This blog post is nothing more than a request for your opinion, which is why it ends with a couple of questions.
I am starting work on some of the ideas around a series of educational videos that will provide answers to many of the questions that I am asked on a regular basis here.
These will, in many cases, expand on issues already touched upon in this blog's glossary, which relatively few people seem to use.
My intention is that each video series would be published in stages, with the hope that together the series will eventually answer all the major questions that I think might arise around a topic.
Each video series would have its own webpage to be published either on this blog or on a separate website that would be designed to host these access pages in a way that would be easier to use than the format of this blog might permit. Wherever that access page might be located, it would be linked every time I promote or publish one of these videos on this blog.
At the moment, I am working on ideas for two of these series. One is on the nature of money, which so many people find confusing. The other would be on the linked theme of modern monetary theory, which is, again, something that many people find confusing. Both would provide my very specific and personal interpretations. I am not seeking to provide academic literature reviews, for example. These are not meant to be academic courses: they are insights for the layperson, and I am not pretending that they will represent anything but my thinking on these issues.
I have, of course, written at length on both subjects before, and have even made videos on some aspects of them, but not in a comprehensive fashion, and the aim now is to provide what would, in effect, be video primers backed up by transcripts that will be freely available both here as blog posts and as PDF downloads. The aim is to promote insights into these issues, and at the same time to provide a point of reference so that I do not need to keep referring to the matter in question, at least at a technical level.
This does, however, give rise to some questions about how to approach the production of these videos. In particular, would it be better to produce some quite lengthy videos, split into YouTube chapters, which I suspect very few people understand how to use on that channel, or might it be better to produce more, but much shorter, videos, each of which addresses a particular issue around the main theme being discussed? YouTube playlists and the summary website access pages would then be the means to access all the information. The PDF downloads might also, in the end, be consolidated into a single publication, and even as an eBook.
Because of the wide range of topics that each of these issues touches upon, a series on money could easily have 15 or more videos in it if shorter videos were the chosen way to address the issue, but with the aim being that some of these might be no more than three or four minutes long, with none being more than about 10 minutes, at most.
The number of videos in an MMT series could be longer still because a whole load of issues, such as the nature of macroeconomics, how money is treated within it, the difference between fiscal and monetary policy, the macroeconomic role of tax, and much more, would need to be touched upon. It is quite easy to see how such a series could grow like topsy.
To provide the videos with structure, it is likely that they will be given numbers and they will be produced sequentially. However, gaps in the numerical sequencing would be provided so that if it transpired that additional material is required to explain themes not well enough touched upon in the first instance, these can be added into the flow. I do not, therefore, necessarily view these series as static. The materials might well develop over time.
What are your thoughts on this?
I am, of course, interested in comments, but I would also be interested in answers to the following questions:
Would you prefer that these videos be produced in long-form format, of up to an hour in length, or in much shorter form, with more videos, each concentrating on a particular issue?
- I would prefer short-form (74%, 209 Votes)
- I do not mind (10%, 28 Votes)
- I would prefer long-form (9%, 26 Votes)
- I would probably not watch the videos anyway (6%, 18 Votes)
Total Voters: 281
Loading ...Then there is this one, as well:
The transcript of these videos will be reproduced on this blog. Would it also be helpful if they were available in PDF format?
- PDFs would be useful (67%, 187 Votes)
- I am not sure (15%, 42 Votes)
- A single PDF of the whole series when it was completed would be of great use (14%, 39 Votes)
- PDFs would nt be useful (3%, 9 Votes)
- A single PDF of the whole series would be a little use (1%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 279
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Maybe the pdfs need to be in printer friendly format so that we can print them off and distribute them when are mingling here and there, so a snappy title etc?
They will be printer friendly.
We would spend money on design.
The idea of a companion website and consolidated PDFs is also excellent—having multiple access points can really enhance learning.
Would you also consider adding brief visual explainers or animations in the videos to help illustrate abstract concepts?
Maybe
We are discussing that.
It would be good if the series included a response to real problems people face every day, housing.
Housing underpins health and positive child development, this was understood post war when Health and Housing were under one ministry.
Would there be any scope to include non market housing, and co operatives; being economic systems which seem to be excluded from economic discussions.
My understanding is 20% of Danes live in such non market homes, which has a transformative impact on the people who are free from the iron grip of the free market.
That is a separate series
And I am finite
Thank you. That’s helpful to understand it wouldn’t fit this series.
(Economics is something I have learned to learn about but much later on in life)
There are lots of places to go for detailed non market housing start with Cooperatives and Community Land Trusts in a google search
A comment – on that glossary.
Theoretically I know you have a glossary, with the words in red hyperlinked into it which is brilliant, but I keep forgetting its there, because your blog posts dont have a link to it or a reminder sentence about it, in the main body of the post.
I’m allergic to YouTube, while acknowledging its importance – are you asking these questions there in text below the video or in the video in suffix/prefix sections?
The glossary inevitaby addresses these issues in a different way, is te answer.
Your point about the links is a good one.
I will address it.
Thanks for the votes, everyone. I think the message is clear, and that helps enormously.
Short form videos of less than 10 minutes would be best for me. I do not have time to view a 60 minute in one sitting.
However, I do have time to watch six 10 minute videos over a course of three or four days. If I get behind then I can catch up on a Saturday and watch six 10 minute videos over a course of one day. Also with the short 10 minute videos, I can easily re-watch the ones I really like or re-watch the ones I do not understand with concentrated attention.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks
If this is too late to be helpful I apologise. I learn about ideas a,d process information best by reading so I hope transcripts of your videos will be available. I only watch videos on YouTube for anything practical (like how to change the lightbulb in my fridge) where I need to see someone do the task. However you choose to do it – I hope you are successful.
There will be transcripts.
Richard, it is fascinating that the nature of money is one of your major queries! My research shows that this is rarely discussed even in a PhD programme for accounting, finance or economics! Why? Because it will crash most of the professional teaching and technocratic fiction that has been used to define money. You really have to go back to first principles, and this is when trust, belief and relationships come in, and your Quaker beliefs are a great example of a different approach to money . As you know my new book is coming out soon and it discusses these themes alongside my previous books. Hope you dont mind the shoutout https://atulkshah.co.uk/2025/03/17/organic-finance-book-testimonials/ – I am planning a launch event in the City in June and would be happy to invite all your regular readers!
Thanks Atul
Send me event details to share
‘Insights for the layperson’. Exactly what is needed on exactly the right subjects. Personally I think there are millions of people out there crying out for some basic understanding of both
Thanks
Good videos of this sort can get a million vies on YouTube
I think both short and long form videos have their audience.
I like a short form video to give me an overview, to see what the subject is about, and what I may gain by it.
And if it sounds interesting, then I want a long form videos to give me the details.
I think it’s important to understand the audience for these.
There are already so many good and detailed MMT and Macro resources out there for the minority who want to go deep in r het in to the research/ academic stuff.
I’d suggest keeping your stuff super sharp and punchy and aim not for the minority, and instead provide a shallow and broad understanding of the MMT possibilities to the majority of folk we need to influence.
Gary Steven’s message may not be as precise as yours but his delivery method has reached the mainstream and cut through.
Short, sharp, focused and easily digestible in between doing other stuff is the way to go to reach most time starved viewers. IMHO.
As always, keep up the amazing work.
That is exactly what I intend
It will take time and until we get it right they won’t be appearing