The global minotaur : America, Europe and the future of the global economy / Yanis Varoufakis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Varoufakis, Yanis.

Series:

Economic Controversies

Economic controversies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic history--1945-.

Economic history.

International finance--History--20th century.

International finance.

International finance--History--21st century.

Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009.

United States--Foreign economic relations.

United States.

United States--Economic policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (298 p.)

Edition:

2nd ed.

Place of Publication:

London : Zed Books, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Financialization, greed, ineffectively regulated banks - all have been blamed for the global economic crisis. In reality, though, these were mere subplots in a much grander, almost mythological, drama. Remarkable and provocative, The Global Minotaur gives an essential account of the socio-economic events that have shaped the world as we now know it, and the options available for reintroducing a modicum of reason in our irrational global economic order.

Contents:

Economic Controversies; About the author; Title page; Copyright page; Contents; Abbreviations; Preface to the new edition; Acknowledgements; 1 Introduction; The 2008 moment; Six explanations for why it happened; The parallax challenge; The Global Minotaur: a first glimpse; Box 1.1 The Cretan Minotaur; 2 Laboratories of the future; Our two great leaps forward; Condorcet's secret in the Age of Capital; The paradox of success and redemptive crises; Raising the stakes: crashes, crises and the role of finance; The Crash of 1929; Box 2.1 Pre-1929 crises

Figure 2.1 US national income (GDP in billions)Midas loses his touch: the collapse of the Gold Standard; The two gremlins: the labour and money markets; Box 2.2 When reason defers to expectation; The ghost in the machine; Epilogue: incubation of the Global Plan; 3 The Global Plan; The remarkable opportunity; Bretton Woods; The lost opportunity; Box 3.1 Surplus recycling mechanisms: capitalism's sine qua non; The rise of the fallen; Box 3.2 The Global Plan's architects; The Marshall Plan to dollarize Europe and rehabilitate Germany; The European Union and the Japanese miracle

The Global Plan's geopolitical ideologyAmerican domestic policies during the Global Plan; Conclusion: capitalism's Golden Age; Figure 3.1 Real GDP per capita during the period of the Global Plan; Table 3.1: Percentage change in a country's share of world GDP; 4 The Global Minotaur; The Global Plan's Achilles heel; The Global Plan unravels; Interregnum: the 1970s oil crises, stagflation and the rise of interest rates; The Global Minotaur; The Minotaur's four charismas; Figure 4.1 Stagnating wages, booming productivity; Table 4.1 Average annual rate of change in labour unit costs

Figure 4.2 Index of average real US profit ratesA most peculiar global surplus recycling mechanism; Conclusion: the Global Minotaur's glittering triumph; Figure 4.3T he Global Minotaur in two diagrams; Figure 4.4 Effects of the Global Minotaur on the relative position of the United States; 5 The beast's handmaidens; Minotaur envy; Box 5.1 Who were the handmaidens?; Takeover fever: Wall Street creates metaphysical values; Box 5.2 Wishful thinking - how mergers and acquisitions created fictitious value; Hedging and leverage; An ideology of cheapness for the Age of Excess: the Walmart effect

Box 5.3 Walmart: a corporation after the Minotaur's heartTainted houses, toxic cash: Wall Street generates its own private money; Figure 5.1 Correlation between median house price inflation and the growth in consumer spending, 2002-07; Toxic theory, Part A: trickle-down politics, supply-side economics; Box 5.4 The trickle-up effect; Toxic theory, Part B: economic models and assorted delusions; Epilogue: the writing on the wall; 6 Crash; Tumbling piles; Chronicle of a Crash foretold: Credit Crunch, bail-outs and the socialization of nearly everything; Box 6.1 Credit default swaps (CDS)

The low-down

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-78032-645-9

1-299-14793-3

OCLC:

828792977