Some progressive economists are now arguing for the idea of a Job Guarantee Program (JGP), and their advocacy has begun to gain political traction. For instance, in the US, Bernie Sanders and some other leading Democrats have recently signaled a willingness to embrace the idea. In a recent research paper I have examined the macroeconomics […]
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 […]
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 […]
