Kindleberger

Charles Kindleberger’s classic book on the Great Depression was originally published 40 years ago. In the preface to a new edition, two leading economists argue that the lessons are as relevant as ever.

Our brains are not calibrated to deal with the unexpected. Most of us believe we are good risk managers but in reality we are not. Most of us trust that risk can always be quantified and expressed through some fancy modelling whereas,…

Yesterday, we highlighted the talk that Steve Keen gave at the INET conference as our only post. Today, we present the full and in-depth version including his written analysis via Steve Keen's DebtWatch website. Steve ends with two…

This is an argument in favor of not avoiding recession but of avoiding depression.

An excerpt from "The World In Depression" by Charles P. Kindleberger

The question after the frightful period in 1907 was what to do to prevent another panic from causing a severe depression. Benjamin Strong, a senior executive at Bankers Trust and later the first President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New…

Below is a framework that delineates the ideology and economics of two groups of economic thought that are much talked about in the wake of the Credit Crisis: the Chartalists and the Austrians. These two groups are considered outside of the…

Over the last three decades the US financial sector has grown six times faster than nominal GDP. This column argues that there comes a point when the financial sector has a negative effect on growth – that is, when credit to the private…

Politics will not get nearly as crazy or as radicalized as they did in the 1930s. There are much more robust mechanisms today for transferring and sharing adjustment costs. But it is hard to imagine that the kinds of disruptive political…

I was eavesdropping on a conversation about Credit Writedowns on another blog (Pragmatic Capitalism) and wanted to share some of my thoughts with you on the conversation. One commenter, Mattay said: Harrison is an MMTer. As I read him,…