Epic Recession explains the origins and future direction of the current economic crisis, and the relationships between the banking system's breakdown and the economy in general. Jack Rasmus describes how Epic Recession is highly resistant to traditional fiscal and monetary policy solutions and requires major structural changes in the economy in order to check and contain. The book analyzes in depth the origins and causes of Epic Recession—revealing its roots in corporate and government policies and fundamental structural changes in U.S. capitalist economy since the early 1980s. Epic Recession explains how the current economic crisis is similar to, and simultaneously different from, both the Great Depression of 1929-1934 and post-1945 recessions in the U.S. It categorizes Epic Recessions in two dominant forms: ‘Type I’ and ‘Type II’: The former similar to events of 1907-1914; the latter to events of 1929-1931. Rasmus argues today’s current crisis is evolving into a ‘Type I’, but has the potential for transforming into a ‘Type II’ and that 2011-2013 will be a critical period for determining which type will prevail. Epic Recession further provides a detailed critique of both George W. Bush and Obama administration recovery programs, in both their monetary and fiscal dimensions, and assesses why they have fared poorly thus far in resolving the crisis. The book concludes by presenting a full, thorough alternative program necessary for recovery.

The 2008-10 financial crisis and the global recession it created is a complex phenomenon that warrants detailed examination. The various essays in the book utilise several alternative paradigms to provide a plausible explanation and a credible cure. This book provides this important analysis in great detail and from different theoretical perspectives, presenting a clearer understanding of what went wrong and expounding misinterpretations of current theories and practices. Thirteen insightful chapters by eminent scholars investigate the background of the crisis and draw lessons for economic theory and policy. They largely illustrate that the roots of the recession lie in the financial sector which, over the past few decades, has expanded considerably in terms of both size and complexity. They show that financial innovation has decoupled the real and financial sectors - not always to the benefit of economic stability - and argue that financial markets should be regulated more astutely in order to reinforce transparency and accountability. The book concludes that economics as a science should give proper weight to financial variables and integrate them into its models.

The book discusses the nature of Marxist theory of crisis and applies it to the global financial crisis which began in 2007. Is the contemporary crisis simply the usual periodic upturn and downturn or is there something more fundamental? Is there a structural crisis of capitalism, from which there is no immediate solution? Is capitalism managed and does it have a strategy? Is the financial crisis representative of a failure in capitalism itself to subject banks and other financial institutions to the overall economy? The book discusses Marx’s view on crises, as well as ideas on money and finance. It considers the different modern Marxist ideas on the causes of crises – falling rate of profit, disproportionality and underconsumption. It goes into detail as to the nature of the present crisis, its course and causes in a spirited and independent manner. Apart from the United States, it considers the situation in the two countries, in which protests erupted: Iran and Greece. They are taken as examples of the effect of the crisis on the country, the society and the economy as well as its politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critique.

Just as contemporary economics failed to predict the 2008-09 crash, and over-estimated the subsequent brief recovery that followed, economists today are again failing to accurately forecast the slowing global economic growth, the growing fragility, and therefore rising instability in the global economy. This book offers a new approach to explaining why mainstream economic analyses have repeatedly failed and why fiscal and monetary policies have been incapable of producing a sustained recovery. Expanding upon the early contributions of Keynes, Minsky and others, it offers an alternative explanation why the global economy is slowing long term and becoming more unstable, why policies to date have largely failed, and why the next crisis may therefore prove even worse than that of 2008- 09. Systemic fragility is rooted in 9 key empirical trends: slowing real investment; a drift toward deflation; money, credit and liquidity explosion; rising levels of global debt; a shift to speculative financial investing; the restructuring of financial markets to reward capital incomes; the restricting of labor markets to lower wage incomes; the failure of Central Bank monetary policies; and the ineffectiveness of fiscal policies. It results from financial, consumer, and government balance sheet fragilities exacerbating each other -- creating a massive centripetal force disaggregating and tearing apart the whole, untameable by either fiscal or monetary means. This book clarifies how the price system in general, and financial asset prices in particular, transform into fundamentally destabilizing forces under conditions of systemic fragility. It explains why the global system has in recent decades become dependent upon, and even addicted to, massive liquidity injections, and how fiscal policies have been counterproductive, exacerbating fragility and instability. Policymakers’ failure to come to grips with how fundamental changes in the structure of the 21st century global capitalist economy—in particular in financial and labor market structures—make the global economy more systemically fragile can only propel it toward deeper instability and crises.

From Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller, a groundbreaking account of how stories help drive economic events—and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses Stories people tell—about financial confidence or panic, housing booms, or Bitcoin—can go viral and powerfully affect economies, but such narratives have traditionally been ignored in economics and finance because they seem anecdotal and unscientific. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Shiller explains why we ignore these stories at our peril—and how we can begin to take them seriously. Using a rich array of examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that influence individual and collective economic behavior—what he calls "narrative economics"—may vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises and other major economic events. The result is nothing less than a new way to think about the economy, economic change, and economics. In a new preface, Shiller reflects on some of the challenges facing narrative economics, discusses the connection between disease epidemics and economic epidemics, and suggests why epidemiology may hold lessons for fighting economic contagions.

The Future of Capitalism After the Financial Crisis: The Varieties of Capitalism Debate in the Age of Austerity contains thirteen world leading political economists writing from within eight different countries who critically analyze the current crisis tendencies of capitalism both globally and in particular countries. Given the likelihood of an increasingly crisis prone future for capitalism, it is important not only to rethink capitalism in its current manifestations or varieties. It is also important to rethink research methods and conceptual frameworks in preparation for understanding an increasingly rocky future in which capitalism itself could go the way of the many species that in the past were endangered only to become extinct. More and more titles of books and articles are suggesting that capitalism or perhaps civilization itself is endangered if we do not make radical changes in the near future. This book breaks with academic path dependency and attempts to open new vistas of political economy and of multidisciplinary analysis that are crucially important if our thought processes are to be effective in a world in jeopardy. The varieties of capitalism (VoC) debate itself came into being as the Soviet Union unraveled. It drew in scholarship from a cross-section of Marxian and heterodox political economy. The key argument of VoC was that if capitalism was the only global option then those on the Left must get involved in policy discussions on how capitalist economies can be fashioned to become competitive as well as progressive. However, the financial crisis has seen policy across the advanced economies veer toward competitiveness coupled with austerity. The lesson for the Left is that alternatives to capitalism must be sought in the here and now.

Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy, and Ecological Sustainability provides a detailed and empirical analysis of the institutions, governing logics, risk-management practices, and crisis communication strategies involved in the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the 2010 BP oil crisis, and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis. These human-engineered crises threaten sustainability through resource depletion, environmental degradation, and the growth of geo-political conflicts. Yet, the corporations responsible have returned to profitability by externalizing risks to communities and governments. In response to this pattern of crisis management, Nadesan argues that contemporary financial and energy complexes pose significant threats to liberal democracy and ecological sustainability. This book will be of interest to scholars of communication studies, cultural studies, sociology, political science, anthropology, and economics.

The last couple of years have seen the eurozone lurch from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland already driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that a number of other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy are potentially dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster, Heikki Patomäki dissects the current crisis, revealing its origins lie in the instability that has driven the process of financialisation since the early 1970s. Furthermore, the public debt crises in the European deficit countries have been aggravated rather than alleviated by the responses of the Commission and leaders of the surplus countries, especially Germany. Providing a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament, Patomäki presents a radical new vision for 'global economic democracy' as the only viable way out of the current crisis.

This book centres on the effects of the political and later economic crisis which seriously affected the European Union and its impact on the seemingly endless UK debate over Britain's position within the EU.

The financial crash of 2007-2008 and the subsequent global economic crisis have raised questions about the viability of capitalism and the desirability of alternative types of economic system. In this context, Keynesian and Marxist ideas in particular have become more popular. These two approaches, along with some other heterodox perspectives, agree on the need for institutional analysis and for better institutions and governance in order to promote economic development. This volume poses fundamental institutional, evolutionary and ontological questions relating to the emergence of a new mode of governance after the financial crisis. The book argues that, contrary to the recent austerity policies implemented in the EU in particular, a new level of government involvement is required in order to keep aggregate demand stable, make full employment possible, and create a transparent financial sector, serving the real economy and encouraging productive investments. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of finance, institutional economics, development economics and international political economy.