About: robert

    In The Money Trap, I argue that that the international monetary anti-system (to borrow Jacques de Larosiere’s phrase)  makes it very difficult for central bankers to deliver financial and monetary stability in the long run.   I often wonder how many central bankers privately agree with this analysis but don’t dare to say…
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  As central banks come closer to the commercial sector, exercising powers such as the granting and withdrawal of licenses, and become more involved in decisions determining the livelihood of individuals, there must be a growing risk of “crony capitalism” at best and outright corruption at worst.   Corruption can take many forms – many…
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  Thinking about monetary and economic nationalism reminds one of the French economist Jacques Rueff (1898-1978). He strongly opposed economic fragmentation, nationalism and protectionism. He saw a good monetary system as a unifying force.   Shall we blame him for the euro? He did say, back in 1949,  that money would lead European integration: “L’Europe…
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On Friday I was at a gold conference at Bloomberg’s glitzy London office at Finsbury Square when news came through of the fine imposed by Uk regulators on a senior trader at Barclays for manipulating the price of gold and on Barclays for lack of internal controls: “What, Barclays again?”, said one participant, referring to…
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Can anybody give me a good reason to read “Capital in the 21st Century” by Thomas Piketty rather than, for example, Das Kapital by Karl Marx? At least Karl has a theory of financial crisis. Here is a roundup of comments by economists I know: Allan Meltzer points out that Piketty leaves out migration.  For…
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