Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis. He and 2nd and 3rd place finishers, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers, have won the first — and hopefully last — Dynamite Prize in Economics. In awarding the Prize, Edward Fullbrook, editor of the Real World Economics Review, noted that […]
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
The Greek External Debt and Imperialist Rivalries: “One Thief Stealing from Another”
The current Greek economic crisis has an aspect of ancient tragedy (for the Greek people) mixed with a bad theatrical farce (staged on behalf of the European and the Greek bourgeoisie). The farce comes first. Till very recently the two establishment parties (the center-left PASOK and the center-right ND) preached that their economic policies […]
The Risks of 21st Century Stagflation
Well before the global financial crisis finally broke in September 2008, most people in developing countries were already reeling under the effects of dramatic volatility in global food and fuel markets. From late 2006, prices of most primary commodities first increased very rapidly, then collapsed even more sharply from their peaks in May-June 2008. This […]
The Price Is Right (On)
At a Paul Winter concert (I think it was) one summer in the 1980s I somehow found myself backstage at Carnegie Hall beside a very tall man. I looked up — as it turned out to be, both literally and figuratively — and was shocked to see who stood next to me. “God bless you, […]
The Greek Present
The Brazilian expression “Greek Present” (Presente de Grego) means unwelcome gift, an obvious reference to the infamous Trojan Horse. The current crisis in Greece might show that the euro was just one of those presents. If the European Union (EU) does not provide sufficient resources to preclude not just a default, but also and […]
Central Bank Independence: From Whom?
The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, recently fired the head of the central bank, Martín Redrado, when he rejected the government’s plan to use $6.6 billion of international reserves to pay off debt. The domestic and international press response was overwhelmingly negative, with complaints that this would “kill central bank independence.” Leaving aside the question […]
The Global Organic Crisis: Paradoxes, Dangers, and Opportunities
The capitalist world has experienced its deepest economic meltdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Paradoxically, whereas the earlier period saw the breakdown of liberal capitalism, the rise of fascism and Nazism, and the Soviet alternative to liberal capitalism, today neo-liberalism and capitalist globalization still remain powerful, and apparently supreme, on the stage of […]
Do I Look Rich? Student Voices on Fee Hikes in California
For more information about the education crisis and the 4 March 2010 strike and day of action to defend public education in California, go to <checkingeducation.com>, <defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/>, or <www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=184333923808>. | | Print
Lessons of the Year: Tailing Democrats Equals Defeat, Only a Mass Movement Can Win
The Democratic defeat in Massachusetts on the anniversary of the start of the Obama administration makes a fitting conclusion to the lessons that the last year should have taught everyone in this country. The question is: will the lessons be learned, especially by left activists? Let us try to see what these lessons are. […]
How to Fire a Central Banker: Lessons from Argentina
In the United States, the mismanagement of the financial crisis, in particular the ill designed Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), has led to a wave of populist protests, and to a narrow confirmation vote for Bernanke. In Argentina, where the recession was considerably milder than in the United States and had no financial cause, […]
The WTO as Barrier to Financial Regulation
In most parts of the world today (except perhaps in India, where optimism about the benefits of unregulated financial markets still seems to dominate over the undisputable evidence of their many fragilities) most policy makers talk about imposing regulations on the financial sector. Of course, the events of the past two years in the world […]
Latvia’s Recession: The Cost of Adjustment with an “Internal Devaluation”
Executive Summary: The Latvian recession, which is now more than two years old, has seen a world-historical drop in GDP of more than 25 percent. The IMF projects another 4 percent drop this year, and predicts that the total loss of output from peak to bottom will reach 30 percent. This would make Latvia’s loss […]
Vote Here for the Dynamite Prize in Economics
The Dynamite Prize in Economics, to be awarded to the three economists who contributed most to enabling the Global Financial Collapse (GFC), or more figuratively, to the three economists who contributed most to blowing up the global economy. Vote for three. The candidates’ dossiers are below the ballot. View This Pollpolling Short List of Nominees […]
Rising Income Inequality in the US: Divisive, Depressing, and Dangerous
The gap between annual incomes of the top 10 per cent of US citizens and what the other 90 per cent gets has been widening sharply for the last 30 years. The nation’s economic development has been increasingly divisive. Professor Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley, a leading expert, summarizes the facts […]
How Markets Fail
If you want to be reminded of the myriad of ways in which markets fail, you will welcome the new and timely book by John Cassidy titled simply How Markets Fail. Cassidy is not only an economist but a rare one who can write. Indeed, he writes so well that he is a regular […]
After the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, What Next?
John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and author of The Great Financial Crisis (2009, with Fred Magdoff) and The Ecological Revolution (2009) — both from Monthly Review Press. This interview was conducted from Dhaka by Farooque Chowdhury (editor of Micro Credit: Myth Manufactured, 2007) for MRzine and Bangla Monthly Review. It is part […]
Oregon Counters Massachusetts
The stunning win of a Republican novice in the Massachusetts Senate race to replace Ted Kennedy is well known. It is being interpreted as a sign of Obama’s fading popularity and also as a sign that the US electorate wants more right-of-center policy. To show the flaw in thinking that right-wing answers to the economic […]
Can We Ever Get Equal Care for All?
Can we ever get equal care for all? We can’t — at least, not by going down dead-end roads. A year ago hope was alive for equal health care for all. Bush was defeated, and the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress. Throughout 2009, though, every week brought a slap across the face […]
On the Liberal Hope for the New Middle Class’s Capitalist Revolution in the Muslim World
Vali Nasr. Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World. New York: Free Press, 2009. 320 pp. This empirically informative yet analytically defective book labors to dissect the complexities of political and economic development in the Muslim world, strongly focusing on Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, […]
Una teoría sobre el capitalismo global:Producción, clases y estado en un mundo transnacional
William I. Robinson es profesor de sociología, estudios globales y estudios latinoamericanos en la Universidad de California-Santa Bárbara. | | Print
