Investing to Wealth

Filed under: International markets, Forecasts, Recession, Financial Crisis

Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf argues that the current financial crisis and global recession is best viewed through a Keynesian lens, and it's the lens of a pragmatist.

Wolf sees three Keynesian themes, or lessons, that policy makers would be wise to heed.

Keynes: Markets are essential, but not perfect

The first: if you expect markets to be self-correcting and self-policing, there's trouble up ahead. Wolf: Mistakes occur, even among those who were following standard operating procedure. A market filled with bankers -- or other participants -- following standard operating procedures that were flawed leads to ... what we have today, pretty much -- a global recession and constrained credit.

The second: It's o.k. for a corporation to become more efficient, but it's not necessarily a good thing if a society or nation (or world) does so all at once. This reinforces one of Keynes's tenets: It's a good thing to have consumers amass savings, but if everyone saves everything all the time it would be a disaster.

Or, for the globalization version of the above, economist Richard Felson told BloggingStocks: "We need people in the United States to save more money, but if people in Europe, China, India, Japan, Brazil and Russia do the same thing simultaneously, the global economy will remain in a recession for a very long time."

Continue reading Martin Wolf: Wanted! Economic pragmatists with bold ideas

Martin Wolf: Wanted! Economic pragmatists with bold ideas originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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