The crisis exaggerators are telling us that current economic conditions amount to an unprecedentedî global economic recession. This is historically incorrect. What is unprecedented is the degree to which economic commentators and political leaders are talking up economic downturn. What is their agenda?
A transcript of the off-the-cuff talk Keen recently gave at the Fabian Forum. See also comments posted.
The unfolding global economic debacle has led many governments to reach into their policy toolkits for fiscal stimulus measures. In doing so, they have revived fiscal policy…which was so much in vogue until the early 1970s that Richard Nixon famously declared ‘We are all Keynesians now.’ Even so, the revival of activist fiscal policy ought to be highly controversial because the 1970s and 1980s saw a new consensus emerge that it was ineffective or even damaging.
A critique from Australia of economists and government stimulus packages.
A research report on Gen X Aussies and their views on superannuation.
There’s a storm coming but Generation Y’s “best minds” can’t even open an umbrella, writes Bob Dumpling. The global meltdown has seen a wave of speculation about the plight of Gen Y. How will the fun-loving, not-a-care-in-the-world, “generation me” deal with high unemployment and somewhat less credit?… The reality of the current economic crisis for the… Gen Y is that the current economic crisis is going to be hard. They will have to adapt and change like a lot of other people.
As the leaders of the G20 group of countries sat down to discuss their response to the worldís economic woes, Longstaff asked that they bear in mind that the root cause of the problem is not a failure of regulation but of ethics.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page18858 (full transcript)
Kevin Rudd has dramatically escalated his ideological assault on unfettered free markets, warning that they have become ‘worshipped as a god’ with calamitous results for workers and the developing world. The Prime Minister last night said that ‘unrestrained pursuit of self-interest’ had sparked the global recession and smashed public trust in financial markets…
This talk by Warwick McKibbin at the Lowy Institute (AUS) explores how the global financial crisis can be understood as a series of unexpected shocks. He outlines what these shocks were, what were the resulting flow-on effects from each, and how conventional economic models explain the global adjustment and the implications of alternative policy responses.