Testifying recently before a United States congressional committee, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the recent financial meltdown had shattered his “intellectual structure.” I am keen to understand what he meant. Since I have had no opportunity to ask him, I have to rely on his memoirs, The Age of Turbulence , for … Continue reading The Unreality of the “Real” Business Cycle
Author: Robert Skidelsky
Economist and member of the House of Lords
Book Review: Can You Spare a Dime?
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson Penguin, 442 pp., $29.95 The historian Alan Taylor used to say, mischievously, that the only point of history is history. The idea that one could use it to predict the future, still more to avoid past mistakes, was pure illusion. Niall Ferguson's … Continue reading Book Review: Can You Spare a Dime?
Book Review: On the threshold – of what?
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: easy money, high rollers and the great credit crash by Charles R. Morris Public Affairs £13.99 The Credit Crunch: housing bubbles, globalization and the worldwide economic crisis by Graham Turner Pluto Press. Paperback. £14.99 The Conscience of a Liberal: reclaiming America from the Right By Paul Krugman Allen Lane. £20. Common … Continue reading Book Review: On the threshold – of what?
Perfect Losers
Economics, it seems, has very little to tell us about the current economic crisis. Indeed, no less a figure than former United States Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently confessed that his entire “intellectual edifice” had been “demolished” by recent events. Scratch around the rubble, however, and one can come up with useful fragments. One … Continue reading Perfect Losers
A Thinker for our Times
John Maynard Keynes has been restored to life. Rusty Keynesian tools – larger budget deficits, tax cuts, accelerated spending programmes and other “economic stimuli” – have been brought back into use the world over to cut off the slide into depression. And they will do the job, if not next year, the year after. But … Continue reading A Thinker for our Times
An end to the Cold War?
At long last, America has decided to stop fighting the Cold War. On 1 December, the US Department of Defence approved a directive calling upon the American military to be ‘as effective in irregular warfare as it is in traditional warfare’. This means that the question of how best to fight ‘asymmetric conflicts’ will henceforth … Continue reading An end to the Cold War?
Where do we go from here?
Any great failure should force us to rethink. The present economic crisis is a great failure of the market system. As George Soros has rightly pointed out, "the salient feature of the current financial crisis is that it was not caused by some external shock like Opec… the crisis was generated by the system itself." … Continue reading Where do we go from here?
The Remedist
Among the most astonishing statements to be made by any policymaker in recent years was Alan Greenspan’s admission this autumn that the regime of deregulation he oversaw as chairman of the Federal Reserve was based on a “flaw”: he had overestimated the ability of a free market to self-correct and had missed the self-destructive power … Continue reading The Remedist
Not what the doctor ordered
Two major reports on the Russian economy were published in November by the EBRD and the World Bank. Both reports make similar diagnoses and offer the same prescriptions for Russia’s ills. Russia has not escaped the worldwide financial crisis. The stock market collapse saw $1 trillion wiped of the value of Russian companies. The non-oil … Continue reading Not what the doctor ordered
What would Keynes have done?
Expect plans for higher borrowing, tax cuts, and more spending in Monday's pre-Budget statement. With Britain sliding into depression, it is not surprising that the old Keynesian tool kit is being ransacked. But Keynesian economics is not just about fixing damaged economies. You don't need very sophisticated economics to spend your way out of a … Continue reading What would Keynes have done?
Robert Skidelsky 