Tag Archives: public debt

I listen to a few podcasts during my commute. Two that I often appreciate are Know Your Enemy, associated with Dissent Magazine,* a series of interviews on mostly right wingers by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell, and Past, Present and Future, a series of monologues by David Runciman, sponsored by the London Review of Books.  Both are always entertaining and informative. I'm not a specialist in most of the subjects they discuss. However, two recent episodes (or at least I listened to them...

I was teaching about deficits and debt this last week. If you know me and follow this blog, you'd know that I always emphasize the importance of the distinction between debt in domestic currency and debt in foreign currency. Functional finance authors (and MMT too) are correct in noting that a country cannot default on debt in its own currency (for a model of a currency crisis and default, in foreign currency go here; as afar as I know the only formalization of a PK alternative to the...

This article first appeared in the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly on 18 July 2022. A Murder in Konya Konya is a province in Turkey. On 6 July 2022, about an hour before I started writing this article, a murder news hit the Turkish pages of the internet: “In Konya City Hospital, a patient shot and killed a cardiologist and his secretary today.” Whether the assassin committed suicide or the private security killed him is unknown, although there are both rumours. City hospitals,...

This article first appeared in the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly on 18 July 2022.A Murder in KonyaKonya is a province in Turkey. On 6 July 2022, about an hour before I started writing this article, a murder news hit the Turkish pages of the internet: “In Konya City Hospital, a patient shot and killed a cardiologist and his secretary today.” Whether the assassin committed suicide or the private security killed him is unknown, although there are both rumours.City hospitals, the...

This article first appeared in the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly on 18 July 2022.A Murder in KonyaKonya is a province in Turkey. On 6 July 2022, about an hour before I started writing this article, a murder news hit the Turkish pages of the internet: “In Konya City Hospital, a patient shot and killed a cardiologist and his secretary today.” Whether the assassin committed suicide or the private security killed him is unknown, although there are both rumours.City hospitals, the...

Sergio Cesaratto – Those Italian subsidies for Germany December 8, 2021 Economics, EU politics, EU-Institutions, Finance, Inequality, National Politics, Regulation Italy has paid for certain ill-advised policies of the ECB – influenced by Berlin, the dominant power in Europe – with dozens of points of additional debt/GDP and finding itself ever poorer, while Germany symmetrically gained. Sergio Cesaratto teaches European monetary and fiscal...

This article first appeared in the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly on 13 November, 2021.Fermi ParadoxIn a recent article, Yıldızoğlu (2021) reminded us of the Fermi Paradox, which can be summarised as: Although the probability of the existence of other forms of life in the universe is sufficiently high, why have we not met any?Enrico Fermi, the Italian–American physicist and the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, was probably not the first person who asked: “but where...

This article first appeared in the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly on 13 November, 2021. Fermi Paradox In a recent article, Yıldızoğlu (2021) reminded us of the Fermi Paradox, which can be summarised as: Although the probability of the existence of other forms of life in the universe is sufficiently high, why have we not met any? Enrico Fermi, the Italian–American physicist and the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, was probably not the first person who asked: “but...

This article first appeared in the Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly on 13 November, 2021.Fermi ParadoxIn a recent article, Yıldızoğlu (2021) reminded us of the Fermi Paradox, which can be summarised as: Although the probability of the existence of other forms of life in the universe is sufficiently high, why have we not met any?Enrico Fermi, the Italian–American physicist and the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, was probably not the first person who asked: “but where...

A couple of weeks ago, my old shower broke down, needing replacement. Chatting to bathroom-kitchen store manager, I learnt that business was brisk for them, especially the demand for new bathrooms.  In fact, very brisk. Lots of people wanting new bathrooms for their holiday to-be-let homes, with higher rents in mind, as well as for actually lived-in homes. His order book is far stronger than in ‘normal’ times. For those who ‘have’, the times are not – financially speaking – bad at all. All...