Activity

[...] The gold standard was underpinned by the idea of depoliticizing money by linking its quantity to the amount of gold--a metal that politicians could not conjure up from thin air since it was provided exogenously by nature. Today the same fantasy of apolitical money can be foudn not just in the…

Financialization, as we now call this process, was the critical by-product of maintaining and enhancing US dominance on the back of increasing trade imbalances and in the interest of financing America's ever-expanding twin deficits.

[...] The more US deficits grew, the greater the global Minotaur's appetite for Europe and Asia's capital. Its truly global significance was due to its role in recycling national circuits (profits, savings, surplus money) through the international circuits that Wall Street had established. It kept …

[...] unlike in the late 1960s, German inflation was less of at threat with Volcker on the loose. The American vacuum cleaner, powered by Volcker's high interest rates, could now be counted upon to suck the fresh Deutsche Marks in, preventing them from making their way immediately from France back …