The End of Influence?

Brad DeLong and Stephen Cohen have just published a book, The End of Influence, and you can read an excerpt after the jump. They argue that the neo-liberal "dream" of unregulated global free markets is "at an end".

Is the World Flat? No? It's Curved????

In reading Thomas Friedman's Op-Ed piece today, I was struck when he referenced David Smick's The World is Curved. How could I not be curious about a book whose author clearly and forcefully sought to challenge the central thesis of Friedman's book. What would Friedman think of it? Fortunately, Smick's got a website and he makes the preface and first chapter of his book available to all and sundry. He essentially argues that the financial "system, because of its size and complexity, is unbelievably fragile." Why? Because in the global financial system "there is a continual series of unforseen discontinuities--twists and turns of uncertainty that often require millions of market participants to stand conventional wisdom on its head." For these markets, "the world is curved. We can’t see over the horizon. As a result, our sight lines are limited. It is as if we are forced to travel down an endless, dangerously twisting and turning road with abrupt steep valleys and risky mountainous climbs. We can’t see ahead. We are always being surprised, and that is why the world has become such a dangerous place.”

Read his preface, it's awfully prescient.

the Too-Free Free Market

Obama on the Financial Meltdown. Globalization as a source of crisis?