By Dale Pierce. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Modern Monetary Theory is a way of doing economics that incorporates a clear understanding of the way our present-day monetary system actually works – it emphasizes the frequently misunderstood dynamics of our so-called “fiat-money” economy. Most people are unnerved by the thought that money isn’t “backed” by anything anymore..
Read more...One of the dangers of trying to understand what is going on in the Eurozone if you are a hapless but interested American isn’t simply that you’d have to be fluent in a lot of languages to keep on top of the media, but the media themselves are, as NC readers know well, not exactly reliable. Look at how much dictation from business and political leaders masquerades as news in the US. And we have a less controlled press than, say, Italy does.
So I will give readers some fresh data points and let you duke it out.
Read more...Jonathan Harris of the Global Development and Environment Institute has a new post at Triple Crisis, Green Keynesianism: Beyond Standard Growth Paradigms, in which he argues that pro-growth policies need to find a way to deal with environmental/resource constraints. On the one hand, a lot of NC readers will find that argument to be welcome, if a bit overdue, since quite a few members have been arguing that growth-oriented economic policies need to acknowledge environmental constraints.
Having read Harris’ well-intended post, I’m increasingly convinced that environmentalists have it backwards.
Read more...Reader craazyman asked for mathematician and sometimes guest writer Andrew Dittmer to explain what is going on in Europe. Unfortunately, Andrew has many projects and Europe is rather large and complicated to sort out right now. Nevertheless, he did decide to help by translating some lead editorials from the Corriere della Sera to shed light on the reaction of the elite media to the recent elections.
Read more...At the end of 2011, Steve Waldman wrote:
Read more...The game of chicken both the Republicans and Democrats are playing with the sequester and the budget/deficit talks is striking. One of the truly bizarre elements is that neither side is signaling the faintest interest in dealmaking of any kind. As I indicated the week before last, the lack of any sense of urgency was obvious: Congress had a holiday last week, and there were no real negotiations or even an exchange of proposals, virtually guaranteeing the sequester would take place as scheduled.
Read more...This Real News Network video not only gives a disheartening recap on how various transparency freedom fighters are faring legally, but also provides a sense of how the security state is extending its reach.
Read more...By Yanis Varoufakis, professor of economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his blog
For six decades Germany was being pampered by a hegemonic America that oversaw the write-off of its wartime debts, the reversal of Allied designs to de-industrialise it and, above all else, the constant generation of the global demand which allowed German manufacturers to concentrate on efficiently producing quality, desirable wares.
Having taken all this for granted for too long, Germany’s elites are now finding it conceptually difficult to come to terms with the new ‘normal’.
Read more...I’m not old enough to have lived through the McCarthy era, but memories of it were strong enough that it left an impression on my generation. Moyers’ gentlemanly manner leads him to understate how rabid and extreme the red-baiting of that period was.
Read more...By Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
There is no unified theory in our popular understanding of value: there are the market values of goods and then there are our “values” which we consider to be some of the most personal and even sacred aspects of ourselves. In practice, these beliefs and ideology are filtered through a process by which powerful and wealthy interest groups influence and shape the behavior of lawmakers.
Read more...Now, if only anyone had listened….
By Michael M. Thomas, who figured out Wall Street was not all it was cracked up to be before most of you were born. Originally published at his Midas Watch column at the New York Observer, March 10, 2009
Read more...By Jennifer Clapp, Professor in the Environment and Resource Studies Department and CIGI Chair in Global Environmental Governance, Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, Canada. Cross posted from Triple Crisis
NGOs have stepped up their critique of large investment banks’ involvement in agricultural commodity derivatives markets in recent months. Now, it appears that the banks are starting to fight back.
Read more...With public companies fixated on quarterly profits, which results in underinvestment and treatment of employees as disposables, companies who (gasp) pursue a long-term strategy and invest in their workforce should have a real competitive advantage. Thus worked owned enterprises aren’t simply a way to contend with the program to disempower labor; it’s also a way to take advantage of the inefficiencies of rentier capitalism.
Read more...One of the canards libertarians like to sell is that the state has a monopoly on violence.
Read more...Yves here. This is a pet topic of mine. Participants in public policy debates are often insensitive to how much ground they cede when they embrace the nomenclature used by their opponents. My personal bete noire is “free markets” which is actually an oxymoron. Another is “entitlements” which is code for “welfare”. Why don’t people who favor programs like Social Security call them “social insurance’? Or “economic stabilizers”?
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