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Tag Archives: global financial system

Are the chances of real reform improving?

  In The Money Trap, I argue that our problems result from the way in which we have applied a particular concept of money – the state theory of money. This dominated government policy in the 20th century. As Keynes said, all modern money is state money – it is seen as a creature of…
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Globalization: a warning from Brexit

  “Yesterday’s vote speaks to the ongoing changes and challenges that are raised by globalization,” President Obama said yesterday in his first comment on the UK referendum. He is right. The “Out” vote should be viewed as part of the geo-political fallout of the financial crisis and the failure of governments and bodies such as…
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The Money Trap revisited

What is the money trap? How can we get out of it? Let me try to reformulate the thesis of my book in the light of recent developments. Since the 1970s we have been in a period of transition to a new paradigm of monetary policy. Governments have tried various approaches to the challenges of…
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Status quo or needed reforms?

Interests barring change Powerful interests benefit from the existence of the money trap. These interests include the state and the monied elite. They benefit, at least in the short to medium term, from official manipulation of money under the present (IT plus CBI)  regime – the state from cheap finance, the monied elite from the…
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‘The Money Trap’ now

The book argued that the crisis was the joint product of  inflation targeting, irresponsible banking and a weak international monetary system. The book tried to show how these were inter-related: First, inflation targeting, which had been a valuable tool in combatting 1970s inflation, had by the 2000s outlived its usefulness as a guide and discipline for…
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Haldane , Rajan on the future of central banking

  In his contribution to Central Banking’s 25th anniversary issue, Andrew Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England, describes the “giant steps” that central banks have taken to “reinvent” themselves post crisis. These have involved innovations not only in monetary policies and in market operations but also the development of macro-prudential policies. Central bankers…
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G20 fails to act

  People know we haven’t cracked the problem. Anaemic, faltering growth has brought a sense of greater security and well-being only to those in work or those with assets like shares and city property that have floated up on the rising tide of central bank liquidity. Since 2007 vast disparities of wealth have become even…
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Now for the next leg of the “financial crisis”

In effect, this is the money trap in operation – again. Central banks are in a quandary.  Unless they  return to “normal” levels of interest rates quite soon, the current model of capitalism, which depends on market-determined long-term rates, cannot function. If they do, however, raise interest rates any time soon, with debt leverage still…
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Failure to grasp the implications of global finance

    It could go either way – towards “sauve qui peut” nationalism, withdrawal from international cooperation, a turning away from globalisation; or towards a remaking of the international system and regulatory apparatus in an effort to harness the benefits of globalisation for citizens.   It could depend on chance events.  The downing of a…
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The importance of getting money right

The experience people have of the world, their life chances, what they learn, how they live, where they live, indeed their entire social and personal lives are shaped by monetary relationships, the monetary economy and thus to the world monetary system to an extent completely unprecedented in history. This means getting money wrong will have…
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