Economic principles, economic terminology, trade war, World Bank, Donald Trump, John Meynard Keynes, macroeconomics, microeconomics, capitalism, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Tomas Piketty, consumption, monetary policies, financial markets, cryptocurrencies
Economics is currently in a phase of uncertainty: economics is not an exact science. There is a rising trade war between the US and mainly but not only China. The US also has trade disagreements with the EU and its partners in NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association: Canada and Mexico). It's important for the future because the international economic system as we know it today was largely created by the US. The US led the establishment of the World Bank, the IMF and the GATT (later the WTO) during the post-war period. Pax Americana (American peace). The US led the creation of the "rules-based" international order. Now with the Trump administration it is challenging this architecture. And this could have significant consequences, for China especially but also for other major exporters to the US (Trump has been very critical of Germany).
[...] During the 1990s, Europe was seeking to construct the single market in electricity supplies - as part of the single market program. As a result, policy aimed at connecting national electricity grids and systems, in order to encourage trade in electricity between European countries. In the mid-2000s, in contrast, political and public awareness of global warming became very manifest. At the same time, oil prices were rising quite strongly, and certain commentators were claiming that the world was experiencing "peak oil". [...]
[...] Interest rates - short term and long term - were very low. Short term rates were low because inflation was low, and so the central bank kept interest rates low. Long term interest rates were low, because of the global savings glut : China and other exporting countries were happy to lend money to the US, to its government, companies and households. But exporting capital to the US, these countries helped keep US long term rates low, encouraging house-buying and consumption (and their imports). [...]
[...] Of course, it is not easy to know what the real price of share truly is. And stock markets can also behave very irrationally : they experience booms and busts. Paradoxically, the pure competition model also actually suggests that firms are not very well managed and are not really innovative. If a single firm's output rises, its average cost will rise. In other word, its management is not able to achieve any economies of scale. Nor will the firm be able to innovate and improve it products and production process. [...]
[...] Macroeconomics Keynes is usually considered as the father of macroeconomics. It is important to remember that he was a political Liberal, in the British sense. He believed in political and economic freedom. He was a pure product of an elite education (his father was an economist). Alfred Marshall was a leading proponent of the marginalist revolution. When Keynes entered the civil service (fonction publique), his mark in the economics exams was not very good, and he said, I obviously knew more than the examiners . [...]
[...] This is not only a sexist view of the world, but it is also unscientific. As science which ignores fundamental human behavior is not very scientific. Of course, Marçal is not the first person to argue that individualist economic man does not really exist. Marx makes a very clear and strong critique of the myth of Robinson Crusoe coming together and writing the social contract. In the introduction of the Grundrisse, he clearly challenges the view of men as hunters and gatherers or simple producers. He states that we exist in a society. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
