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70 economists petition for an immediate Portuguese debt restructure
, 20/03/2014
While Frankfurt-Berlin-Brussels are in full spin mode on Portugal, pretending that the fiscal consolidation program was successful and the country is about to exit its bailout (a little like exiting the frying pan to land in the fire itself), the bitter reality is that Portugal’s public debt is out of control, its labour market in […]
Why has the Eurozone Bond Market stabilised?
, 18/03/2014
In June 2012, at a time when central banks had pushed interest rates to almost zero, Italy had to borrow at 8% to re-finance its gargantuan $3 trillion debt. Spain was in even direr straits. With national income falling by 2% annually, these interest rates meant that the national debt mountain was rising by 10% […]
Is this an alien landing site, ancient monument, or something else?
, 15/03/2014
Readers of this blog are familiar with Danae Stratou‘s photographic works (her photos adorn the header above). In this post I copy a story from CNN.COM about Desert Breath: one the largest and (in my eyes) most significant land art projects on the planet’s face. It is the creation of Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou and […]
Tony Benn – in memoriam
, 14/03/2014
Tony Benn’s passing saddened and concentrated my mind. His was the voice that resonated with (a much younger version of) me most powerfully immediately after I moved to England in 1978. I was attracted instantly to the combination of: his commitment to the progressive history and potential of British Parliamentarianism, his passionate anti-imperialist pacifism, his relentless […]
On Bitcoin’s potential: Q&A on what Bitcoin can and cannot offer a troubled world
, 13/03/2014
Following my debate with Andreas Antonopoulos on ABC Late Night Live, graduate students of mine (at the University of Texas) were kind enough to piece together a related Q&A reflecting my views on BTC. Read on…
Debating Bitcoin on ABC Late Night Live, with Phillip Adams and Andreas Antonopoulos
, 13/03/2014
In this lively debate, on ABC Radio National’s excellent Late Night Live (with Phillip Adams in the chair), we discuss what makes Bitcoin a fascinating technology, whether it is a genuine currency, its parallels with the Gold Standard and what I have called previously the dangerous fantasy of apolitical money.
Five lessons from the Greek PSI
, 12/03/2014
Jorge Rodrigues, of Portuguese daily Expresso, wrote to me with a question: “What lessons can countries like Portugal learn from the Greek PSI of 2012, now that their post-bailout debts have also become unsustainable?” My answers were published in Expresso on 17th March 2014. My original answers in English follow:
Of Masks and Shadows: The curious case of actors arrested on stage in Athens’ theater of the absurd
, 11/03/2014
The curious tale of two actors’s arrest on the stage of a derelict, occupied, Athenian theatre offers a window into life in Athens in the shadow of its wholesale economic collapse. This is our sixth article for the Witte de With Review (an initiative of Rotterdam-based Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art of which we, vitalspace.org and I, are party to, […]
Open Letter to Mr Alex Salmond
, 10/03/2014
Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (Click here for a pdf version of this open letter and here for a longer article, on which this letter is based, entitled ‘If Scotland, why not Greece?’) Dear Mr Salmond,
If Scotland, why not Greece?
, 10/03/2014
Why an independent Scotland should get out of sterling, but Greece should not volunteer to exit the Eurozone Scotland should state its intention to decouple from sterling, once independent, rather than petitioning for a continuation of its subservient role in an asymmetrical sterling union. Or so I argued in the Scottish Times in ‘Scotland Must […]
On the Ukraine: Three awkward questions for Western liberals and a comment on the EU’s role
, 09/03/2014
Let us accept (as I do) the principle that national minorities have the right to self-determination within lopsided multi-ethnic states; e.g. Croats and Kosovars seceding from Yugoslavia, Scots from the UK, Georgians from the Soviet Union etc.
Interviewed by L’Express
, 07/03/2014
The Express published an interview I gave to Benjamin Masse-Stamberger a week ago. interview The Lasted one hour, over Skype, and Its Version of published nicely captures what Benjamin and I Discussed. The gist of it Will not surprise regular readers: The Greek 'bailout' was a sinister exercise in banking Transferring Losses from the books [...]James K. Galbraith on Inequality and the Eurozone (audio)
, 05/03/2014
at the Progressive Economic Conference, Brussels 2nd March 2014
What you should know about Greece’s present state of affairs – an update
, 01/03/2014
“It takes a passionate disregard for the truth to suggest that Greece is recovering.” That was my verdict last December upon being asked to comment on Greece’s rumoured recovery. Almost three months later, it is time for an update. The gist of today’s update is depressingly simple: Still, no sign of Greek-covery whatsoever. Indeed, every […]
177 years of Political Economy at the University of Athens: a panorama of a little known tradition
, 28/02/2014
My dear friend and colleague Nicholas Theocarakis has just pieced together a document outlining the past and present of Political Economy (teaching and research) as practised at the University of Athens (click here)…
Austerity as a destabilising assault on the New Deal institutions: A joint presentation by J.K. Galbraith & Y. Varoufakis (video)
, 27/02/2014
A debate involving James K. Galbraith, Yanis Varoufakis and Jeff Sommers (in the role of moderator) took place on 24th February at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in the context of the George Kennan Distinguished Lecture Series. An amateurish recording is available here. For ease of ‘navigation’, a list of topics (with their location on […]
Don't Try This at Home! Greek Austerity
, 26/02/2014
by JEFFREY SOMMERS and YANIS VAROUFAKIS This is an op-ed published in initially in the Wisconsin-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, on 22nd February 2014, and then in CounterPunch, on 26th February 2014. You can read the text here by clicking…
Can the Internet democratise capitalism?
, 21/02/2014
Technological fixes to time-honoured problems are all the rage these days. Bitcoin is meant to fix money, social media are seen as an antidote to Rupert Murdoch and assorted tyrants, networked robots are to help countries like Japan deal with demographic declines etc. Perhaps the largest claim is that the Internet has helped (or is […]
The Folly of Biblical Economics: Lessons from Europe that Americans must heed
, 18/02/2014
Moralizing and generalization have always been terrible foundations for public policy.
BITCOIN: A flawed currency blueprint with a potentially useful application for the Eurozone
, 15/02/2014
The responses of many to my post on Bitcoin reveal a powerful tendency to underestimate the ill-effects of deflation on a social economy. This tendency to underestimate deflation’s deleterious impact matters beyond debates on Bitcoin per se. For example, in Europe the incapacity of the European Central Bank (ECB) to act in the face of […]
Europe's Economy: the eurozone, Greece, the Scottish question, France and Italy – on RT tv
, 14/02/2014
To watch my interview jump to 13′
The US-Mexican Border Fence 20 years after NAFTA – Danae Stratou’s installation
, 12/02/2014
On 6th and 7th February 2014, the LBJ School of Public Affairs (University of Texas at Austin) organised a conference on the 20 years since the signing of the North America Free Trade Agreement Treaty, entitled NAFTA+20: Intended and Unintended Consequences. The organisers commissioned Danae Stratou to produce a photographic installation in the entrance of the […]
Peter Bofinger’s Euro-bundles are a Step Backwards – to the EFSF’s toxic bonds. But they do point to a real solution
, 10/02/2014
by James Galbraith, Stuart Holland and Yanis Varoufakis (*) Peter Bofinger’s proposal for Euro-bundles (see here for an introduction) serves the noble purpose of rekindling the debate on the Eurozone’s fiscal and monetary incoherence. The idea behind Euro-bundles is to issue a common bond without joint liability that the ECB can then purchase in the […]
Peter Bofinger’s Euro-bundles: What are they? A primer plus pertinent queries by George Krimpas
, 08/02/2014
His proposal for a Eurobond, as an instrument of fiscally consolidating the Eurozone, was soundly rejected by the German Chancellor. Now, with an ECB paralysed in the face of a major deflationary onslaught, Professor Peter Bofinger comes up with a variant of the rejected Eurobond, which he calls ‘Euro-bundles’, only this time as an instrument […]