Shutdown

Adam Tooze has a new book out, Shutdown.  Tooze is the liberal left’s current favourite historian.  His previous book, The Wages of Destruction,  won the Wolfson Prize for History and the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize. He has taught at Cambridge and Yale and is now Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of

Stagflation: a demand or supply side story?

The semi-annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank start today where finance ministers and central bankers will meet in slimmed-down but in-person gatherings in Washington.  This meeting is likely to be overshadowed by the scandal involving the IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, who may well have been forced to resign as I write after a

China at a turning point?

The debt problems afflicting China’s real estate market deepened this week after another property developer defaulted on its bonds and the world’s most heavily indebted property group Evergrande extended a suspension of its shares into a second day without explanation. Fantasia Holdings, a mid-sized developer, that just weeks ago assured investors it had “no liquidity

MMT and Marxist monetary theory – a reply to Bill Mitchell by a man with no name

Bill Mitchell is a Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Professor Mitchell is one of the world’s leading exponents of what is called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  MMT has gained traction in the labour movement in recent years on the grounds

IIPPE 2021: imperialism, China and finance

The 2021 conference of the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy (IIPPE) took place a couple of weeks ago, but only now I have had time to review the many papers presented on a range of subjects relating to political economy.  IIPPE has become the main channel for Marxist and heterodox’ economists to

German election: unsteady as she goes

The result of German Federal election was almost exactly as the opinion polls predicted. The Social Democrats (SPD) got the largest share of those voting (25.7%), up 5.2% pts from the 2017 disaster. The Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union (CDU-CSU) vote share slumped to 24.1%, its lowest vote share since it was formed. The

The Fed, interest rates and stagflation

“The economy has made progress toward employment and inflation goals and if progress continues broadly as expected, a moderation in the pace of asset purchases may soon be warranted”, the US Federal Reserve officials said in their September monetary policy statement. The Fed also signalled interest-rate increases may follow more quickly than expected, with 9

Canada: no change

Canada’s Liberal Party prime minister Justin Trudeau has managed to get re-elected for the third time in the snap general election he called.  The Liberals won or were leading in 158 seats out of a total of 338 seats, and the Conservatives trailed the Liberals, winning or leading in 122 seats, four more than their

Not so Evergrande

China’s Evergrande Group is the second largest property developer in China and it is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.  Evergrande has hired ‘restructuring advisers’ and warned that its liquidity is under “tremendous pressure” from collapsing sales, facing protests by home buyers and retail investors.  Based in Shenzhen in southern China, Evergrande is saddled with

China and common prosperity

Back in May the Chinese government set up a special zone to implement ‘common prosperity’ in Zhejiang province, which also happens to be the location of the headquarters of several prominent internet corporations– Alibaba among them.  And last month, China’s President Xi Jinping announced plans to spread “common prosperity”, heralding a tough crackdown on wealthy