Category Archives: L. Randall Wray

Rising Tides Lift All Yachts: Why the 1% Grabs all the Gains From Growth

Posted on October 1, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 16 comments

You’ve probably seen references to the work of my colleague (and former student), Pavlina Tcherneva in recent days. If not, take a gander at this:

The NYT article includes links to her published article in the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, the first issue edited by me and my Levy Institute colleague Jan Kregel. Pavlina also presented her results at the just finished International Post Keynesian Conference at UMKC. We’ll soon have a website up with many of the powerpoints and papers. The next conference will be held in 2016. Mark your calendars.

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Tagged 1%, Growth, nyt

12th International Post Keynesian Conference

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Devin Smith | Comments Off

The 12th International Post Keynesian Conference is being held in Kansas City, September 25 – 27, 2014 at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. Below is the complete schedule for the conference. For a direct link to the schedule, click here.

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Tagged Post Keynesian Conference

Where Do We Go From Here? International Economics Conference to Focus on Aftermath of Great Recession

Posted on September 13, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 1 comment

12^th Biennial International Post Keynesian Conference Sept. 25-28 at UMKC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The University of Missouri-Kansas City will host and co-sponsor an international economics conference focused on lessons learned – or not – from the global financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession.

The 12th Biennial International Post Keynesian Conference is scheduled for Sept. 25-28 on the UMKC campus. The conference will include a keynote address by Dr. James K. Galbraith, Chair in Government / Business Relations and Professor of Government at the University of Texas-Austin; and a panel discussion, “What We Should Have Learned From the Global Crisis (But Failed To),” featuring Dr. Bruce Greenwald,Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School; and the Honorable Lord Robert Skidelsky,Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and author of an acclaimed three-volume biography of the late economist John Maynard Keynes.

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How to Eliminate the Scourge of Unemployment: Jobs Now at a Living Wage

Posted on September 2, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 5 comments

By L. Randall Wray

It is amazing no one has thought of this before. Seven years after the GFC began, we’ve still got up to 25 million people who want jobs but cannot find them. Of course that’s far more than the official unemployment numbers—which don’t count anyone who worked just an hour or so, or who gave up looking altogether.

Gee, I wonder how on earth we can find a solution to joblessness, or to low pay? It is all so complicated. How can we stroke the business class in just the right way to get them to create a job or two? How can we prevent our corporations from taking jobs abroad?

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Tagged joblessness, jobs, jobs guarantee, living wage

Where Danger Lurks: The Dark Recesses of the Orthodox Mind

Posted on August 31, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 14 comments

By L. Randall Wray

Ah, the Eternal Sunshine of the Recessed Mind!

Here’s an unintentionally–but riotously–hilarious mea culpa by Olivier Blanchard.

Here’s the CliffsNotes version: Yes, we didn’t see nothing coming. But that isn’t our fault. The Global Financial Crisis—the biggest calamity since 1929—was invisible to us because it had been lurking in the dark corners of the financial system.

However, we had been creating highly sophisticated economic models in which there were no financial institutions—at least nothing like those in the real world. Ours were transparent. They were well-capitalized. Their risks were perfectly hedged. There was no uncertainty. There was no chance of financial instability because the market forces always—inevitably—drove toward equilibrium. We had very nicely behaved DSGE models—models with no default risk. Where everyone was civilized and played nice. No one ever missed a payment. All debts were always paid. On time.

In our world, even Lake Woebegone would have been impossibly unruly.

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Tagged Great Financial Crisis, orthodox economics

Keynotes for 12th International Post Keynesian Conference

Posted on August 27, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | Comments Off

There is still time to register for our upcoming Post Keynesian conference at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Unfortunately, the program is full so we cannot accept paper proposals. However, there is still space for participants.

The registration is cheap, and includes all dinners and special events, some of which are listed below. For more information regarding registration, contact Avi Baranes: [email protected]

THE 12TH INTERNATIONAL POST KEYNESIAN CONFERENCE
Kansas City, Missouri
September 25–28, 2014

Cosponsored by the University of Missouri–Kansas City, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, and Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, with support from the Ford Foundation Continue reading →

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Why Money Matters

Posted on August 7, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 25 comments

By L. Randall Wray*

Our Mission Oriented Finance conference explores how to direct funding toward what Hyman Minsky called “the capital development of the economy”, broadly defined to include private investment, public infrastructure, and human development. (See more here.)

But to understand how, we need to understand what money is and why it matters. After all, finance is the process of getting money into the hands of those who will spend it.

The dominant narrative is that money “greases” the wheels of commerce. Sure, you could run the commercial machine without money, but it runs better with lubricant.

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Tagged MMT, Modern Monetary Theory

UPDATE: Bank of America Fined Another $16 Billion for Fraud

Posted on August 7, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 9 comments

By L. Randall Wray

Bank of America just agreed to pay another $16 Billion fine for one of its frauds—selling trashy securities to its investors. Another day, another fraud exposed. No surprises there. This is so routine it barely deserves a headline.

According to Bloomberg, that raises the total it has agreed to pay for its mortgage lending frauds to $70 billion. Most of this is related to its purchase of Countrywide, where Mairone oversaw much of the fraud. See here.

BofA rewarded Mairone for creating Countrywide’s “Hustle” fraud by hiring her. So far that woman’s criminal expertise contributed toward mounting costs to BofA of $70 billion. Quite an accomplishment!

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Tagged accounting control fraud, banksters, fraud

IT’S OFFICIAL: TOO BIG TO FAIL IS ALIVE AND WELL

Posted on August 6, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 16 comments

By L. Randall Wray

Thank heaven for Tom Hoenig, the only proven-honest central banker we’ve got. Yes, I know he’s moved on from the KC Fed to serve as Vice Chairman of the FDIC. He actually might do a lot more good over there, anyway.

In recent months, we’ve heard how Wall Street’s Blood-sucking Vampire Squids have reformed themselves. They no longer pose any danger to our economy. They’ve written “living wills” that describe how they’ll safely bury themselves without Uncle Sam’s help next time they implode.

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Tagged banksters, Control Fraud, Modern Monetary Theory, too big to fail

Setting the Record Straight One More Time: BofA’s Rebecca Mairone Fined $1Million; BofA Must Pay $1.3Billion

Posted on August 2, 2014 by L. Randall Wray | 15 comments

By L. Randall Wray

Now here’s Déjà vu all over again. You might remember the name Rebecca Mairone from a few years ago. She’s back in the news:

“Rebecca Mairone, formerly a top official at Countrywide Financial, has been named in an amended complaint filed earlier this month by Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, against Countrywide and its parent Bank of America. The suit alleges that Mairone, as chief operating officer for Countrywide’s Full Spectrum Lending division in 2007, set up a program dubbed the “High Speed Swim Lane,” or “HSSL,” or “Hustle,” to speed up the origination of mortgage loans, including increasingly shady subprime loans. The government claims the alleged Hustle ultimately cost its sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more than $1 billion in losses.

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