At 04:13 PM 6/22/99 -0400, you wrote: >I would greatly appreciate it if someone could spend a few paragraphs to get >me on the way to understanding what the current ruling class economic >ideology is these days. I would hazard that Monetarism & supply side >variants are relatively discredited, while on the other hand, one sees 'The >Return of Keynes' in the press every now & then (but is this anything more >than Japan's desperation and the idle hope of a few collaborationist labour >leaders). Is there a governing theory or just micro-economics and finance >regulation? > I'd say that the main ruling-class economic ideology is still free market uber alles. However, there's been a little bit of retreat, allowing for such things as capital controls (as in Chile or Malaysia). Paul Krugman, one of the more innovative of establishmentarian economic pundits, sees a return to Depression economics, but favors monetary policy. I'm pretty sure he used to have a copy of his FOREIGN RELATIONS (or is it FOREIGN AFFAIRS?) article on this on his web site, but now all I can find is links that help you buy his book from Amazon.com on it. If I remember the article's point it was that Japan and East Asia were facing something like a Keynesian liquidity trap. Needed, he says, is rapid increases in the money supply, which would increase inflation and inflationary expectations, and thus lower real interest rates, boosting spending and pulling the iron out of the fire. I was hoping that since he got all his ideas from me when we were roommates in college, he'd send me a free copy... ;-) Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
