Today (September 6, 2024), MMTed releases Episode 5 in the Second Season of our Manga series – The Smith Family and their Adventures with Money. Have a bit of fun with it while learning Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and circulate it to those who you think will benefit …
The Smith Family are a middle-class family living in a city somewhere in the world. The second-generation parents are university educated and have professional occupations. Their two kids attend the local public school.
In Season 1, we focused on the dynamics of the immediate Smith Family – Elizabeth, Ryan, Kevin and Emma – with some interaction from their friends.
In Season 2, the focus is on the school kids and their interactions with their new economics teacher Ms Allday and the unfolding economic recession that has damaged the community.
In Episode 5, we find Ryan out of work and desperately searching for jobs that are not there due to the deepening recession that followed the harsh austerity program inflicted on the government.
Elizabeth urges him to seek income support under the Government’s unemployment benefits scheme but Ryan dismisses the recipients as bludgers who do not want to work, ignoring Elizabeth’s statistical observation that the unemployment to vacancy ratio exceeds 10 at the moment.
Attention then turns to the morning Finance Report on the TV and we learn that the regular presenter Robert Autumn is at home sick and his understudy Mary Winter is in the presenter’s desk for the upcoming interview with regular commentator Professor Raul Knowitawl.
Regular viewers know Robert Autumn to be a conservative voice and highly supportive of the mainstream economics touted by the Professor.
But Mary has her own ideas about the sort of questions she is prepared to ask and has been reading up on MMT after purchasing the newly published book – Modern Monetary Theory – Bill & Warren’s excellent adventure – although she doesn’t mention it in the interview.
The Professor is evasive and keeps harping on about debt mountains and out of control government spending – his normal fare.
As the tension mounts, the show’s producer receives a phone call from the sick bed with Robert Autumn demanding that the segment be shut down with a quick advertisement break because he feels Mary is embarrassing the station.
Elizabeth is delighted with the segment but Ryan is furious, and, it seems, hasn’t realised that his own individual plight has been created by the government’s austerity program, which he is a huge fan of.
The contradictions in his position in compelling.
But things will get worse for the Smith’s in the episodes to come.
If you think you resemble any of the characters then either continue spreading MMT knowledge or get our textbook and get up to speed, depending on which character you might identify with.
If you have any feedback we will appreciate it, other than ‘this sucks’.
The manga is available in both English and Japanese.
Next episode – Episode 6 – will be available on September 10, 2024.
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2024 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
