Reveals how the nexus of international economics and national politics pushed the European monetary union to the brink of extinction, how that disastrous development was avoided, and why the long-term viability of a common currency challenges politics as we know it. The crisis in the euro zone has a political origin in the abuses of national politics and is further reinforced by the obstinate defense of national prerogatives in politics and finance, and by lack of commitment for a shared or supranational sovereignty. The failures of the monetary union are fully explained by national opportunism in Europe.

(ECONOMIC CRISIS * MONETARY UNION * EUROPE * EURO)

The shift from an American economy based primarily on the production of goods and nonfinancial services to one characterized by financialization contributed to the recent financial crisis; it also prevents implementation of an effective regulatory regime. Unsustainable debt and excessive risk damaged the financial system. Once the markets stabilized after the economic crisis, the US enacted regulatory reforms that left the basic structures of finance unchanged. Discusses the likelihood of future crises, world systems and globalization, and the willful blind spots of mainstream finance theory. Proposes a social structure of accumulation that values economic justice over profit and establishes the parameters of an inclusive, sustainable growth model.

(ECONOMIC CRISIS * CAPITALISM RESTRUCTURED * ECONOMY RESTRUCTURED)

Troubled large financial institutions function in an environment of economic uncertainty and growing public anger. Focuses on the Japanese approach to regulating financial institutions and promoting financial stability, and the US approach in light of the Dodd-Frank legislation. Topics include managing systemwide financial crises, properly designed contingent capital instruments, and “the bankruptcy of bankruptcy.”

(ECONOMIC CRISIS * FINANCIAL STABILITY: JAPAN AND U.S.)

Contributors look at the policy roots of growing wage inequality, the secular decline in the wage share of national income in recent decades, and how these developments are intertwined with the financial crisis. The essays offer critiques of mainstream economic analysis of labour markets and present alternative analytical frameworks in an effort to understand the role that wages can play in a wage-led recovery strategy. Elements of such a strategy include re-linking wages to productivity gains and improving minimum wage floors.

(WAGE-LED POLICY * ECONOMIC RECOVERY)

Authors of The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future (MIT Press, 2005) assert the US is bankrupt, due to lax accounting. The fiscal mess is worse than that of Greece and Ireland. We have balanced our longer lives on the backs of relatively few children, eviscerated the middle class, and gone on a consumption spree with no savings. We need radical reform of our tax system, our healthcare system, and our Social Security system, and better paths to investment return than those provided by Wall Street “(mis)managers.” To rescue ourselves from a “truly catastrophic financial collapse,” the authors call for “Purple Plans” that will appeal to both Republicans and Democrats, replacing all personal and corporate income taxes with a 17.5% retail sales tax, providing a “demogrant” to ensure that the poor pay no sales tax on net, eliminating the ceiling on the FICA payroll tax, etc.

(ECONOMIC CRISIS * ECONOMY)

In 2011, the International Monetary Fund invited prominent economists and economic policymakers to consider critical issues of the post-crisis global economy and discuss directions for 1) monetary policy, 2) fiscal policy, 3) financial regulation, 4) capital account management, 5) growth strategies, 6) the international monetary system, and 7) the economic models that should underpin thinking about policy choices. The crisis and the weak recovery raise fundamental questions about macroeconomics and economic policy. Among the new realities are the swing of the pendulum toward regulation and the need for new theoretical approaches.

(WORLD ECONOMY * ECONOMIC CRISIS)

The financial meltdown of 2007 to 2009 was no accident: “it was negligent homicide.” Senior regulatory officers around the world knew (or should have known) that their policies were destabilizing the global financial system, had years to process the evidence that risks were rising, and had the authority to change their policies. The current system is not designed to make policy choices on behalf of the people; it is virtually impossible for the public and its elected officials to obtain informed and impartial assessment of financial regulation and to hold regulators accountable. To counter this systemic failure, the authors call for establishing a “Sentinel,” whose sole power would be to demand information and to evaluate it from the perspective of the public interest, not that of the financial industry or politicians.

(ECONOMIC CRISIS * FINANCIAL REGULATORS * REGULATORS QUESTIONED)

It has been widely argued that the economic crisis and the recession were caused by “greed” and the failure of mainstream economics. Instead, there was too little use of the relevant economics: as financial instruments became more complex, the simple-sum monetary aggregation formulas used by central banks became obsolete. Better financial data could have signaled the misperceptions and prevented the erroneous systemic-risk assessments. When best-practice information is not available from the central bank, increased regulation can constrain the adverse consequences of ill-informed decisions. Instead, there was deregulation. The result was a worst-case toxic mix: increasing complexity of financial instruments, inadequate and poor-quality data and declining regulation.

(ECONOMIC CRISIS)

A world without Wall Street would avoid further dehumanizing working conditions, devastated ecosystems, and submission of public policies to private interests. Calls for a revolutionary reconstruction of the international monetary system; recommends that the power of management be shared by all actors involved in production (not concentrated in the hands of the few); and takes aim at the financial games and arcane instruments by which the world economy and its citizens are held captive.

(WORLD ECONOMY * ECONOMIC CRISIS * WALL STREET DEMISE?)

On the urgent need for the US to restructure its banking and financial system, in that "These are not normal times." Soros anticipates the globalization of the crisis and its perilous second phase in Europe, and calls for concerted international action and an alternative course to that chosen by the US and European governments.

(WORLD ECONOMY * EUROPEAN ECONOMY * ECONOMIC CRISIS)