An Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory

Carl Angotti and Greg Alexander

11 a.m., August 30, 2020

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

If you don’t intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://www.echoplexmedia.com/humanist

If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/314247393

Note: If you don’t have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter 314247393 as the “meeting number” that you want to “join”.

———-

This online Forum will be on the topic of:

“An Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory”

and will be presented by longtime HCSV members Carl Angotti and Greg Alexander.

This presentation is based on the concepts discussed in the book “The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy” by Stepanie Kelton, several of her online videos and another video that explains the concept of money – “Modern Money Theory for Beginners”, by L. Randall Wray. It is important for Progressives to understand this concept that is becoming more mainstream in the recent past.

In Stephanie Kelton’s book she describes 8 myths about deficient spending by the Federal Government. During this presentation, we will touch on a few of the most important of these myths.

For Example:

Does the Federal Government Need to Balance Its Budget?
Does increased Government Spending always lead to inflation?
How important is the National Debt?

Some of the other areas we will also cover are:

What money is, how it comes into being.
What is a “Fiat” currency?
Are there restraints on “printing money”?
Are there counter opinions to the theory?

As such, this presentation introduces these important questions and concepts to our Humanist Community and the general public.

Bios:

Carl Angotti is a longtime member of the Humanist Community. He is trained and worked as an Electronic Engineering Product Development Consultant in Silicon Valley for many years. He holds an BS from Carnegie-Mellon University and MS from USC in Electrical Engineering, and an MBA in Business from SJSU. His interest in Monetary Theory stems from his interest in the Stock Market and how it is impacted by Economics.

He is intrigued by the concept of Modern Monetary Theory and how it operates in the real world.

Greg Alexander is a longtime member of the Humanist Community, a member of the board since 2015, and our current Treasurer. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and a Certificate in Object Oriented Programming from UC Santa Cruz Extension. He became enthusiastic about Modern Monetary Theory upon reading “The Deficit Myth” and discovering how MMT challenges myths about federal fiscal policies and removes some of the barriers to meeting the needs of the American people.

———-

An Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory – Carl Angotti and Greg Alexander from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Braver Angels

Michael Abramson

11 a.m., August 23, 2020

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

If you don’t intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://www.echoplexmedia.com/humanist

If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/314247393

Note: If you don’t have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter 314247393 as the “meeting number” that you want to “join”.

———-

This online Forum will be on the topic of:

“Braver Angels”

Michael Abramson will discuss “Braver Angels”, which is a gathering of people on opposite sides of controversial issues to learn how to talk to each other.

———-

The Braver Angels of Our Nature – Michael Abramson from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Supreme Court 2020 Review of Major Cases, A Humanist’s View

Professor Leland Chan

11 a.m., August 16, 2020

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

If you don’t intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://www.echoplexmedia.com/humanist

If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/314247393

Note: If you don’t have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter 314247393 as the “meeting number” that you want to “join”.

———-

This online Forum will be on the topic of:

“Mini-Law School: Supreme Court 2020 Review of Major Cases, A Humanist’s View”

Professor Leland Chan will look at the Supreme Court’s major decisions during the 2019-2020 term, which involved DACA, discrimination against LGBTQ persons in employment, expansion of religious liberty rights, abortion, and much more. Professor Chan will try to put the decisions into legal context for non-lawyers, and for this audience, offer a humanist perspective of the justices and how they decide.

Professor Chan is an attorney who teaches constitutional law at Golden Gate University. He also teaches classes to the general public who have an interest in the constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court.

To see Prof. Chan’s slides for this talk, please click here.

———-

Supreme Court 2020 Review of Major Cases: A Humanist’s View – Prof. Leland Chan from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Fear of Science and its Origins

Allan Griff

11 a.m., August 9, 2020

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

If you don’t intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://www.echoplexmedia.com/humanist

If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/314247393

Note: If you don’t have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter 314247393 as the “meeting number” that you want to “join”.

———-

This online, general audience discussion Forum will be on the topic of:

“Fear of Science and its Origins”

It’s easy today to see examples of opposition to scientific conclusions. If the denial of global warming isn’t enough, we have the current polarization around masks and exposure to COVID.

It starts in childhood, where we are told by people twice our size and strength who give us the food and shelter we need that we are to behave in certain ways and, especially, restrain natural Impulses.

Consequences of disobedience depend on the trainers, but the response is usually successful. Sometimes an external enforcer is invoked, perhaps a hands-on god, or karma, or whatever you want to call it, but it is comforting that something is reining in the willful and selfish. This training pattern is then learned and helps to bind social grouping — a primary function of religion; another Is explanation of the unknown, which supports the need for miracles. The more impossible the miracle, the more powerful the miracle-maker.

Science has to say there are no miracles — mysteries yes, magic no. But if there are no miracles, what’s seen as impossible is impossible. Here is where probability and numbers come in. If we can’t prove impossible, then it may be possible, and that’s what gambling casinos and sport fandom and much faith are based on. We know the odds, but we don’t want to hear them, or we angelize “overcoming the odds” where that applies. And faith is another good word; it supports hope, a key and unquantified word in our vocabulary.

In medicine, Paracelsus, a Swiss physician in the Renaissance, said “The dose makes the poison.” Few doctors would argue against that today, yet we have so many people who think that if something is good, more is better, or vice versa, especially with foods and their ingredients. It’s easier to say that than to ask “how much” and count. Our numbers-man Paracelsus would agree.

It also helps to distort reality; in fact it may be that we need to distort reality in order to stay sane and avoid the terror of the existential abyss. I’ll leave that for the psychologists and philosophers, but I’d like to know/see more on this idea.

Another distortion of reality is related to risk. Risk is angelized especially among men, as the risker may be seen as a better protector and thus a better mate/father of children. Maybe in cave-man days – times have changed, but values lag and the glory of risk is still there.

One of the important distortions of reality is the theatre in all its forms: TV and Netflix, live drama, theme parks, movies, and even dreams. Imagine is a good word. We fill our lives with these activities of make-believe, anchored by the knowledge that it Is all “fake news.” But what is it making us believe?

Allan Griff is an unretired senior, born 1933 in New York City, the only child of immigrant Lithuanian-Jewish parents (a social worker and a nurse). He was educated there (Cornell chemical engineering, Columbia anthropology), self-dependent since college and self-employed since 1961.

Allan identifies as traditional Jewish and knows history and traditions well, but is not affiliated with any religious group, and sees Western Christian culture as an extension of Jewish origin and a primary source of his values. As a scientist, he sees Darwinian survival principles as applying to culture as well as biology.

———-

Fear of Science and its Origins – Allan Griff from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.

Is Atheism Still a Dirty Word?

General audience discussion

11 a.m., August 2, 2020

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

If you don’t intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://www.echoplexmedia.com/humanist

If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/314247393

Note: If you don’t have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter 314247393 as the “meeting number” that you want to “join”.

———-

This online, general audience discussion Forum will be on the topic of:

“Is Atheism Still a Dirty Word?”

While pundits on the right often see atheism as a bad thing, this view may be less so among the general population.

What are your feelings and experiences? Please let us know by taking part in our discussion, or listen to other audience members discuss this topic.

———-
RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee.