Reuters has the brief item Exxon says pursuit of Ukraine Skifska block on hold.

Exxon Mobil Corp said its pursuit of the Ukraine Skifska block in the Black Sea has been stalled due to the unrest in that country.

I can’t imagine that an argument about a country that has many pipelines to carry Russian energy to Europe could also include an argument over oil exploration?  When was the last time you can remember that Exxon was driving our foreign policy?  Might that have been yesterday, and the day before that, and …?

Am I jumping to a hasty conclusion here?  The Republicans are wrong that Putin is playing chess while Obama is playing marbles.  They are both playing the game of oil.

The Real News Network has two interviews that are worth considering together.

The first is Did the U.S. Carry Out a Ukrainian Coup?

PARRY: Well, the United States has been trying to pry Ukraine away from a close relationship with Russia. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said in December to a group of business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion, she said, in helping Ukraine achieve its European aspirations, that is, moving it away from Russia into the E.U. So, obviously, the United States has played a role in trying to achieve this antidemocratic transition. As much as they may call it democratic, overthrowing an elected leader is on its face not democratic.

There’s also the issue of the National Endowment for Democracy and another U.S.-funded political operations. NED, according to its report, has 65 projects underway in Ukraine, including training activists, supporting journalists, organizing business groups, essentially creating a sort of a shadow political structure that could be put in play to destabilize the country. And that’s what we’ve seen here. We saw a destabilization of a country–which had problems, no question, and had leadership that was very flawed. But still, instead of going through a constitutional electoral process, another approach was taken.

And Yanukovych did agree–after the protests turned violent, he agreed to a deal negotiated by the E.U. to advance the elections and to have the police stand down.

The second interview is Is Russian-Ukraine Intervention Illegal?

QUIGLEY: Yeah, I think what Jeffrey said is really key here, namely, that you have a population that is not cohesive, as a result of the fact that the country was cobbled together over a period of time. And that makes it very hard to talk about the sentiment of the people, very substantial sentiment for participation in the European Union, on the theory that, you know, that will make life better. You know, whether it will or not is something that can only be speculated.

Whether or not a country is cohesive or fractured, and whether or not we prefer one side or the other, shouldn’t our first principle be to let them figure out how to come to a working agreement among the factions? Do we want some outside country coming in and trying to settle our differences because we can’t seem to overcome our own paralysis? These kinds of divisions are hard for any group to settle. Experience has shown that an outside force doesn’t have a better chance of finding an acceptable solution than do the people directly involved. That is why international law tries to prevent outside forces from intervening in the internal affairs of another country. When will we learn to respect these principles?

With regard to the first interview, does it seem strange to you that an administration that promised a more humble foreign policy than the Bush administration would allow a diplomatic holdover from that administration to involve us in such  arrogant policy? Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is the person to whom I am referring.

I have been trying my darndest not to say anything about this, but it is eating at me.

You may or may not be able to see this Facebook post depending on with whom on Facebook you are friends.  The poster was congratulated by Martha Coakley for work in the Sturbridge Democratic caucus for gaining delegates that support Coakley.

My cryptic response was about a caucus in Charlton:

Sturbridge meddled in the internal politics of Charlton and they didn’t like it. Quelle surprise.

Yes, I admit I was part of the meddlers, and I was surprised.

Our very presence there was an irritant of major proportions. Too bad I have only figured that out now.

I wonder if the delegates that Coakley got in Sturbridge were wiped out by the ones we lost for her in Charlton.

Since at the moment, I am a Grossman supporter, you’d think I might be proud of what we did in Charlton. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very much saddened by what happened.

As my wise mentor BillM has said, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.”  I wish I had the will power to follow his advice.

By the way, the only value in posting this is to think about changing my remarks to be about the USA (instead of Sturbridge) and Ukraine and Russia (instead of Charlton).  It would go something like the following:

The USA meddled in the internal politics of the Ukraine and the Ukraine citizens of Russian heritage didn’t like it. Quelle surprise!

Or as Tip O’Neill once said,”All politics is local.”

Crooks and Liars has the article Rachel Maddow Obliterates War-Pig GOP Who Want To Attack Russia! (Video).  The video below is the one they use in this article.

I think the better headline is that “Rachel Maddow goes over to the other side.”

Russia does not like US meddling in Ukraine (US does not like Russia meddling in Cuba). Russia has a naval base in Ukraine (US has naval base in Cuba). A government in the Ukraine that is favorable to Russia is overthrown by one favorable to the west (A government in Cuba that is favorable to the US is overthrown by one more favorable to the USSR). Russia invades Crimea in the Ukraine hoping for support from the local population (The US invades the Bay of Pigs in Cuba hoping for support from the local population.)

The only difference I see is that Russia does have support from a large fraction of the local population. This is something that never happened for us in the Bay of Pigs.

While I have been concentrating on my volunteer commitments, I have not been spending time thinking about the Ukraine.  Thanks to MardyS for his posting on his Facebook page. The Consortium News article is Ukraine: One ‘Regime Change’ Too Many?

There is one huge difference between Prague in 1968 and Kiev 2014. The “Prague Spring” revolution led by Dubcek enjoyed such widespread spontaneous popular support that it was difficult for Russian leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin to argue plausibly that it was spurred by subversion from the West.

Not so 45-plus years later. In early February, as violent protests raged in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the White House professed neutrality, U.S. State Department officials were, in the words of NYU professor emeritus of Russian studies Stephen Cohen, “plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine.”

We all know that Putin has no cause to intervene in Ukraine.

Putin described this move as necessary to protect ethnic Russians and military personnel stationed in Crimea in southern Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet and other key military installations are located.

With much less provocation, Ronald Reagan intervened in Grenada to protect US students, but of course there is no parallel here.  If you read the article, you can see that it is even plausible that Russia believes our actions in the Ukraine are an existential threat to Russia.  I don’t believe Reagan had the same fear about Grenada.

Of course we accepted with complete equanimity the fact that Russia allied itself with Cuba even though we had a naval base there.  If you don’t know your history or didn’t live through that time, you might want to check reliable sources to see whether or not I am being sarcastic here (cough Bay Of Pigs).  Although, since I raise the issue of sarcasm, what do you think you will find?

I found this on JaneS’ Facebook page.

Always remember to support your local billionaire, and always do it with a smile. You wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.

There is much discussion on YouTube about the The Real News Network’s  YouTube video I showed in my previous post Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery.

There was one particular comment that I thought exemplified where we are failing to communicate.

Byron Anderson said:

+Fafner888
You remind me so much of Alan Greenspan who didn’t understand the problem with repealing Glass-Steagall, thereby releasing the Wolves of Wall Street who have ravaged honest financial markets; or The Bernanke who testified to Congress that he saw no problem in the speculative housing bubble just prior to it bursting, and causing the 2007-09 collapse. Your ideology has blinded you to the simple fact that debt cannot grow exponentially forever on a finite planet, and money-printing does not magically create wealth and prosperity.  Obama has piled-on more debt in his term than all prior Presidents combined.  The reckoning WILL come and interest rates WILL rise.  When that happens, the game is up.  Good luck to you.

I tried to get to the heart of some of the misunderstanding.

Nobody is saying debt can grow exponentially.  Nobody is saying that money-printing magically creates wealth and prosperity.  If that is what you think we are saying, then we have a real failure to communicate here.  I can try to do a better job at communicating, if you can tamp down your assumption that what I am saying is so ridiculous that I must believe in some of what you  rightly think is ridiculous.

Some people don’t seem to want to believe the part of Keynesian theory that says the economy sometimes needs stimulation.  They ignore or dismiss the part where he says, and sometimes it needs the opposite of stimulation.

How loudly do we have to shout SOMETIMES? I don’t know if putting it in all caps makes it any clearer.

At the current time, public debt (meaning the federal government’s debt) is not growing exponentially.  And you have to realize that public debt and private debt are two different and frequently complementary things.

Creating money does not magically create wealth and prosperity as you say.  If it did, then the Fed’s QE would have fixed the recession.  That is exactly the point that Keynes made.  When printing money doesn’t work, the government actually has to take on the role of buying real stuff.  By real stuff, I mean the real stuff that keeps people employed. The government can always afford to buy real stuff, because it creates the money with which to buy it.  Yes, the FED is part of the government.  So all the FED QE polcy shows is that the FED could create the money needed to buy real stuff. That is why we bring up QE all the time. The QE policy is not that policy of financing the government’s role of buying real stuff.  The FED is buying financial stuff only. The ability to create money could be used for the right policy, but at the moment it is not being used for the right policy.

Sometimes we argue strongly for the point we are trying to make without realizing that we aren’t clearly stating what is the point itself.  We bring up lots of examples which we think proves our point, and fail to realize that the listeners don’t understand exactly what point we are trying to prove with our examples.  In the heat of the argument it pays to stand back and try to figure out where we are failing to communicate.

So let me be clear as to what I said.

The FED’s QE policy is anti-Keynesian.

Please do not blame Keynes when the Fed uses policies that are diametrically opposed to what he prescribed.

Notice my very important word “WHEN”.  Note that the FED does not have the tools that Keynes says should be used.  Only the Congress and Executive branch have those tools.  If and when they use the tools prescribed by Keynes, and if they do not work, then and only then can you place any blame on Keynes’ theory.

The Real News Network has the interview Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery.  The interviewee is economist Stephanie Kelton.

Stephanie Kelton, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the top-ranked blog New Economic Perspectives and a member of the TopWonks network of the nation’s best thinkers. Her book, The State, The Market and The Euro (2001) predicted the debt crisis in the Eurozone, and her subsequent work correctly predicted that: (1) Quantitative Easing (QE) wouldn’t lead to high inflation; (2) government deficits wouldn’t cause a spike in U.S. interest rates; (3) the S&P downgrade wouldn’t cause investors to flee Treasuries; (4) the U.S. would not experience a European-style debt crisis.

But what would she know about the subject of the interview?  That last sentence is sarcasm on my part.  I know I have to explain these things to some of my readers.

Upon hearing this brief interview, I remarked to Sharon that the trouble with it is that you have to understand how the monetary system works to know why she is exactly right in what she says. I then read the viewer comments on the interview.

The following comment is typical:

These economists are always blowing smoke. If all that matters is having a “productive economy” and if the govt can really just mail out checks to people without ever worrying about where the money will come from “since America is the only country who can legally create dollars,” then please tell me, O Enlightened Economist, WHY do I have to write a really FAT check to the federal govt every quarter to cover my taxes? Assuming the “unlimited dollars” theory is sound then why does anyone have to pay taxes to the federal govt? Can’t they just create all the dollars they need?

And all the while that economists like this are blathering about their “unlimited dollars” theories of federal spending, citizens like myself who regularly write out checks to the IRS for tens of thousands of dollars know where that money is coming from–it’s coming from OUR damn pockets.

I replied to the comment to see if I could straighten the person out (silly me.)

If you would actually follow the flow of money through the economy, you would find that when you pay your tax dollars to the federal government, they essential rip up the money. The money they spend is new money that the government creates. The collection of federal tax dollars has a number of reasons to be necessary for the economy. Some MMTers believe that having to pay taxes in dollars is what makes the dollar accepted as money. (I don’t buy that argument too much, because there are lots of people in this world outside this country that do not pay US taxes, but still use the dollar as a means of paying debts and accepting payment of debts.) The ability to pull in dollars in taxes is also what allows the government to control how much money is available compared to the amount of goods available so that we don’t have run-away inflation.

With the FED creating $85 billion a month in Quantitative Easying to bail out the financial system, at some point the liquidity that is being pumped into the economy and not being put to use, will start to flow back into the economy. To prevent inflation at that point, this excess will have to be sucked back out in the form of excess of taxes over spending.

There is recorded testimony by Ben Berbanke before a Senate Committee. They asked him where he was getting all the money he was using to buy assets in the QE program. He answered very honestly, “We just create the money.” It was so amazing that these supposed expert Senators didn’t know that and equally amazing that they were flabbergasted at the answer.

The trouble with what Kelton said, is that you have to understand the theory behind her remarks to understand why her comments are exactly correct. In an 8 minute interview, she hardly had time to give you a semester’s worth of economic education.

To understand the diagram –

http://neweconomicperspectives…,

follow the links in my blog post – Diagrams and Dollars: Modern Money Illustrated (Part 1 & 2)

Credo Action has the web page Deadline: Tell Sec. Kerry: Keystone XL is NOT in our national interest.

Submit a comment right now to send the message that the “game over for the climate” Keystone XL pipeline is NOT in our national interest.

Not only is it not in our national interest, it is not in the world’s interest. I have heard it said that if we don’t build the pipeline, then someone else will make use of this oil.  Fine, let it be on someone else’s conscience, not ours.

If countries around the world see that Canada is having any trouble selling their particularly environmentally harmful oil, then maybe it will give them just a moment’s pause before they embark on a similar project.  It would be a start. Even a moment’s pause us better than no pause.

This is coming from one who considered investing in tar sands oil projects years ago, but was too afraid that the investment was already overpriced.  I didn’t know about the environmental implications at the time.