Post Tagged with: "financial history"
Plus ça change – LDC edition
This blurb from Paul Krugman and Robin Wells’ review of Jeff Madrick’s book on the credit crisis sums up why the busts keep getting bigger
Privatizing Will Make Life Worse
This article was published in the NYT more than 20 years ago, forecasting precisely what has happened in Russia
A ‘United States of Europe’ or Full Exit from the Euro? (Part 1)
This is the first in a two-part essay on the origins of the sovereign debt crisis. Here the emphasis is on Germany’s central role in the last century and a half of European history and in the formation of the euro
The impotence of monetary policy
For my part, I am with Richard Koo. Monetary policy reflation will not work in a balance sheet recession when fiscal policy is contractionary. But at some point, the Fed will be compelled to act anyway
Goldilocks, the Crash, and the Perfect Fiscal Storm
Randall Wray revisits the Clintonian Goldilocks economy to find the seeds of the Global Financial Crisis, using the sectoral balance approach
What are the differences between QE1, QE2 and QE3?
Last week, when discussing what QE3 could look like I indicated that were the Federal Reserve to start expanding its balance sheet, QE3 will see interest rate caps after a pause and period of reflection. Let me address the differences between the various QEs here to illustrate why interest rate caps are being contemplated
Free Money For Big Banks, Lumps of Coal For Everybody Else
In the case of bailing out Wall Street – and thereby the wealthiest 1% of Americans – while saying there is no money for Social Security, Medicare or long-term public social spending and infrastructure investment, the beneficiaries are obvious. So are the losers. High finance means low wages, low employment, low industry and a shrinking economy under conditions where policy planning is centralized in hands of Wall Street and its political nominees rather than in more objective administrators
Roach: Return of the Living Dead
Rather than adding stimulus with the aim of goosing demand to help the economy reach escape velocity, I would say that the central objective of economic policy is to help the economy reach full employment. Doing so will increase demand, increase output, and cut budget deficits tremendously. Policy makers should do this while aiding the economy in reallocating scarce resources to areas that will sustain longer-term productivity growth. In America, that means less resources in finance and housing and perhaps more in technology and infrastructure
Chart of the Day: How Deep Was Your Recession?
I mean to ask how deep the downturn in your country was. On Tuesday, Martin Wolf had a good graphic on this. The upshot of his analysis is that while US GDP growth compares favourably to Japan and Western Europe, its unemployment compares unfavourably to Germany in particular
China GDP history
This chart is for year over year ‘real’ GDP growth. Note the recurring first quarter spikes followed by dips, presumably due to front loading annual state spending and lending
Will Greece Allow Central Bankers To Destroy Sovereignty?
ECB intransigence leaves little alternative to breakup. Europe’s payments-surplus nations are waging financial war against the deficit countries. Without a common union based on mutual support within a mixed economy – one capable of checking financial aggression – the European Central Bank replaced the military high command. Its bold gamble is whether the Greeks will be as stupid as the Irish, not as smart as the Icelanders
Financial Repression
The financial repression that is being discussed is not in developing countries but in the advanced industrialized countries. The ostensible goal is to support the government bond markets. Moral suasion, the cajoling of investors are soft forms of financial repression, where the government can impose such cooperation by fiat