Tag Archives: Federal Reserve
Stop activist monetary policies now
Central banks confront the kind of scenario outlined in The Money Trap. In the book, I anticipated a world of generalised deflation, with zero nominal rates on risk-free assets. At the time of publication, in 2012, this seemed unlikely, to say the least. But it is materialising. The challenge now is to seize 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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William White: Why we need to debate exchange rates
William White, formerly head of monetary and economic affairs at the Bank for International Settlements and now chair of a key OECD committee, is one of the few mainstream economists willing and eager to keep the debate about exchange rates systems alive. Most of them want to bury it. In a paper published by the…
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Yellen – hawk, dove or owl?
Heard on the Street: “With the economy picking up, Yellen may taper faster than you think. She may turn out to be a hawk in dove’s clothing”. “No way. Janet’s a dove – a dove dressed in dove’s clothing”. “You are both mistaken. She is an owl. But, as Hegel said, the owls…
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How vulnerable is the dollar?
There is no point dreaming about a new monetary order when the dollar remains dominant and is here to stay. At least, for all practical purposes. That is the bottom line of most commentaries on proposals to reform the international monetary system, such as that advanced in The Money Trap. Indeed, the…
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The governor stakes revisited
I have mentioned the familiar names – Tucker, Vickers, Turner, Burns. Of these Paul Tucker has the deepest grasp of the issues the new governor will confront, and he is getting encouragingly more radical on bank reform – like everybody else. Even Lord Turner has been asking questions about the whole viability of fractional…
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The world needs a new currency
The following article by Robert Pringle was published by The Christian Science Monitor on July 27. The financial crisis, the 2008/09 recession, the banking scandals that have followed, and today’s limping recovery are all linked. The common factor is the absence of a real international monetary and banking order. Only when such an order is restored will…
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