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Articles by tom

Europe’s foreign policy has been hacked and the consequences are dire

February 13, 2024

Europe’s foreign policy has been hacked and captured by US Neocon interests. That capture poses a dire threat to both European democracy and global security. The threat to global security is because Europe is now captive in the US Neocon war on China and Russia. The threat to democracy comes from European voters gradually intuiting …

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Israel’s genocide, US assistance, and consequences thereof

January 15, 2024

South Africa has now presented its charge of Israeli genocide in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and Israel has presented its rebuttal. Regardless of the ultimate judgment, a page has been turned. Israel’s actions in Gaza, assisted by the US, have changed the geopolitical landscape. The consequences stand to be dire and lasting. The …

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The corruption of US foreign policy & weaponization of antisemitism

January 2, 2024

Below are three brilliant articles and one interview that help understand geopolitics at the beginning of 2024. In my view, they should be read by anyone interested in the geopolitical situation & should be required reading for students of international relations and international political economy: US Foreign Policy is a Scam Built on Corruption, Jeffrey …

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The theory of monetary disorder: debt finance, existing assets, and the consequences of prolonged monetized budget deficits and ultra-easy monetary policy

November 1, 2023

This paper introduces the notion of monetary disorder. The underlying theory rests on a twin circuits view of the macro economy. The idea of monetary disorder has relevance for understanding the experience and consequences of the recent decade-long period of monetized large budget deficits and ultra-easy monetary policy. Current policy rests on Keynesian logic whereby …

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The menace of the myth of General Pinochet’s Chilean economic miracle

September 9, 2023

September 11, 2023, marks the fiftieth anniversary of General Pinochet’s military coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende. While it is now widely recognized that Pinochet authorized large-scale human rights abuses, there is an accompanying narrative that he also unleashed an economic miracle via embrace of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” vision of a market economy. The …

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Broadening the application of hysteresis in economics: institutions, policy lock-in, psychology, identity, and ideas

August 9, 2023

This paper argues for broadening the application of hysteresis to institutions, policy lock-in, psychology, identity, and economic ideas. Hysteresis is an element of historical processes, and the real world is historical. That explains why hysteresis is pervasive and important. Hysteresis should be a fundamental building block of political economy. Expanding its application in economics is …

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Ukraine destroyed the Kakhovka dam: a forensic assessment

July 4, 2023

The Kakhovka dam was a massive two-mile-long structure that dammed the Dnieper River which bisects Ukraine. It was built by the Soviet Union in 1956 and raised the Dnieper by 16 meters (52 feet), creating the Kakhovka Reservoir. The dam was destroyed on 6 June 2023, resulting in massive flooding downstream on both sides of …

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The forgotten case against Milton Friedman: an interview about inflation and the Phillips curve

May 13, 2023

Milton Friedman revolutionized macroeconomics with his 1967 presidential speech to the American Economics Association (AEA), which presented a theory of the so-called natural rate of unemployment for the first time. That speech, which played a major role in discrediting the brand of Keynesianism that prevailed in postwar liberal economic policy thinking, remains one of the …

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Causes and consequences of the Ukraine conflict: an eight-point primer

March 19, 2023

(1) The origins of the Ukraine conflict lie in the ambitions of US Neocons. Those ambitions threatened Russian national security by fuelling eastward expansion of NATO and anti-Russian regime change in the Republics of the former Soviet Union. (2) The Ukraine conflict is now a proxy war. The US is using Ukraine to attack and …

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World Cup, RT CrossTalk, and US domestic censorship

December 17, 2022

Most of the time I write dense blogs & research papers. I sent the e-mail below to someone close to me. Afterward, I realized it tacitly says a lot about the state of our society (liberals included). Sometimes, mixing things and writing about them in a different way can be revealing. Sent: Saturday, December 17, …

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Comments on the history of the Review of Keynesian Economics on its tenth anniversary

November 12, 2022

This Fall (October/November 2022) marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Review of Keynesian Economics (ROKE). The founding co-editors were Louis-Philippe Rochon, Matias Vernengo, and I. At the beginning of 2018 Louis-Philippe Rochon stepped down to become sole editor of the Review of Political Economy and he was replaced by Esteban Pérez Caldentey. …

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The false promise and bitter fruit of Neoliberalism: political economic disembedding, cultural transformation, and the rise of proto-fascist politics

October 11, 2022

Neoliberalism is a political economic philosophy that consists of two claims, one economic and the other political. The economic claim is free market laissez-faire economies are the best way to organize economic activity as they generate efficient outcomes that maximize well-being. The political claim is free market economic arrangements promote individual liberty. This paper argues …

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How the West betrayed Mikhail Gorbachev and seeded the Ukraine conflict

September 1, 2022

Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022. Since then, praises have flowed from Western leaders. Those praises obscure how the West betrayed Gorbachev after he fell from power, and how that betrayal seeded the Ukraine conflict. The story is complicated because Gorbachev’s fall was triggered by Communist Party hardliners, so the troubles which befell Russia …

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Theorizing dollar hegemony, Part 1: the political economic foundations of exorbitant privilege

August 23, 2022

This paper explores dollar hegemony, emphasizing it is a fundamentally political economic phenomenon. Dollar hegemony rests on the economic, military, and international political power of the US and is manifested through market forces. The paper argues there have been two eras of dollar hegemony which were marked by different models. Dollar hegemony 1.0 corresponded to …

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Flirting with Armageddon: the US and Ukraine

August 13, 2022

It is now almost six months since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and with each passing month the Biden administration has ratcheted up US participation in the conflict. That ratchet process has the US flirting ever closer with nuclear Armageddon, a momentous development that has gone almost uncommented and uncontested. It is as …

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The truth will out: the US, Russia, and Ukraine

May 18, 2022

Watch this (30 seconds long): The truth will out: George Bush speaking about Russia and Ukraine The truth is out about Iraq, and it will eventually out about Ukraine. The worst thing about this video is the fawning complicit response of the audience which speaks volumes about elite US society. Please share. P.S. Another 30 …

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Neoliberalism and the Road to Inequality and Stagnation: A Chronicle Foretold

April 29, 2022

My latest book has recently been published by Edward Elgar. The book explores the impact of neoliberal policies on the US, Europe, and the global economy. It shows how the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession were predictable outcomes of the neoliberal policy experiment, as is the emergence of global “race to the bottom” competition. …

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More on the critique of New Developmentalism

April 11, 2022

Oreiro and de Paula’s (2022) reply to my article (Palley, 2021) further convinces me that New Developmentalism (ND) substantially misconstrues the development challenge and ND’s policy recommendations lean in a Neoliberal direction. The critique of ND is not its emphasis of the importance of manufacturing. It is the regressive inclination, the narrowness of policy recommendations, …

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The Bucha atrocities and the tilted character of reporting on Ukraine

April 7, 2022

Below is an on-line comment I submitted re The New York Times’ op-ed (Aril 7, 2022) on the Bucha atrocities. The comment speaks to the tilted character of reporting on the Ukraine war. That tilt should be of concern to all who care about freedom, democracy, and open society.   “Who committed the Bucha atrocities …

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Ukraine: what will be done and what should be done?

February 24, 2022

The inevitable has happened. Russia has invaded Ukraine. It was inevitable because the US and its NATO partners had backed Russia into a corner from which it could only escape by military means. In effect, Russia confronted a future in which the US would increasingly tighten the noose around its neck by further eastward expansion …

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American Exceptionalism and the Liberal Menace: the US and Ukraine

February 13, 2022

American exceptionalism is the most dangerous doctrine in the world, and it has been on full display in the current Ukraine crisis. Worse yet, the loudest advocates have been America’s elite liberal class. The doctrine of exceptionalism holds that the US is inherently different from and superior to other nations. That superiority means the US …

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Theorizing varieties of capitalism: economics and the fallacy that “There is no alternative (TINA)”

February 2, 2022

The VoCs approach to capitalism has the potential to transform economics. It tacitly emphasizes the plasticity of economies, whereby their character and outcomes are significantly a matter of choice. This paper augments VoCs theory to include a distinction between varieties and varietals of capitalism. Drawing on biology, varieties correspond to species and varietals correspond to …

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A crisis made in the USA: why Russia will likely invade Ukraine

January 16, 2022

Preamble. Living in the US and writing honestly about US-Russia relations (and China too) is very difficult. That is because the US is the aggressor, but Russia is an authoritarian country. That split is used by the US establishment to shuffle discussion away from US aggression on to Russian authoritarianism. Side-by-side, anyone calling the US …

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Federal Reserve Insider Dealing? R.I.P. Central Bank Independence

January 11, 2022

Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Richard Clarida has shot himself in the foot with what appears to be insider trading. That comes on the heels of prior concerns about inappropriate trading by regional Federal Reserve Bank Presidents Robert Kaplan and Eric Rosengren. Albeit unintentionally, the good news is these indiscretions may have done working families a favor …

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Economics & other crazy stuff: Happy New Year

December 29, 2021

I’m hoping next year we will make progress getting some of the crazier stuff out of the room. Here’s a little YouTube teaser from Down Under (give it a minute to get to the punchline): Who’s crazy now? All the best in 2022, Tom

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The US and Russia: beware of Neocons and liberals preaching democracy promotion

December 8, 2021

Every week my e-mail box receives a steady stream of articles aimed at cultivating public animus to Russia. The articles are always wrapped in a narrative in which Russia is a threat to democracy in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. The effect is to create public support for hardline action (economic and/or military) against Russia. …

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