Ask me anything (from last week)
A thank you for my paying subscribers
Last week I sent out my first Ask Me Anything post, giving paid subscribers an opportunity to ask me questions directly. As I said I might, I’m now making the discussion available to everyone.
The posts I write on this Substack will always be free for everyone to read. But I feel I should give some reward to my paying subscribers. So, I’m going to start an “Ask me anything” post. Paid subscribers can ask questions in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
If the results are interesting enough, I will share them with all my readers once the discussion is finished.
I’ll also think about an open thread, similar to the Monday Message Board on my longrunning (but now largely quiescent) blog. Although it’s hard to check such claims, I believe I was one of the first to introduce such a feature, soon after blog commenting became feasible.
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Thanks for the opportunity, Prof John.
Jared Diamond in "Collapse" wrote that civilisations collapse for various reasons, but throughout history, two preconditions recur time and again and make societal collapse more or less inevitable. One is exceeding the sustainable carrying capacity of the natural environment; the other being the propensity of the wealthy elite to advance their own economic interests and ignore the suffering of the masses. The masses don't tolerate inequality and injustice indefinitely, eventually there is an uprising of some kind.
Focusing on the second of those criteria, it seems to me that we are now on a trajectory of collapse, with the USA being at the forefront, with strong parallels to 1930s Germany. Pot-stirring by Russia or China through trolling social media are the modern equivalent of the barbarians who defeated Rome, but Rome was crumbling from the inside. Given the 40 years of entrenchment of neoliberal policy, feeding rising inequality and economic struggle, it is difficult to see a happy ending.
Your views on the above please?
Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I have two.
First, a year or more ago, I saw that you were under contract to write a book about economics after COVID, but now the book is no longer forthcoming. Zombie Economics and Economics in Two Lessons are both on my bookshelf, and I enjoyed them a lot. Any plans to restart the post-COVID economics book?
My second question is how your views on financial regulation have changed, or not, in light of the 2007/08 financial crisis and the growth of non-bank financial intermediaries since then. I read your 2006 paper with Stephen Bell on financial liberalization and policy responses with interest and am curious about what you think now.