Tom O’Brien runs an excellent series of interviews with all sorts through the Podomatic website, where he publishes these interviews as podcasts at:
http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/
He recently interviewed me on the ideas of Marxist economics, Keynes, profit cycles and the breakdown of capitalism. He published this interview today.
have a look at:
http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-31T00_02_37-07_00
Michael Roberts Blog 
Are you considering a piece on the Coop Bank in your excellent blog?
It appears that despite baling out all the big banks with billions, the Coop’s savers are to lose and the bank is to be sold to the wolves. The bank was seriously mismanaged through the Britannia takeover (big payoff to CE though) and apparently completely set up with the Lloyds debacle. And now, we the perhaps naively loyal coop supporters are going to have to pay, and to sell our soul (sort of) to the shares market. The whole thing stinks.
I’m no economist but I do get much from your blog, not least some reassurance that we socialists are largely on the right track. Thanks Gordon
Gordon Gibson Tel: +44(0)1792 46 00 86 mobile: +44(0)77 62 78 67 68 E-mail: g@phonecoop.coop Blog: http://www.4cities.wordpress.com
Sent from my iPhone
Gordon
Ill see what I can do on the Coop – it’s a scandal and confirms the view that the major banks must be publicly owned and democratically run. See my numerous posts on this issue
Dear Michael,
I’ll really appreciate it if you analyze the effects of the U.S involvement in the regional wars of the middle east on its rate of profit. to raise the question in another way, can we regard such wars as a means of countervailing the ongoing falling tendency of the RoP?
Sincerely
Dear Michael,
I’ll really appreciate it if you analyze the effects of the U.S involvement in the regional wars of the middle east on its rate of profit. to raise the question in another way, can we regard such wars as a means of countervailing the ongoing falling tendency of the RoP?
Sincerely
The short answer is that the cost of these wars is a negative for the productive sector of the US economy, but not hugely. The effect on the destruction of capital that might help drive up the rate of profit is tiny compared to a world war. So not much effect on pushing up the rate and probably more effect on lowering the creation of new value.
Thanks a lot for your quick and useful reply. As far as I remember, you’d previously referred to the September 11 event as a historical point which could help drive up the rate of profit (however it was in a long-term downward phase). So what’s the difference between that war and those being triggered at present?
Did I?
Michael Roberts, do you have any thoughts on Paul Mattick’s book, Marx vs Keynes. Other than your blog, I can’t find many texts that address the Marx Keynes debate, in a pro Marx fashion.
Paul Mattick’s book is very good. Even better is Geoff Pilling’s The crisis of Keynesian economics.
Both can be found at the Marxist archives
http://marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1969/marx-keynes/index.htm
http://marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/keynes/index.htm
Reblogueó esto en Econo Marx 21.