Ed Dowding

Category: Money

Finance, trade, economics, and what we think of as money.

China suggests a new currency

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China’s central bank, has suggested creating a “super-sovereign reserve currency” to replace the dollar over the long run. […] These are the first big proposals for international monetary reform from China or indeed any emerging market economy and deserve to be taken seriously for that reason alone. Several other Asian countries, ...

10 tips to bring economic life closer to our biological environment

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a comment piece in the FT outlining 10 principles that might bring ‘economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage. A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks and companies are born and die every day without making the news.’ 1. What is fragile ...

Links for the week

Where you consume water in your daily life http://www.good.is/post/transparency-how-much-water-do-you-use/ Training the young to fix our problems http://www.yesworld.org/ and http://www.csl.org.au/ The gift economy in Mali http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ELNsQdSMOc Twitter users skew towards the older crowd http://www.inquisitr.com/21484/twitter-userbase-skews-toward-older-crowd-data-suggests/ (I’m beginning to think I might have to add yet another Twitter post qualifying previous posts.) Facebook unlikely to release currency http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2009/04/07/facebook-unlikely-to-launch-universal-virtual-currency-anytime-soon/ ...

How we measure progress and development

Economics has a great deal to answer for. A short while ago some people tried to work out what should be done with the economy. They wanted to formalise it and build in growth and progress as a goal. All very noble and worthwhile, and really very effective when you look at where we are ...

Market failures: bridges vs tunnels

There are some areas of major importance to human beings: air & water, food, security, shelter, energy, ethics, and economy. In all except shelter, and that one is debatable, there are huge market failures. The economic models that we use do not satisfactorily regulate supply and demand for these good. Take a moment to think ...

So much for the green economy…

As the Governmner cancels solar panel grants: Renewable energy companies have accused the government of undermining its own “green” industrial strategy by ending subsidies for solar energy under the low carbon buildings programme (LCBP). The Renewable Energy Association (REA) said it was “astonishing” and worrying that solar grants had been frozen since 26 February although ...

What cost the bailouts?

With reference to this conversation on facebook, wherein Crispin was suggesting that 5,000 days of lost workforce productivity (on account of the G20 demonstrations) could have been better spent, I was compelled to work out the following. —- Well if it’s maths that worries you… Total spend on bailout so far: £1,200,000,000,000 (1.2 trillion) But ...

How the mighty are fallen

"Recession is a test of character" — Gordon Brown

I beg your pardon? What? “Recession is a test of character” I’m sorry WHAT? “Recession is a test of character” Jesus H. Christ, you prick. You get us into this mess by deliberately sinking inflation in house prices to keep the recorded levels low, in order to generate an artificial feeling of economic prosperity; you ...

It's all fucking fucked

As the chaps at Global Dashboard point out, this graph really does not require much comment. It sure as hell requires an explanation though. It’s really enough to make me cry and be thoroughly depressed. The positive side is that we have proved we can get it together to act fast and spend lots of ...

Recession

I’ve said for a while now that a lot of graphs have been going exponential for the last 50 years, and we ignore these slow trends at our peril. http://jenslapinski.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/being-a-tech-start-up-in-2009/ is a dramatically well illustrated example of how messy things have become.

Economic Reform

Another good article from the NEF (www.neweconomics.org), this time on practical, simple, realistic steps we can take towards economic reform to create a fairer, more stable system. It breaks down into issues of scale, distance, stability, diversity, value, and participation. Amongst the nice ideas in here is a sliding scale of regulation so “the smallest ...

The Ancient Greek economy

On the other hand, ancient Greek values held in low esteem economic activities that were not subordinated to the traditional activities of managing the family farm and obtaining goods for necessary consumption. So-called banausic work, which included manufacturing, business, and trade (which were not tied to the land and the family farm), and what we ...