Thomas Carothers has recently written an article in Foreign Affairs, the prestigious elite journal published by the US-based Council on Foreign Relations. The article asks: is the US hypocritical for criticizing Russian election meddling? Given the place of publication, the unsurprising conclusion is that it is not. The problem is the US is a champion […]
Economics For Democratic Societies: Reframing The Free Market Debate
Back in 2006 I tried to start a project titled Economics for Democratic and Open Societies. At that time, I sent proposals to several foundations. Nothing came of them so the project died, apart from my website which has soldiered on. With the recent flourishing of interest in the fragility of liberal democracies, the project […]
Trumponomics: Neocon Neoliberalism Camouflaged with Anti-Globalization Circus
A key element of Trump’s political success has been his masquerade of being pro-worker, which includes posturing as anti-globalization. However, his true economic interest is the exact opposite. That creates conflict between Trump’s political and economic interests. Understanding the calculus of that conflict is critical for understanding and predicting Trump’s economic policy, especially his international […]
An Undergraduate’s Question About Economic Policy: A Professor Replies
I received an e-mail from an undergraduate economics student who was curious about economic policy in Washington, DC. His question says a lot about the current state of affairs. Here it is with my reply. From: Xxxxxxs Xxxxxxx [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, October 1, 2016 10:56 AM To: mail <[email protected]> Subject: Question from an undergraduate […]
Financing vs. Spending Unions: How To Remedy The Euro Zone’s Original Sin
In economic policy, timing isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. The euro zone crisis has been evolving for over seven years, making it difficult to time policy proposals. Now, the shock of Brexit has created a definitive political opportunity for reforming rather than patching the euro. With that in mind, I would like to revive […]
Year Of The Outsider: Why Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Rebellion Is So Significant
2016 was supposed to have been the year of Jeb Bush versus Hillary Clinton: the year when the established Bush dynasty confronted the upstart rival Clinton Dynasty. But the year of the insider has turned into the year of the outsider. On both sides, voters have unexpectedly given vent to thirty years of accumulated anger […]
Bernie Slanders: How The Democratic Party Establishment Suffocates Progressive Change
The Democratic Party establishment has recently found itself discomforted by Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign to return the party to its modern roots of New Deal social democracy. The establishment’s response has included a complex coupling of elite media and elite economics opinion aimed at promoting an image of Sanders as an unelectable extremist with unrealistic […]
Some Reflections On Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital’
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a six hundred and eighty-five page tome that definitively characterizes the empirical pattern of income and wealth inequality in capitalist economies over the past two hundred and fifty years, and especially over the last one hundred. It also documents the grotesque rise of inequality over the past […]
Explaining Stagnation: Why It Matters
Larry Summers (HERE) and Paul Krugman (HERE) have recently identified the phenomenon of stagnation. Given that they are giants in today’s economic policy conversation, their views have naturally received enormous attention. That attention is very welcome because the issue is so important. However, there is also a danger that their dominance risks crowding out other […]
The Next Federal Reserve Chairperson
Some months ago it became known that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was likely to step down as the end of his second term of appointment drew near. Initially, Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Janet Yellen appeared the favorite to succeed Bernanke, but now it seems as though Larry Summers has become the Obama administration’s preferred candidate. […]
Coordinate Currencies Or Stagnate
The global economy needs exchange rate coordination now. Absent that, the world is likely to be increasingly afflicted by exchange rate fluctuations and policy acrimony. These are bound to undermine the economic recovery and increase the likelihood of stagnation. In 2010, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega warned of the possibility of “currency wars”, as countries […]
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