Ep14: Two activist stories: 3rd-year Ben Szioli and 8th-year Anonymous

Welcome to episode fourteen of Activist #MMT. Today is two interviews in one. First is a short written interview followed by a more usual spoken one. Interview one: 8th-year MMT activist Anonymous The first is a written response from eighth-year MMT activist [Anonymous], who is a writer and actress based in New York City. For as long as I have known MMT, [Anonymous] has been at decidedly no-nonsense presence on Facebook, in posts and comments related to economics. She most often provides longform quotes from experts with links to learn more. She has also been a regular source of dry humor and personal support. [Anonymous] was happy to do an interview but preferred to do it in writing. I posed the following questions to her: 1. What was your thinking before MMT? 2. How did you discover MMT and how to change you? 3. What advice do you have for those who just discovered MMT? [Anonymous]’s responses are read by Fern Mangini, an actress, singer, and published poet based in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area. Fern has performed in many plays, musicals, and movies, most recently portraying a nurse in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2019 film, Glass. Interview two: 3rd-year MMT activist Ben Szioli Today I speak with Ben Szioli, a third-year MMT activist based in Mount Laurel, NJ, which is close to Philadelphia. We talk about how he discovered MMT, how it changed him from a self-described libertarian goldbug, and his thoughts on how people new to MMT can deepen their knowledge. Ben and I met in late 2016 at a meeting of Our Revolution: South Jersey. Ben holds a degree in linguistics and has since become the copy editor for most of my written work. He uses the suggestion feature in Google Docs to torture me and I hate him. But my writing is much better because of it. #LearnMMT For an overview of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) with many reliable sources to learn more, here is a good place to start: On the web: My layperson intro with many expert sources listed at the bottom. On Twitter: My massive pinned tweet with expert sources and layperson tutorials. On Facebook: Follow this podcast :) The pinned post contains the above web-article. Please become a monthly patron of Activist #MMT We shouldn't have to beg, but we do have to beg. So it's not *that* we beg, but *who* we beg. I am choosing to beg you, my listeners, to financially support this show. $1 patrons are very much appreciated. Every little bit helps. Thank you. $5 patrons get exclusive access to episodes (generally) four days before they are released to the public, and exclusive "patron only remixes". $10 patrons get much earlier access to episodes – sometimes weeks in advance. To be clear, all episodes of Activist #MMT are free for all, forever. Patrons only get the opportunity to hear them before the public. Take a listen. If you like what you hear, thank you for considering becoming a patron of Activist #MMT (here: https://www.patreon.com/activistmmt). ✌️, ❤️, and #MMT 🦉