It is my view that the greatest weakness of economics is the habit of drawing, or encouraging politicians to draw, macroeconomic conclusions from microeconomic reasoning (“the government budget, like a household budget, must balance”). This weakness is endemic within the profession. It is caused by the deliberate neglect of macroeconomics, including shameful neglect of Keynes’s …

On tectonic plates, the economic system and the economics professionRead More »

I wrote this post on the 21st April, 2018, for PRIME. “There are a significant number of households that are in so deep that the slightest sign of rough weather could see them in over their heads,” said Jonathan Davidson, one of the FCA’s directors of supervision. Given these imbalances, the biggest danger facing the …

Why the Bank of England should not raise the Bank RateRead More »

On the 15th April, this year, I visited New Zealand at the invitation of the Institute of Directors, to address 600 CEOs at their annual meeting. This is an interview given to the journalist Rob Stock in which he asked about the possibility of another financial crisis.

At the invitation of New Zealand’s Institute of Directors, I recently visited Auckland. I was there to address the IoD’s annual gathering of 600 CEOs..and on the side did this interview with NZ’s equivalent of the BBC, for a Sunday Talk Show with popular host, Wallace Chapman. It was good to be given fully 20 …

Interview with Wallace Chapman of New Zealand RadioRead More »

Prospect magazine’s April 14, 2018 edition ignited a debate between orthodox and heterodox economists. It also included a page titled:   In my contribution I tried to explain the nature of money. Not sure I succeeded. Anyway, here it is: “Unlike the prices of bitcoins or gold, the price of money is not determined by …

From Prospect Magazine: there can never be a market in moneyRead More »

This piece appeared in the London Observer on Sunday, 4th March, 2018 By asserting the policy of “monetary radicalism and fiscal conservatism”, Osborne and his colleagues ensured that those responsible for the crisis benefited from the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme, which inflated asset prices largely owned by the more affluent. Simultaneously, the Conservative …

George Osborne, Hubris and NemesisRead More »

  This was published on the PRIME site on the 25th February, 2018. Britain is led today by deeply divided political parties. Our leaders have many policies, but no inspiring vision for Britain’s future – either within, or outside the EU. As President Roosevelt once famously said: “where there is no vision, the people perish”. …

Why the Left must lead Britain away from BrexitRead More »