Books
The euro’s first inkling – a piece in lieu of Best Wishes for 2015
, 26/12/2014
As 2015 is approaching, seemingly pregnant with crucial challenges for Europe, the euro and all those who have to live with it, I could not think of a better seasonal offering for readers of this blog than a suitable extract from my next book. I chose a piece that narrates, and interprets, the story of […]
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century from a Marxist Perspective – audio
, 14/12/2014
On 6th December, I was kindly invited by the editorial board of Science & Society (the oldest continuously published journal of Marxist scholarship worldwide) to deliver a keynote to its Editorial Board’s Annual Meeting. My talk was based on a recent critical review of Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century which can be read here. To listen […]
How the US rolls (post-Global Minotaur) – by SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
, 13/12/2014
In this article, aptly subtitled It’s lonely being the global policeman, Slavoj evokes a parallelism between the age of extremes that began as the British Empire was losing its grip with the present moment in history. Now that the Global Minotaur (quoting my book) is mortally wounded, “…the American century is over and we are witnessing […]
Bloomberg’s Clive Crook on our proposal for ECB purchases of EIB bonds
, 05/12/2014
In an article entitled “ECB should fire up its helicopters“, Clive Crook comments positively on this proposal for QE by the ECB taking the form of massive purchases of EIB bonds. The article also surveys other important ideas that would, if the political will were to be found, be helpful in the fight against misanthropic, unnecessary, stagnation. […]
Discussing Thomas Piketty's inequality treatise with Andrew Mazzone – video
, 03/12/2014
Prompted by this critical review article of Professor Thomas Piketty’s Capitalism in the 21st Century, which I recently published in Real World Economics Review, Andrew Mazzone (of the Henry George School Social Science) kindly interviewed me on the subject of inequality and Professor Piketty’s book.
Revisiting the Juncker Recovery Proposals – guest post by Stuart Holland
, 01/12/2014
Regular readers need no introduction to Stuart Holland; co-author of The Modest Proposal, former British MP and aid to Jacques Delors, responsible for starting the conversation about the Eurozone’s need for eurobonds (in… 1993), creator of the European Investment Fund and a staunch advocate of the need to turn the European Investment Bank into the […]
How can we govern Europe? Florence, 21-23 November 2014
, 19/11/2014
Conference participants include (in order to presentation): Richard Koo (Chief economist, Nomura Research Institute), Vítor Constâncio (Vice President ECB), Bill Mitchell (Centre of Full Employment and Equity), Frances Coppola (Economist, former banker), Pierre Moscovici (Commissioner for Economic&Monetary Affairs), Yanis Varoufakis (Universities of Athens and Texas at Austin), Thomas Mayer (Senior Fellow at the Center of Financial Studies at Goethe Universität Frankfurt). For the complete program […]
Preface to the (forthcoming) French edition of THE GLOBAL MINOTAUR
, 12/11/2014
The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the future of the world economy is about to be published in French, as Le Minotaure Planétaire, by newly established, progressive publishing house LES ÉDITIONS DU CERCLE. Read on for a draft of the Preface I composed for this French edition (which is now added to the German, Spanish, […]
Slovakia adopts our proposal of ECB-purchases of EIB bonds
, 11/11/2014
Our proposal for ECB purchases of EIB bonds has just been adopted by one Eurozone member-state: Slovakia. Here is Reuters’ report. Or read on…
Why is Europe not ‘coming together’ in the aftermath of the euro crisis? – audio
, 10/11/2014
This talk was delivered to the PhD Colloquium of the LBJ School of Public Affairs, on 6th November 2014. It was based on this article and is part of my research for my next book EUROPE UNHINGED: The next phase of the global crisis.
A QE proposal for Europe’s crisis – OpEd in The Economist
, 10/11/2014
The Economist kindly invited me to contribute an op-ed to a ’roundtable’ on what form Quantitative Easing should take place in Europe. For The Economist’s site click here. Or read on…
Today’s Eurozone seen from an investor’s perspective – Keynote (audio)
, 01/11/2014
On 30th October I was invited to address a meeting of German, Austrian and Swiss pension fund managers on how they should make sense of the Eurozone’s current state of play. In this keynote (click below for the audio and the accompanying slides) I present an explanation of the causes underlying the impossible dilemmas pension fund […]
It is time for the ECB to purchase EIB bonds: Bruegel’s Guntram Wolff sides with our proposal
, 23/10/2014
The ECB’s recent dalliance with QE-light is macro-economically irrelevant. For a long while we have been arguing (see Policy 3 of the Modest Proposal) that it is high time that the ECB buys en masse EIB bonds, thus enabling the EIB to issue new bonds as part of a European Recovery Program; an investment drive […]
Egalitarianism’s Latest Foe: a critical review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century
, 08/10/2014
The Real-World Economics Review commissioned a number of us to write critical reviews of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. They include, beside the over-signed, David Colander, Edward Fullbrook (who must be credited for the whole issue), James K. Galbraith, Michael Hudson, Richard Koo, Richard Parker, Ann Pettifor, and Robert Wade – see below for links to […]
Centralisation-Without-Representation: A reply to Frances Coppola, Simon Wren-Lewis and Niall Ferguson
, 03/10/2014
[This post was later published by Open Democracy] Behind the European Union’s official ‘line’ that the worst of the Euro Crisis is behind us, a flurry of proposals for institutional changes reveal a deep-seated anxiety about the Eurozone. Indeed, in recent weeks, even the German finance minister, Mr Wolfgang Schäuble, went public with an op-ed […]
Frances Coppola and Simon Wren-Lewis on the ‘Modest Proposal vs Austerian Federalists’
, 26/09/2014
In Whither Europe? The Modest Camp vs the Federalist Austerians James Galbraith and I attempted to chart the evolution of various plans to save the Eurozone. In that survey, we juxtaposed a Modest Camp (that includes our own Modest Proposal), whose philosophy is to promote a minimalist agenda for stabilising the Eurozone and ending its socio-economic crisis before Europe’s future […]
Mr Juncker should look to an EIB-ECB alliance, not to the ESM
, 24/09/2014
Jean Claude Juncker had a good idea but looked in the wrong place for funding it. His good idea was to promote a sizeable investment program (€300 billion) that would help Europe end years of crisis, stem deflation and return the continent to growth. Unfortunately, Mr Juncker thought it a good idea to tap the […]
Revisiting the Modest Proposal: Q&A with a sceptic – Fall 2014 version (*)
, 21/09/2014
As Europe seems resigned to the perpetuation of the Euro Crisis, with its authorities in a state of permanent paralysis (with only the ECB trying, and failing, to stem the debt-deflationary vortex), it seems more pertinent than ever to keep the debate on the Modest Proposal going. If only as a reminder to the powers-that-be that there are immediately […]
The Global and European Crisis revisited: An audio from the launch of the Global Minotaur in Finland
, 12/09/2014
On 25th August, I had the honour of presenting the Finnish edition of The Global Minotaur to a splendid, and welcoming, audience at the University of Tampere. In this post you can listen to an interesting exchange on the state of the global and European economy, why Finns (along with citizens of other European ‘surplus’ member-states […]
CAN EUROPE ESCAPE ITS CRISIS WITHOUT TURNING INTO AN IRON CAGE?
, 07/09/2014
ON THE MODEST PROPOSAL’S POLITICAL, CONSTITUTIONAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS [Image: Rembrandt’s ‘The Abduction of Europa’] This article is a sequel to an earlier piece entitled ‘Why is Europe not coming together in response to the Euro Crisis?’ and is best read in conjunction with this article (co-authored with James K. Galbraith) that compares our Modest […]
Chosen Cells – WdW Review
, 29/08/2014
Chosen Cells is a sequel to Solitary Subversives and our seventh article for Witte de With Review (an initiative of Rotterdam-based Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art) of which we, vitalspace.org and I, are their… ‘Athens Desk’). Click here for the Witte de With Review site which contains several photos missing here. Or read on…
ON EUROPE’S RETREATING UNION: DIAGNOSIS AND A PROPOSAL
, 27/08/2014
FRIENDS OF EUROPE, an official publication of the EU, kindly commissioned me to write a short article on the State of the Union after the European Parliament elections, in the run up to the magazine’s 9th October conference of the same theme. You can read the article on the FoE’s website or just continue below
The Global Minotaur out now in Finnish
, 22/08/2014
It is with great pleasure that I received the news from Finland that my Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the World Economy has just been published in Finland by the good people of Vastapaino Publishers. (Click here for their site.) My Preface to this Finnish edition follows:
Discussing Austerity with Phillip Adams, on Late Night Live, ABC Radio National
, 22/08/2014
In this podcast you can hear my discussion with Phillip Adams, on ABC Radio National Late Night Live, on fiscal austerity and its discontents. The backdrop for this interview was, naturally, the Australian Federal Government’s attempts to ‘sell’ its latest Austerity Budget to the Australian people. (Click also here for my OpEd on ‘Austerity comes to Australia’, […]