Hugh Pemberton (Bristol): Macro-economic Crisis and Policy Revolution. The central thesis of Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that we live by paradigms — so have we just been through a paradigm shift in economics? An interview with James K. Galbraith: “There is no return to self-sustaining growth”. From The Baffler, let them eat dogma: Chris Lehmann on the 1930s and its parallels to our current predicament; and a review essay on the financial crisis. The few regulatory measures introduced since the financial collapse in 2008 are being supervised by the same banking sector that caused it in the first place; governments' delegation of regulatory responsibilities has deeply negative implications for democracy. An excerpt from On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System by Henry M. Paulson Jr. (and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more). Elizabeth Warren on Wall Street’s race to the bottom. Michael Grunwald on the case for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. John H. Cochrane on Lessons from the Financial Crisis: As long as some firms are considered too big to fail, those firms will take outsized risks. From The Economist, a special report on financial risk; a review of The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History by Gregory Zuckerman and The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It by Scott Patterson (and more and more); and a review of Don’t Blame the Shorts: Why Short Sellers are Always Blamed for Market Crashes and How History is Repeating Itself by Robert Sloan. Is excessive risk-taking in the financial world a matter of too much testosterone?
