Political Economy

In my view, fiat currency is a confidence trick. The key to confidence in a fiat currency is the belief of citizens that the government issuing the currency will manage its finances in a way that promotes general “life, liberty and…

Central Falls, Rhode Island faces a plight that should be studied for its application elsewhere. It is nearly out of money. This is common news today, whether in Greece or California. The various parties are assumed to possess a means to…

According to Der Spiegel, Helmut Kohl, the father of a unified Germany and the German politician most responsible for the single currency, is very unhappy with his protégé Angela Merkel. I found this article to be consistent with what I…

Here’s what Germany’s largest daily newspaper Bild Zeitung has to say about the politics in the US around the debt ceiling.

I flagged the inevitability of deficit fatigue as early as November 2008. I am sympathetic to the view that these deficits are an attempt to prop up excess credit growth and thus retard full recovery. But I also fear the consequences of a…

If you were reading the newspaper back in May, you might have seen a small reference to a statement from Treasury Secretary Geithner to the effect that he could delay the day of reckoning until August. You probably didn't see any specifics,…

If economic crises make the short-run pains of reforms easier to bear, then crises could yield considerable long-run benefits. But this column argues that the recent global financial crisis has been wasted thus far. It suggests that it is…

Tom Ferguson gives a comprehensive view of the politicss of the European sovereign debt crisis.

If Cantor doesn’t fold his hand, it will be a political disaster for him and his party and economic disaster for the global economy.

In this interview with Real News Network, Michael Hudson argues that opportunists are using this debt crisis as a grab bag to strip the state of its assets and collect those rents for their own private wealth accumulation. He says what’s…