Pulse: Europe
My Volcker anecdotes: The risk and reality of hubris
Of all my memories of Paul Volcker – I first met him in the early 1970s when we was UnderSecretary for Monetary Affairs at the US Treasury and I was editing The Banker – four are particularly persistent:
How Ideas about Money Shaped the Modern World: The Power of Money
Sorry to have been absent for so long. Actually I haven’t been bone idle. At least, not all the time, though I did manage to stow away on a couple of long cruises. But even then, surfing the ocean waves in my 40,000 ton dinghy, I’ve been thinking about that funny old subject – yes, my favourite, money. From a different angle – the arts and sciences, history, literature, faith and illusion. And the result is – another book! Here is the beast:
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030258931
Report Card on the Health of the World Economy: EconVue Spotlight
Our subject is health - both the health of the global economy, and the health of its global citizens. Each is dependent on the other, especially in a world where healthcare expenditures continue to rise. According to the World Bank, they average ten percent of GDP and are nearly double that in the US.
EconVue Spotlight - The Energy Standard
EconVue Spotlight - Iran Podcast & China's New Long March
As some of my more patient friends know, I have been toiling away at a book on Chinese monetary history during the Interwar period off and on for some years. Immersing myself in the public and private words of the historic figures of the 1930’s has perhaps sensitized me to the propensity of even well-intentioned leaders to glide into chaos. That which is unthinkable inexorably becomes inevitable.
ESG sustainability is the key to BRI’s success
By SUN Xi and Herta Monica Montesino Cucos
EconVue Spotlight - Unconventional Wisdom
EconVue is about the Gettier Problem which to simplify means that just because one is justified in drawing a conclusion, doesn’t mean that it is true. For example, we certainly could be justified in thinking that racial hatred has increased in the US based on media and news reports. However, a fascinating University of Pennsylvania study says that this isn’t true, and that actually racial prejudice has been declining.
EconVue Spotlight -The Mythology of Economics
“For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth— persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” John F. Kennedy, Yale University Commencement Address June 11, 1962