This article first appeared on the Project Syndicate website on 21st September, 2021 Fifty years ago, a US president closed the gold window, ended capital controls, and launched a new era of globalized finance. The “Nixon Shock” reshaped the international monetary system overnight, and then gradually changed the status of central bankers. Instead of acting as servants of the domestic economy, monetary policymakers have become masters of the globalized and financialized world economy. And...
Read More »Quantitative Easing: how the world got hooked on magicked-up money
Going cold turkey would finish off a dysfunctional global financial system that’s now hopelessly addicted to emergency infusions. The only solution is surgery on the system itself.This article first appeared in Prospect magazine on 16 July 2021. The world economy is a mess. The system, notionally governed by the invisible hand of the market, is no longer governed in any meaningful way: private excess puffs up bubbles that government indulgence ensures can never burst. We seem condemned to...
Read More »Quantitative Easing: how the world got hooked on magicked-up money
Going cold turkey would finish off a dysfunctional global financial system that’s now hopelessly addicted to emergency infusions. The only solution is surgery on the system itself. This article first appeared in Prospect magazine on 16 July 2021. The world economy is a mess. The system, notionally governed by the invisible hand of the market, is no longer governed in any meaningful way: private excess puffs up bubbles that government indulgence ensures can never burst. We seem condemned to...
Read More »Quantitative Easing: how the world got hooked on magicked-up money
Going cold turkey would finish off a dysfunctional global financial system that’s now hopelessly addicted to emergency infusions. The only solution is surgery on the system itself.This article first appeared in Prospect magazine on 16 July 2021. The world economy is a mess. The system, notionally governed by the invisible hand of the market, is no longer governed in any meaningful way: private excess puffs up bubbles that government indulgence ensures can never burst. We seem condemned to...
Read More »Mr Keynes’ Revolution
Book Review, Mr Keynes’ Revolution: A Novel, E. J. Barnes, 2020, Greyfire publishing.In Mr Keynes’ Revolution, Emma Barnes makes Keynes the subject of a novel, and does so brilliantly. I cannot recommend the book highly enough to anyone interested in Keynes and wanting to get a sense of what he – and his economics – is about.I am no literary critic, but found the story-telling dramatic, highly engaging and touching. Above all (for me) Barnes has a powerful and sophisticated sense of the...
Read More »Mr Keynes’ Revolution
Book Review, Mr Keynes’ Revolution: A Novel, E. J. Barnes, 2020, Greyfire publishing. In Mr Keynes’ Revolution, Emma Barnes makes Keynes the subject of a novel, and does so brilliantly. I cannot recommend the book highly enough to anyone interested in Keynes and wanting to get a sense of what he – and his economics – is about. I am no literary critic, but found the story-telling dramatic, highly engaging and touching. Above all (for me) Barnes has a powerful and sophisticated sense of the...
Read More »Mr Keynes’ Revolution
Book Review, Mr Keynes’ Revolution: A Novel, E. J. Barnes, 2020, Greyfire publishing.In Mr Keynes’ Revolution, Emma Barnes makes Keynes the subject of a novel, and does so brilliantly. I cannot recommend the book highly enough to anyone interested in Keynes and wanting to get a sense of what he – and his economics – is about.I am no literary critic, but found the story-telling dramatic, highly engaging and touching. Above all (for me) Barnes has a powerful and sophisticated sense of the...
Read More »How does Labour rebuild trust on the economy? Listen to the public
This article was cross-posted from Labour List where it was published on the 14th January, 2021.Labour has a steep hill to climb to regain the public’s confidence that it can be trusted to manage the economy. I get that. And Labour has to recover from a catastrophic electoral defeat – a defeat that took place under the leadership of the left.So, given past failures, how does Labour rebuild confidence? The first requirement, in my view, is for Labour to listen to, and trust the public. Their...
Read More »How does Labour rebuild trust on the economy? Listen to the public
This article was cross-posted from Labour List where it was published on the 14th January, 2021. Labour has a steep hill to climb to regain the public’s confidence that it can be trusted to manage the economy. I get that. And Labour has to recover from a catastrophic electoral defeat – a defeat that took place under the leadership of the left. So, given past failures, how does Labour rebuild confidence? The first requirement, in my view, is for Labour to listen to, and trust the public....
Read More »How does Labour rebuild trust on the economy? Listen to the public
This article was cross-posted from Labour List where it was published on the 14th January, 2021.Labour has a steep hill to climb to regain the public’s confidence that it can be trusted to manage the economy. I get that. And Labour has to recover from a catastrophic electoral defeat – a defeat that took place under the leadership of the left.So, given past failures, how does Labour rebuild confidence? The first requirement, in my view, is for Labour to listen to, and trust the public. Their...
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