The Monetary Consequences of Vladimir Putin

This Blog Post describes the U.S. federal reserve money system from the perspective of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Therefore it presents a theory of money creation, gives simple examples how this influences the economy and the historical process of why the monetary system of the US has developed this way.

"Marx Reloaded" is a cultural documentary that examines the relevance of German socialist and philosopher Karl Marx's ideas for understanding the global economic and financial crisis of 2008—09. The crisis triggered the deepest global recession in 70 years and prompted the US government to spend more than 1 trillion dollars …

This paper presents an overview of different models which explain financial crises, with the aim of understanding economic developments during and possibly after the Great Recession. In the first part approaches based on efficient markets and rational expectations hypotheses are analyzed, which however do not give any explanation for the occurrence of financial crises and thus cannot suggest any remedies for the present situation. A broad range of theoretical approaches analyzing financial crises from a medium term perspective is then discussed. Within this group we focused on the insights of Marx, Schumpeter, Wicksell, Hayek, Fisher, Keynes, Minsky, and Kindleberger. Subsequently the contributions of the Regulation School, the approach of Social Structures of Accumulation and Post-Keynesian approach, which focus on long-term developments and regime shifts in capitalist development, are presented. International approaches to finance and financial crises are integrated into the analyses. We address the issue of relevance of all these theories for the present crisis and draw some policy implications. The paper has the aim to find out to which extent the different approaches are able to explain the Great Recession, what visions they develop about future development of capitalism and to which extent these different approaches can be synthesized.

What data is used in the economic models of the IPCC? How problematic is it, that tipping points are often ignored? A very interesting presentation by Steve Keen during the OECD Conference "Averting Systemic Collapse".

Die derzeit geltenden rechtlichen Begrenzungen von Staatsverschuldung basieren auf Mythen, die nicht ökonomisch fundiert sind. Sinnvoller wäre es, die Schuldenaufnahme so zu gestalten, dass sie die ökonomischen, sozialen und ökologischen Grenzen respektiert. Ein Beitrag von Carolina Ortega Guttack, Carl Mühlbach und Tung Doan.

Anne-Kathrin Krug gibt eine Einführung in die marxistische Analyse der kapitalistischen Produktion und erläutert dabei Begriffe wie Arbeit, Ware oder Wert. Anschließend erläutert sie Marx Krisenzyklustheorie. Dabei stellt sie den Fall der Profitrate als mögliche Erklärung von Krisen dar, zeigt aber auch, dass es gegenläufige Tendenzen gibt. Weiter Themen des Vortrages sind Unterkonsumption und Möglichkeiten von Krisen (Produktions-, Handelskrisen und Geldkrisen).