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The ECB's new role, as foreshadowed in the Modest Proposal: Q&A with a reader
, 14/03/2011
In this post I continue my Q&A with Manos Makrakis on our Modest Proposal 2.0. Tomorrow I continue with some important points raised by Jan Toporowski.
Breaking News: No Redemption for Greece, for Ireland or for Europe. And an interesting query regarding the ECB's role under the Modest Proposal
, 12/03/2011
Sad news from the EU summit (that the media are presenting as yet another ‘breakthrough’): Just heard the news that our EU leaders are making progress in reaching an agreement on extending the Greek EU-IMF loan repayments by a few years and reducing the interest rates for Ireland by 1%. The possibility of allowing the […]
A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR OVERCOMING THE EURO CRISIS, Version 2.0
, 11/03/2011
A few months ago, Stuart Holland and I tabled our Modest Proposal for Overcoming the Euro Crisis. Then we gave it a redux for the New Year. As the Crisis is deepening, and in view of the forthcoming 25th March EU Summit which, we were promised, was meant to culminate into a Comprehensive Solution for […]
The Minotaur’s Global Legacy, Part E – The rise of China
, 08/03/2011
In today’s post I conlcude the region-by-region assessment of the impact of the Global Minotaur’s demise post-2008. Previsously, we delved into the triangular relationship between Japan, East Asia and the USA, recalled Germany’s peculiar engagement with the rest of Europe (see here) and, lastly, re-visited the eurozone crisis.
The Minotaur’s Global Legacy, Part D – A brief history of a very European debacle
, 07/03/2011
The region by region assessment of the impact of the Global Minotaur’s demise post-2008 today proceeds to an analysis of the eurozone crisis. Having just looked at the story of Germany’s European engagement (see here), and after having scrutinised the triangular relationship between Japan, East Asia and the USA), we are (I hope) ready for a […]
The Minotaur’s Global Legacy, Part C – Germany's Europe
, 06/03/2011
The region by region assessment of the impact of the Global Minotaur’s demise post-2008 continues in today’s post with a close look at Germany and its attempt to remould Europe in its image. (The last posts looked at developments in the triangular relationship between Japan, East Asia and the USA).
The Minotaur’s Global Legacy, Part B – Wounded tigers: Japan, America and the South East Asian crisis
, 05/03/2011
Today I continue with a region by region assessment of the impact of the Global Minotaur’s demise post-2008. The last post looked at Japan. This one focuses on the nexus between Japan, SE Asia and the USA
The Minotaur's Global Legacy, Part A: The Dimming Sun
, 03/03/2011
On 25th March, European leaders have promised us a comprehensive solution to the eurozone risis. I am not holding my breath but, at the same time, I am redrafting the Modest Proposal for resolving the crisis. It will appear in this blog next week. In the meantime, I return to my Global Minotaur theme. The […]
The Road to Bankruptocracy: How events since 2009 have led to a new mode of reproduction
, 02/03/2011
Today I am continuing the narrative of my forthcoming book The Global Minotaur. The last post on the matter chronicled the Crash of 2008 (for all the previous posts on the Minotaur click this archive). My chronicleended abruptly and arbitrarily toward the middle of 2009. It reads like a breathless horror story. Unlike its Hollywood equivalents, […]
Of Debts and Faultlines: Greece and the Euro Crisis in a Global Context
, 28/02/2011
On Thursday 24/2, a one day workshop was organised by the European Union Studies Centre and the National Seoul University (S. Korea) at the latter’s campus in Seoul. The title of the workshop was: Crisis and the future of European Integration: Implications for Asia. I was honoured with an invitation to open the workshop. Here […]
The Crash of 2008 – lest we forget
, 26/02/2011
So far (see the category The Global Minotaur), we have seen examined the constituent parts of the peculiar global surplus recycling mechanism of the second postwar phase (to which I have given the label Global Minotaur). We saw how it caused financialisation and the global imbalances that everyone is talking about today. Then, all of […]
The fifth of the Global Minotaur's Handmaidens: Toxic economic theory
, 22/02/2011
The last two posts examined four important contributors to the Global Minotaur: to America’s astonishing pre-2008 capacity to attract financing from the capital surpluses of the rest of the world sufficient for the purposes of funding its expanding twin deficits. They were, in turn, (a) the mergers and acquisitions drive, (b) hedging and leverage, (c) The Wal-Mart business model […]
The Minotaur’s Handmaidens Part B: The Wal-Mart business model and Wall Street’s toxic money
, 18/02/2011
In The Minotaur’s Handmaidens Part A, my last post, I looked at two important contributors to the Global Minotaur: to America’s astonishing pre-2008 capacity to attract financing from the capital surpluses of the rest of the world sufficient for the purposes of funding its expanding twin deficits. These two contributors were, on the one hand, the […]
The Minotaur's Handmaidens Part A: Mergers and take overs, Hedging and Leverage
, 16/02/2011
The last post presented the Global Minotaur as a peculiar, yet powerful, Global Surplus Recycling Mechanism (GSRM). Now, I move on to a discussion of the various submechanisms by which the US twin deficits managed to attract financing from the capital surpluses of the rest of the world so that this strange GSRM could operate […]
The Global Minotaur as a most peculiar Global Surplus Recycling Mechanism
, 15/02/2011
Continuing with the story of the Global Minotaur, today’s post looks at it as a most peculiar Global Surplus Recycling Mechanism .(to get up to speed on what this mechanism might be all about, click here) Following the collapse of the Global Plan in 1971, by the end of the 1970s America’s twin deficits had started […]
What attracted so much capital to New York, prior to 2008? The Global Minotaur’s charms
, 13/02/2011
My last post introduced readers to the Global Minotaur, the dynamic by which America’s twin deficits became a mighty ‘beast’ that performed to crucial functions after 1971: First, they provided Japan and Europe with the requisite demand for their industrial surpluses. Secondly, to finance these deficits (US government and trade deficits), the United States managed […]
Surplus recycling, currency unions and the birth of the Global Minotaur
, 10/02/2011
In yesterday’s post, I began to tell the tale of how the USA planned and implemented a Global Plan for the world economy, placing the US administration at the heart of a global Surplus Recycling Mechanism. Today, I have two offerings: One is a brilliant paper by George Krimpas which states the case for such […]
What is a Surplus Recycling Mechanism? An idea going back to Bretton Woods
, 09/02/2011
In yesterday’s post I claimed that Mrs Merkel is right on almost everything except that she seems unaware of the fact that her own wishes will only come true if our currency union is equipped with something that I called a Surplus Recycling Mechanism (SRM). What is an SRM? And why am I saying that […]
My Merkel, right and wrong
, 08/02/2011
Mrs Merkel is right on a number of counts and unless the rest of us, Europeans, acknowledge the strength of her case, there will be no progress in sorting out the mess otherwise known as eurozone. The trick will be to grant her her dues but, also, to point out the logical conclusion of her […]
The Euro Crisis as a Crisis of European Democracy
, 03/02/2011
In a few hours, our European leaders will emerge from their meeting, with a, supposedly, comprehensive package by which to deal with the euro crisis. Personally, I am not holding my breath. It is not that such a package is hard to put together (goodness knows this blog has made a meal of the availability […]
A Panorama of the European Crisis
, 03/02/2011
As Europe awaits with bated breath tomorrow’s ‘Comprehensive Solution’ to the European crisis, my good friends and colleagues Riccardo Bellofiore and Joseph Halevi kindly offered the following thoughts on the subject.
The Global Minotaur is finished…
, 01/02/2011
Regulars of this blog will know that 31st January 2011 was my deadline for finishing my new book, THE GLOBAL MINOTAUR: America, the True Oirigns of the Financial Crisis, and the Future of the World Economy. Well, I missed my deadline. By two hours and thirty six minutes! As deadline misses come, it was not […]
Seismologists, Economists and the Crisis – the podcast
, 30/01/2011
The BBC Radio 4 program Broadcasting House (a Sunday morning magazine program), hosted this radio essay of mine. The text is also available here.
Seismologists, economists and the crisis
, 29/01/2011
Only yesterday, I was asked by BBC Radio 4 to produce a short comment on how seismologists differ from economists. The idea originated from a comment I made some time ago that both disciplines are terrible at making predictions but economics is, in fact, worse (in another important regard). The piece will be broadcast on […]