The capture of money
Money is a near-universal social institution. It evolved to support human cooperation and to control and coordinate the life of humankind. Like other core institutions, such as marriage and language,...
View ArticleNo to Vollgeld, Yes to Ikon!
There was a basic flaw in the Vollgeld “sovereign money” proposal rejected by the Swiss in a referendum last Sunday. An arrangement that gives the state or its agencies exclusive power to create money,...
View ArticleThe necessary illusionists
Funny thing about money. It is supposed to be a bedrock of stability but it feeds on illusions. So much monetary policy relies on trickery. The elite know things that the unwashed masses do not. Such...
View Article10-Year retrospective: Lesson 6
6. Expect more bad bankers and bad banks How has the state punished the financial industry for its crimes, corruption and anti-social behaviour? By showering it with subsidies, privileges, perks and...
View Article10-year retrospective: Lessons 7, 8, 9
7. Neglect of international causes This is the most fatal flaw, as it is the one least understood by economists, governments or bankers. My interpretation of the crisis emphasises its international...
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How Ideas about Money Shaped the Modern World
Hi there everybody Sorry to have been absent for so long. Actually I haven’t been bone idle. At least, not all the time, though I did manage to stow away on a couple of long cruises. But even then,...
View ArticleMy Volcker anecdotes
Of all my memories of Paul Volcker – I first met him in the early 1970s when we was UnderSecretary for Monetary Affairs at the US Treasury and I was editing The Banker – four are particularly...
View ArticleReview of Hostile Money
A review by Robert Pringle “The purposes of money are constant, the way it operates varies hugely” says Paul Wilson at the outset – and few authors have illustrated this as interestingly as he does....
View ArticleThe New Power of Money
The Power of Money; How Ideas about Money Shaped the Modern World Forrest Capie, Professor Emeritus of Economic History, Cass Business School and author of the modern History of the Bank of England...
View ArticleWhy Bitcoin is Money-in-waiting
Bitcoin shows that a would-be form of money can still arise through private initiative (as argued more fully in my book, The Power of Money). Before the 2008 financial crisis, few economists would...
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