The conclusion is that it’s a lot easier to talk about creating truly alternative institutions than actually doing so, which means that BRICS will likely just remain a talking club, or a “multitasking laboratory of global governance” as Kortunov diplomatically described it. That’s not to downplay the group’s role since it’s important for major and developing non-Western countries to discuss pressing issues of the evolving world order, especially economic-financial ones, but that’s not the...

• Sedan 2020, då det här decenniet av allt större klyftor inleddes, har världens fem rikaste män mer än fördubblat sina förmögenheter medan nästan fem miljarder människor har fått se sina tillgångar minska. • Om de fem rikaste männen skulle göra av med varsin miljon USD om dagen skulle det ta 476 år att spendera deras sammanlagda förmögenhet. • Sju av tio av världens största bolag har en dollarmiljardär som koncernchef eller huvudaktieägare. • Globalt sett äger männen...

I see conditions ahead that will determine how the economy will be.

from Peter Radford Well done AJR.  A prize deserved.  And remarkably little grumbling.  What’s wrong with that? In other news, my wife is deep into creating an artificial intelligence application.  One of the great challenges of getting AI to be useful is something called ‘prompt engineering’.   What have these two snippets of news have in common? The great thing about our better economists — the triumvirate we know affectionately as AJR being an example — is that they all seem to...

Hayek introduced his triangles in his lectures for his book Prices and Production. The first edition was in 1931 and the second in 1935. He attempted a more general treatment of capital theory in his 1941 book, The Pure Theory of Capital. I want to claim that Hayek knew that he could not draw his triangles under these more general assumptions. And that he knew that capital theory needed more development than he was able to give. Jack Birner knows this, although I do not know a reference...

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Podcasts What to make of the Labour government’s first budget? Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by James Meadway and Hannah Peaker By Ayeisha Thomas-Smith 01 November 2024 The Autumn Budget was the most significant since George Osborne implemented...

Statens finanser funkar inte som du tror Sex av åtta riksdagspartier har nyss ställt sig bakom ett nytt stramt finanspolitiskt ramverk. Osagt i diskussionerna kring ramverket är en bakomliggande föreställning att staten fungerar som ett hushåll eller ett företag: Att det är osunt och riskabelt för staten att ”leva över sina tillgångar” och att dra på sig stora skulder. Att ”den som är satt i skuld är inte fri”. Metaforerna och liknelserna är lika talrika...

If so, do you know what to do with this information?

from Lars Syll Today’s model of delegation has much to recommend it. But it should not be cloaked in euphemism. It is an abrogation of democratic sovereignty for pragmatic reasons, conditioned on the one hand by deeply entrenched and unflattering assumptions about electoral politics and, on the other, on an unquestioning acceptance of the private organization of credit markets and their lack of confidence in democratic control of economic policy. This may be an abrogation that we are...