The financial crisis of 2008 should have exposed how compromised most economists are. Only a bigger crisis might make the profession more relevant to contemporary society.
The Existential Crisis of Mainstream Economics
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financial crisis
Will the EU Survive the Coronavirus?
Hungary’s authoritarianism, Portugal’s generosity, Italy’s call for solidarity, Germany’s tightfistedness: European responses to the crisis are all over the map.
How Obama’s Legacy Lost the Elections for Hillary
Instead of jobs and relief, the Obama administration offered only half-measures to struggling people in the Rust Belt and beyond.
From the Battle of Seattle to the Financial Crisis
The decisive role of collective action in undermining neoliberal ideology and the continuing structural power of capitalism.
Piketty in Elysium
If inequality sells in bookstores and box offices, it will sell at the polls as well.
When It Comes to Nuclear Weapons, Austerity Has a Silver Lining
“Omne trium perfectum” goes the Latin saying -- “everything which comes in threes is perfect.” Let’s see: the spiritual perfection of the Holy Trinity, the cinematic perfection of the Three Stooges, and … the nuclear triad. Those dubious that the Three Stooges help...
The Apple Connection
Ever since the beginning of the current global economic crisis, the focus of both critical analysis and public odium has been speculative capital. In the populist narrative, it was the breathtaking shenanigans of the banks in an atmosphere of deregulation that led to the economic collapse. The “financial economy,” characterized as parasitic and bad, was contrasted to the “real economy,” which was said to produce real goods and real value. Resources flowed into speculative activities in finance, resulting in a loss of dynamism in the real economy and eventually leading to credit cutoff at the height of the crisis, causing bankruptcies and massive layoffs.
Germany’s Social Democrats and the European Crisis
Germany towers over Europe like a colossus. Its economy is the biggest in the European Union, accounting for 20 percent of the EU’s gross domestic product. While most of Europe’s economies are stagnating, Germany’s will have grown by some 2.9 percent in 2011. It boasts the lowest unemployment rate, 5.5 percent, of Europe’s major economies, compared to those of France (9.5 percent), the United Kingdom (8.3 percent), and Italy (8.1 percent).
For Clue to How U.S. Would Respond to Its Own Fukushima, Look at Financial Crisis
The U.S. response to the financial crisis showed scant evidence that we learned from our mistakes.
Europe’s Austerity: Like Something Out of the Brothers Grimm
EU’s narrative that high wages, early retirement, and generous benefits have led several countries to the verge of bankruptcy is nothing but a fairy tale.