Tag Archives: IMF

MICHAEL ROBERTS: I think the IMF, and that clip shows it, is worried that the huge increase in inequality of income and wealth in many countries, like the US and the UK, over the last 20 or 30 years is reaching such extreme levels that there is serious danger of social and political unrest. The great status quo of globalization and neoliberal policies and international activity in the direction of big business is being threatened by this high inequality. Their economists have now started to...

The latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, “Tackling Inequality,” is out and it represents a direct challenge to the United States. Occasional Links & CommentaryTackle this!David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its biannual “World Economic Outlook” (WEO) today, presenting a 300-page overview of the world economy and where it might be going. The Fund is one of the most powerful and influential financial institutions in the world. Despite the fact that this flagship publication, and the Fund’s hundreds of PhD economists, missed the two biggest asset bubbles in US and world history (the stock market bubble in the late 1990s and the housing bubble that...

The IMF is one institutional which has been responsible for maintaining this world order. Since governments need exceptional financing, they are arm-twisted by the IMF. A recent United Nations General Assemby note, Promotion Of A Democratic And Equitable International Order, has recognized this and criticizes the IMF strongly.… The report is 18 pages long and critical of the IMF from the start to the end. Please read. You won’t find any discussion of the report in the mainstream media....

Perhaps another way of putting this is that SDR inclusion is a commitment device. In addition to the practical concerns raised by Zhou, there would also be reputational costs to reversing exchange-rate and capital-account reforms. Since SDR inclusion is contingent on the IMF’s determination that the renminbi is “freely usable,” it could conceivably be reversed if the currency were to stop being freely usable. What future Chinese central bank governor will want to see headlines screaming...

Earlier in the week I was in Britain. Walking around the streets of Brighton, for example, was a stark reminder of how a wealthy nation can leave large numbers of people behind in terms of material well-being, opportunity and, if you study the faces of the people, hope. I am used to seeing poverty and mental illness on the streets of the US cities but in Brighton, England it very visible now as Britain has struggled under the yoke of austerity. Swathes of people living from day to day...

The Council on Foreign Relations’ Brad W. Setser has produced a couple of interesting blogposts on Germany’s fiscal policies of late. The first one, titled “Germany Cannot Quit Fiscal Consolidation,” was published at the end of August. On September 18th, the second one appeared, titled “The Global Cost of the Eurozone’s 2012 Fiscal Coordination Failure.” The latter is more limited in scope and draws heavily on a recent report by the Banque de France. Setser elaborates on the rather...

Maintaining the core-periphery dichotomy of imperialism and colonialism under neoliberalism, Neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism. The Political Economy of DevelopmentThe ‘organised hypocrisy’ of US industrial policyNick Johnson

IMF to Greece: Sorry We'll Destroy You | Michael Hudson Your access to this service has been temporarily limited. Please try again in a few minutes. (HTTP response code 503) Reason: Exceeded the maximum global requests per minute for crawlers or humans. Important note for site admins: If you are the administrator of this website note that your access has been limited because you broke one of the Wordfence blocking rules. The reason your access was limited is: "Exceeded the maximum global...

So the yield curve is really flat, not inverted, but really flat, and that has many  (or here) afraid of an impending recession. The fear is basically associated to the inverted yield curve (see below: when the blue line is above the red and green lines, there is an inverted yield curve, with a high short rate and lower longer rates, signaling a recession) which is really flat, and the danger that the Fed will rise the rate in the next meeting in a few weeks. Yield Curve (click to...