They are missing so many links in the value chain between raw material extraction and consumption that attempting to increase their domestic consumption without an active import substitution program will unacceptably impair their foreign balance. And attempting an active import substitution program will unacceptably impair their relationship with the colonial powers. It's a double-bind, and the colonies are the ones being tied up in it and raped. Often literally.

Mitchell, like a whole lot of the MMT'ers, really hasn't taken any coherent notion of geopolitics on board in his theory. Which is a major weakness for a theory which (correctly) identifies money as principally an expression of political power.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.