Relentless Self-Promotion
I debated Bill Watson from McGill on the economic crisis and the need for a “Bretton Woods II” for a half hour or so on the Sunday Edition, on CBC Radio. I found him more than a tad complacent myself – markets will bottom out and it would be a mistake to re-regulate neo liberal global capitalism and imperil all that broadly shared prosperity it has delivered. My very closest friends assure me I held my own..
Anyways, here’s the link for anyone who missed it..
Complacency seems to be the consensus opinion in Canada among vanilla economists. I suppose history will judge whether it is complacency or prudence.
As to Watson’s basic premise: namely, that the last 15 years have been great. It is more like 8-10 and the last eight have been “good” because of the credit bubble.
You did well Andrew, you still throw a good left jab!
I recall a grad course at the IPE with Andrew Martin a visiting prof at the from Harvard CES a few years back. He went on at great lengths at how the breakdown of bretton woods played a large causality in the post war break down. Since that time exchange rate fluctuations have been giantmormous and pretty much these ends destroy or at least a wreak a large amount of havoc on the flows and means they are supposed to be providing the fluidity to.
I guess it was the CES’s point in how the EU was at least providing some small haven of stability in addressing the internal flows.
Bretton Woods II is a prerequisite in getting us on the road out of this mess.
Hey, there are some international bodies like the IMF and the World Bank and other supposedly regulating such global entities. However, given the results of the international mess the USA financial center has created, it is obvious we need more to regulate these flows.
So much work needs to be done at the international level, yet the nodes of regulation that have been operating within that space have basically been the antithesis of what was required.
Time for some rational behavior with teeth at the global level. Hopefully this calamity will expose these faults in the fissure. People across the globe especially the south deserve so much more than what we have destroyed. What a mess.
Paul
The link to the podcast didn’t work for me.