Robert Skidelsky Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-261
Author(s):  
Hugh Rockoff
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
London School ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
London School Of Economics

Robert Skidelsky, a historian whose fame for his monumental biography of John Maynard Keynes is well deserved, here provides us with a brilliant, well-informed history of macroeconomics stretching from the “British recoinage debates” of the 1690s to today. Money and Government was prompted by the 2008 financial crisis. It is an attempt, Skidelsky tells us, to answer the question that Queen Elizabeth II posed to a group of economists at the London School of Economics in October 2008: “Why did no one see it coming?” Not surprisingly, to skip to the bottom line, Skidelsky believes that macroeconomics reached its apogee with Keynes and that it has been more or less downhill from there. The 2008 financial crisis could have been predicted, and ameliorated after it occurred if not prevented, if macroeconomists had remained loyal to Keynes.

scholarly journals Reimagining unfinished architectures: ruin perspectives between art and heritage

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-244
Author(s):  
Pablo Arboleda
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Architectural Style ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Complex Issue ◽  
The Past ◽  
Single Solution ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

For the past five decades, hundreds of unfinished public works have been erected in Italy as the result of inconsistent planning and the presence of corruption and organised crime. A third of these constructions are located in Sicily alone, and so, in 2007, a group of artists labelled this phenomenon an architectural style: ‘ Incompiuto Siciliano’. Through this creative approach, the artists’ objective is to put incompletion back on the agenda by viewing it from a heritage perspective. This article reviews the different approaches that the artists have envisaged to handle unfinished public works; whether to finish them, demolish them, leave them as they are or opt for an ‘active’ arrested decay. The critical implications of these strategies are analysed in order to, ultimately, conclude that incompletion is such a vast and complex issue that it will surely have more than one single solution; but rather a combination of these four. This is important because it opens up a debate on the broad spectrum of possibilities to tackle incompletion – establishing this as one of the key contemporary urban themes not only in Italy but also in those countries affected by unfinished geographies after the 2008 financial crisis.

Solidarity as Social Reconstruction

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 708-728
Author(s):  
Olivier Voirol
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Reconstruction ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Reason ◽  
Market Approach ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

Abstract The neoliberal agenda is based on the rejection of social objectivism and social reason, in favor of individual preferences and subjective values. Reforms carried out under this agenda destroy institutions and practices of solidarity. While the 2008 financial crisis has confronted neoliberalism with a legitimation crisis, an alternative agenda has yet to emerge. In the past decades, this “void” gave birth to the implementation of “regressive communities”. Instead of challenging the neoliberal agenda these communities function as mere authoritarian extensions. By rejecting social issues and defending cultural values they display contempt for social objectivity and reason. A path beyond the neoliberal “all market” approach as well as the subsequent triggerering of “regressive communities” is nowadays sought by social reconstruction through solidarity.

Old Utopias, New Tax Havens

2019 ◽  
pp. 85-98
Author(s):  
Stefan Eich
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Tax Havens ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Form ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

Cryptocurrencies are frequently framed as future-oriented, technological innovations that decentralize money, thereby liberating it from centralized governance and the political tentacles of the state. This is misleading on several counts. First, electronic currencies cannot leave the politics of money behind even where they aim to disavow it. Instead, we can understand their impact as a political attempt to depoliticize money. Second, the dramatic price swings of cryptocurrencies challenge their self-fashioning as a new form of money and reveal them instead as speculative assets and securities in need of regulation. While the preferential tax and regulatory treatment of cryptocurrencies hinges on their nominal currency status, it is ironically precisely their success as speculative assets that has undermined these claims. Finally, far from heralding a radical break with the past, electronic currencies serve as a reminder of the unresolved global politics of money since the 1970s. To support these three interrelated theses this chapter places the rise of cryptocurrencies in the historical context of the international politics of money between the end of the Bretton Woods system and the response to the 2008 Financial Crisis.

scholarly journals Intergenerational Homeownership and Mortgage Distress

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Nicholas Fritsch ◽  
Rawley Z. Heimer
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Attitudes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

Rates of US homeownership have declined in the past two decades, and the decline has been especially pronounced for young adults. Motivated by recent research that explores the ways in which personal experiences can affect financial attitudes and beliefs, we explore whether the negative homeownership experiences of parents during the 2008 financial crisis could have caused their children to view homeownership less favorably. We find that parental mortgage distress negatively correlates with the probability that a child will purchase a home, and we explore various channels through which this link may occur.

Coda

2020 ◽  
pp. 265-266
Author(s):  
Peter H. Christensen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
New York Times ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
Economic Health ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

This chapter mentions Nicolai Ouroussoff, former architecture critic for the New York Times, who published an editorial entitled “Saving Buffalo's Untold Beauty” at the peak of the 2008 financial crisis. It discusses how Ouroussoff depicted Buffalo as a place replete with architectural treasures and a history of experimentation that was in outsize proportion to its population, economic health, and the resources of its preservationists. It also examines Ouroussoff's article delighted many local officials and cemented some of the very clichés that have trapped Buffalo in a fugue of “ruin porn.” The chapter points out how Buffalo ardently remains a dynamic city that neither begs pity nor romance from its inhabitants. It highlights Buffalo's traits of being quotidian, emblematic, and archetypal as part of a larger effort to move beyond facile depictions of Buffalo and show how its lessons are transposable by being allegorical.

scholarly journals Emptiness and its futures

Focaal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (80) ◽  
pp. 16-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dace Dzenovska
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Stable Employment

In the past 25 years, rural Latvia has become notably emptier. This emptying is the result of post-Soviet deindustrialization and large-scale outmigration, enabled by EU accession and exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis. It is accompanied by lack of political protest, leading many to conclude that migration hinders political mobilization. Such conclusions derive from viewing leaving and staying as actions in relation to the state. Instead, leaving and staying should be viewed in relation to transnational forms of power. The people leaving the deindustrialized Latvian countryside to work in the English countryside are seeking futures past, namely, futures of stable employment and incremental prosperity. Those who stay in the emptying Latvian countryside create the future as a little bit more of the present.

Financial Distress among the Elderly

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenli Li ◽  
Michelle J. White
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial Distress ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

Both the proportion of bankruptcy filings by the elderly and the proportion of foreclosure starts that affect the elderly have increased dramatically over the past 20 years, suggesting an increase in financial distress of the elderly relative to younger age groups. This chapter uses new data to examine whether these trends can be explained by either the 2005 bankruptcy reform or the 2008 financial crisis. Our results show that while these events made both the elderly and younger age groups worse off, they do explain the increase in relative financial distress of the elderly.

Mathematics without Apologies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harris
Keyword(s):  
Number Theory ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Dinner Party ◽  
Mathematical Life ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Guided Tour

What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers, this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources. Drawing on the author's personal experiences as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, the book reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, the book touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party? The book takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.

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