Tag Archives: global financial system
What major monetary and banking reforms are needed?
The global financial crisis should be seen as a symptom of the lack of fit between three pieces of the jigsaw of modern finance – national or regional monies, innovative financial markets and a globalized financial system. It provided both an encouragement and a warning – an encouragement to search for alternatives…
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Geoffrey Ingham on Money
As the debate about the future of finance has yet to yield consensus on the way forward for policy, so more radical solutions are being openly discussed and advocated. This has stimulated a spreading debate on the very nature of money and banking. Geoffrey Ingham, a Life Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, has brought the…
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Geoffrey Ingham and “The Money Trap”
Two key aspects or functions of money: 1. As a convenient medium of exchange – can be anything; but that’s not enough, as exchange rates between multiple media of exchange would be variable and result in anarchy 2. As a unit of account – this is primary, as Keynes taught – and explains why…
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Encounters with Paul Volcker and Jacques de Larosière
This month I have enjoyed wonderful conversations with three elder statesman of international finance and economic policy – Paul Volcker, Jacques de Larosière and Allan Meltzer. They all agreed on one big thing – much of what has gone wrong is down to the absence of a proper international monetary system. This is a…
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A Debate with Allan Meltzer (Part 1)
Professor Allan Meltzer debates international monetary issues and The Money Trap with Robert Pringle On 3/14/2014 12:57 PM, Robert Pringle wrote: Allan, Thinking further about the international monetary system, I now find it difficult to conceive monetary stability being established in one country alone – even if that country is the US. This…
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Adair Turner (1): Right on the case for radical reform
One person who fully grasps the urgent need for more radical reforms is Lord (Adair) Turner, former head of Britain Financial Services Authority. He also specifies what reforms he feels are needed and makes an eloquent plea for them. These two features set his contributions apart from 90% of writings on the topic. Here I…
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The bare bones of a new policy regime
As argued in the post “Regime Uncertainty Undermines Confidence”, only a new policy regime, not changes to individual policy areas (such as regulatory policy) will reduce the existential angst that is crippling business and over-shadowing the recovery. New money….. It should establish a global currency standard. The standard should be sufficiently attractive that countries…
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Golden opinions
The attributes of gold usually cited as making it useful as money are summed up by the World Gold Council as follows: “Gold’s scarcity, the fact that it does not corrode or tarnish, its malleability and status across civilisations have made it eminently suitable as a form of money.” There is more…
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Eurozone makes progress
The eurozone is widely viewed as a failure, held together only for political reasons. This, it is said, has been proved by the financial crisis and the failure to manage the debt problems of governments in southern Europe. At least, that is the dominant view among the Anglo-Saxons; one searches far and…
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Bernanke’s lost opportunity
Given that he was at the heart of monetary policy making before, during and after the biggest monetary disaster of all time, Ben Bernanke should be mightily pleased with the reviews he has been getting as he leaves office as Fed chairman. All but a disgruntled minority give him full marks for leading…
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