Ep96 [1/2] Ramona Massachi: Discussing 2022 and MMT candidates (and our new interview series!)

Welcome to episode 96 of Activist #MMT. Today I talk with Ramona Massachi, a year after our first conversation in episodes 47 and 48. Early last year, we worked together to introduce dozens of federal candidates to MMT, by coordinating and scheduling them with private sessions with PhD economists. Now, for November 2022, we are overwhelmed with candidates who already know MMT. It’s time to take the theory and start applying it to the real world. (Here’s a link to part two.) In addition, it’s also time to start preparing for being in office and remaining true to yourself and all your constituents. This is something our electoral and campaign-finance systems try very hard to stop. The system corrupts even the best of us. For these reasons and more, Ramona and I have decided to start a series of interviews with these MMT candidates. Our goals are to better understand how they will get in the office, how they will manage once in, and what specifically do they need from us as supporters, from their fellow MMT candidates, and from MMT academics. Ramona and I talk about the 2022 campaign and what she hopes to get out of these candidate interviews and what they can contribute: for publicity, for learning, and for creating a community of candidates that can get in, hit the ground running, and prevent being deceived by, among other things, false economics. The candidate interviews are hosted by Ramona, with me as her co-host. After we’re done recording, I take care of the editing and post production. The current plan is to release these interviews with a higher priority than my normal weekly episodes. However, since candidate interviews are only around an hour, my hope is that the normal episodes won’t be too disrupted. There will be many primaries in the coming months, with the general election in November 2022. It’s time. As I write these words, we’ve already scheduled seven MMT candidates. If you’re a candidate and would like to be interviewed by Ramona, please contact her directly on Twitter at @RamonaMassachi, or me at [email protected]. If there's a candidate you'd like for us to interview, then please let us, or them, know. If you like what you hear, then I hope you might consider becoming a monthly patron of Activist #MMT. Patrons get early access to every episode and super-early access to many. They also get the opportunity to ask my academic guests questions, and support the development of my large and growing collection of learn MMT resources. To become a patron, you can start by going to patreon.com/activistmmt. Every little bit helps a little bit, and it all adds up to a lot. Thanks. And now, onto my conversation with Ramona Massachi. Enjoy.