What We Are Reading
Action Aid Sweet Nothing
Bretton Woods Project World Bank Increases Fossil Fuels Lending
Bretton Woods Project World Bank on Jobs: A Departure?
Robert Pollin Great News: Obama Re-Commits to Clean Energy; Terrible News: Obama Recommits to Dirty Energy
Sanjay Reddy Randomize This: On Poor Economics
What We’re Writing
Martin Wolfson and Gerald Epstein Handbook of the Political Economy of the Financial Crisis
Matias Vernengo, How Unwieldy is Your Beauracracy
Jeff Madrick, The Fall and Rise of Occupy Wall Street
Jayati Ghosh, The Changing Face of Urban Poverty
re ‘The Fall & Rise of Occupy Wall Street’:
I have reason to think the general population may have a reliable feel for what is broadly sound economically, and what isn’t.
Assume for a moment that it’s true, and our economic masters are making decisions either off the mark or actively counterproductive.
I would expect a protest of the following nature -
> spontaneous and of broadest extent (no groups over-represented);
> with no evident leadership;
> having a poorly-articulated complaint (expressing a feeling rather then a reason);
> apolitical;
> mostly peaceful;
> of great persistence despite discouragement;
> generally misunderstood by commentators.
If (like me) you see something rather like this in OWS, the main squares of several capitals, and beyond the security cordons round G7 & G8 meetings, you can expect that
> it will continue until economic policy changes;
> where it’s been driven out, it will be back;
> attempts to ‘reason’ with it will fail;
rather like the driver of the ‘Arab Spring’.
Do you care to consult your own gut-feel?
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