policy, referring to positions held by Franklin and Marshall Professor Will Lyons. The idea is that government should be responsible to the needs and desires of its citizens, but that this should go beyond physical security and education, to economic security. Building on the fallacy of composition and misplaced concreteness, it suggests that in an integrated macro system an increased desire to save on the part of the private sector will be self-defeating unless the government acts in a responsible manner to support those desires. This can only be done by government dissaving via an expenditure deficit. The outstanding government debt simply represents the desires of the public to hold safe financial assets, and can only be unsustainable if the public’s desires change. The government should always be responsive to these desires, and adjust its expenditure policy."