Friday, October 07, 2005

Indicators and Shmindicators

When I hear economic news lately, I start to think about stagflation. Apparently, I'm not the only one. Bonddad on the Dailykos has posted a diary today that quotes a lot of bankers and federal reserve folks on the issue of inflation. We are living in the mode of the monetarists, and yet, the problem seems to be coming back. For views different from those of the bankers (who always like tight credit because they get a bigger return on loans) see this marxist glossary's definition of monetarism. If you're more ambitious, check out Hugh Stretton's 1999 book, "Economics: A New Introduction" from Pluto Press, which was reviewed by Doug Dowd (who also has a nice book on economic theory) in Monthly Review.
(I know, it's terrible of me to keep linking to amazon. Honestly, I love the way they create lists and I love reading the readers' reviews... and then I try to buy the books elsewhere if at all possible. The link to MR, which I got to through googling stagflation and Marxist, took me to Stretton, which took me to Amazon, which took me to this other book "Economics as Religion" which I feel now that I MUST read.)
Meanwhile, I'm listening to Robert Fisk read from "Pity The Nation." He should do all his books on tape, because he's a great live reader. It's WBAI's fall membership drive. Did you contribute yet?

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