NEP’s Pavlina Tcherneva appears on NPR

Posted on October 3, 2014 by | Comments Off on NEP’s Pavlina Tcherneva appears on NPR

Pavlina appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition with Scott Horsley this morning, Oct 3. Topic of discussion was economic disconnect. You can listen here.

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The New York Times Admits that “Many Economists” Criticize EU Austerity

Posted on October 3, 2014 by | 1 comment

By William K. Black

Under the principle that one should bestow a special welcome on the tentative steps that the prodigal daughter takes to return to economic reality I write to praise Liz Alderman’s column entitled “France Produces a “No Austerity’ Budget, Defying E.U. Rules.”  The column contains a sentence that represents a breakthrough in the New York Times’ horrific (non) coverage of Eurozone austerity, its abject failure, its self-destructive nature, and its victims.

“But many economists believe that crimping spending during a downturn has impeded economic growth, which in turn has made it harder for those countries to reduce their deficits and debts.”

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Effective Climate Action is a Building Project

Posted on October 2, 2014 by | Comments Off on Effective Climate Action is a Building Project

By Michael Hoexter

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To address the dependence of our societies on fossil fuels will be an enormous undertaking, despite the recent re-appearance of often well-meaning analyses and reports emphasizing how comparatively easy and inexpensive it will be.  The physical dimensions of this still mostly-future undertaking are often downplayed or misunderstood.  Taken together, effective climate action will be made up of a series of interacting, at points interwoven, simultaneous, sometimes very large, building projects to achieve the outcomes we desire and require.  As the outcome, the stabilization of the global climate, is a unitary outcome, these building projects can also be understood for some purposes as a single immense building project. As in all building or manufacturing projects, many costs will be incurred upfront for some immediate benefits in terms of employment and the sales of materials but many more of the benefits will be enjoyed years and decades down the road.  Furthermore. those additional benefits associated with climate change will be very great and enjoyed still further down the road with an indeterminate but large monetary valuation.

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The New York Times’ Thinks the EU Can “Afford” Mass Unemployment but Not “More Government Spending”

Posted on October 2, 2014 by | 6 comments

By William K. Black

Regular readers understand the three dynamics that drive economists crazy about the New York Times’ coverage of the troika’s infliction of austerity on the Eurozone.  The troika consists of the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Commission (EC).

  1. NYT reporters treat austerity as a response to the eurozone’s Great Recession as obviously the only possible response – they rarely discuss alternative policies or views
  2. The NYT refuses to inform its readers that economists overwhelmingly consider this malpractice and that it has caused catastrophic and gratuitous harm
  3. All of this is particularly bizarre given the NYT’s economist, the Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who writes regularly in the paper to explain why austerity is a disastrous response to the Great Recession.  The NYT eurozone writers routinely ignore Krugman (and anyone else who makes the same point).

The massive, wholly avoidable harm caused by “bleeding the patient” to make him well (austerity in response to a recession) for the people of the eurozone is stark, but typically minimized or wholly ignored by the NYT reporters.  Roughly one-third of the population of the eurozone lives in nations with Great Depression levels of unemployment.

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

Posted on October 1, 2014 by | 16 comments

By L. Randall Wray

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:

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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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A “Perfectly Legal” Scam is Perfectly Unacceptable to Real Bank Supervisors

Posted on September 30, 2014 by | 6 comments

By William K. Black

Whatever else comes out of the release of the audio tapes by Carmen Segarra, they have harmed the reputation of Mike Silva, the long-term senior supervisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). The (lengthy) excerpts below are taken from the This American Life program and are necessary to understand the context.

Mike Silva I have to tell you that night that the reserve fund broke the buck and we got that word…

Jake Bernstein It was a moment when it looked like the financial system was going to come crashing down. Big firms were frantically calling the Fed, terrified that economic

Armageddon had arrived. When this happened, Silva was chief of staff for Tim Geithner who, at the time, was president of the New York Fed.

Mike Silva And when I realized that nobody had any idea how to respond to that, I went into the bathroom and threw up. Because I realized this is it, it’s just this small group of people, and right now at this moment we have no clue. I never want to get close to that moment again.

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The Re-invent Democracy Platform and MMT

Posted on September 29, 2014 by | 23 comments

The MMT Uptake Problem

Proponents of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) approach to macroeconomics have had many successes since the approach was first synthesized in coherent form by Warren Mosler. There have been successful predictions of economic conditions: much work showing that the historical record accords with the MMT point of view, rather than the views of other approaches and paradigms, and also many instances where representatives of other approaches to economics have suddenly begun to use economic views first put forward by MMT economists.

So, it’s surely true that MMT has been making progress in its quest to become the dominant economic paradigm guiding macroeconomic and fiscal policy in nations. But for some of us writing about issues relating to MMT progress seems painfully slow. A big part of the reason for slow progress is the difficulty of getting MMT views into the mass media consistently, which is seen as a necessary step in getting them popular currency.

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Bordier — A Bottom-Up Solution to Cross-Border Conflicts: The Case of the Middle East and ISIL

Posted on September 27, 2014 by | 13 comments

By Nancy Bordier
(reposted by Joe Firestone with permission of the author)

Introduction

The outbreak of another Western-led military conflict in the Middle East is widely viewed as unwinnable. It is also viewed as counterproductive because of its potential to help its target, ISIL, the anti-Western fanatical social movement, recruit new volunteers in its crusade to topple Middle East regimes.

My view, as a political scientist, is that none of the players currently involved can bring peace or stability to the region. The “perpetual war” the protagonists appear to be unleashing is more likely to cause even more human suffering and displacement in the region on a scale previously unimaginable.

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The New York Times Claims that Opposing EU Austerity Leads to Anti-Semitism

Posted on September 25, 2014 by | 9 comments

By William K. Black

I have written a series of columns describing the New York Times’ horrific coverage of austerity and the Great Recessions and Great Depressions that it has gratuitously inflicted on the people of the eurozone.  I thought I was safe from such coverage, however, reading a NYT column entitled “Europe’s Anti-Semitism Comes Out of the Shadows.”  Silly me.

It turns out that opposition to austerity is a key cause of Anti-Semitism – at least in the imagination of NYT reporters.

“With Europe still shaking from a populist backlash against fiscal austerity, some Jews speak of feeling politically isolated, without an ideological home.”

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Live Streams from the 12th Post Keynesian Conference

Posted on September 24, 2014 by | 4 comments

UMKC is providing live video streaming of some of the key sessions of the 12th International Post Keynesian Conference.

Here is a list of the events they are streaming (all times Central):

  • Wednesday, 6:00-8:00pm: Bruce Greenwald lecture in Royall 111
  • Thursday, 5:45-7:30pm: “What Should We Have Learned from the GFC?”
  • Friday, 5:45-7:15pm: Jamie Galbraith Keynote
  • Saturday, 11:45-1:00pm: Lord Robert Skidelsky Keynote
  • Saturday, 7:00pm: Lord Robert Skidelsky “Economics After The Crash”

To view any of the events, click here to go to the UMKC Streaming Video page and then click on the link at the bottom of the page for the platform you are using to view the stream.

Streams start approximately 15 minutes before the event.

UMKC’s Streaming page is located at: http://www.umkc.edu/ia/streaming/live-streams.cfm

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