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quantitatively is it wholly determined. Real consumption decisions therefore affect investment and unemployment. At a simple empirical level, the relative reluctance, since the early 1990s, of Japanese consumers to spend or, alternatively, the acceleration of consumer spending and debt in the US in the run-up to the sub-prime crash had significant impacts on the economy and unemployment. In principle this is unchallenging, but two issues seem to have militated against critical Marxist investigations of demand. The first is an association of interest in consumption with an
rumours can be an important guide. The informal and, increasingly, formal meetings with market participants will continue to be valuable in terms of understanding changes in the market, such as the increasing use of algorithms in FX market, but they are unlikely to reveal much about wrongdoing in the market. Notes 1 The G10 currencies are as follows: US dollar; euro; Japanese yen; Swiss franc; Australian dollar; New Zealand dollar; Canadian dollar; Norwegian krone; Swedish krona; and British pound (sterling). 2 A one-touch stop loss order is executed if the market
Leeson, weak oversight and a lack of checks and balances (Leeson ran both the front and back office for trading in Holding senior bankers to account243 10-year Japanese bonds and futures). The leading regulator at the time was the Securities and Investment Board (SIB), which found that both company law and financial services legislation did not give the SIB the powers to hold senior managers to account. An early form of the SMR was introduced in the UK when Sir Andrew Large was chairman of the SIB which made it possible for the regulators to declare an individual
consistently on-time service – even the railways of Japan, celebrated for their punctuality, suffer from occasional delays. 5 But keeping enough spare capacity on the tracks helps enormously. Where services are too tightly packed together, a minor delay on one service starts a proverbial butterfly effect, 6 cascading delays across the network and sometimes reaching the other end of the country later in the day. 7 The rising level of services over the past two decades is partly a result of an increase in demand for
production dropping below 900,000 units. The response of the Thatcher government, apart from trying to crush the unions, was to invite successful foreign firms to set up in Britain. At the same time that support for UK industry was being wound down, a series of ‘sweeteners’ were being dangled in front of expanding multinationals. US and Japanese firms had an added incentive to come to Britain: to use it as a base for gaining access to Europe's new single market. The most significant corporation to jump was Nissan in 1986, lured to Britain with millions
to be bailed out or nationalized. Four large US investment banks (Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley) each had to borrow $1.5 to $2 trillion to avoid bankruptcy. Governments everywhere introduced ultra-low interest rates and created trillions in quantitative easing. Government debt shot up. US national debt went up 50%. The UK's external debt rose from 22.5 % of GDP in 2007 to 66.5% in 2009. Others, such as Japan, Greece, Italy and Portugal, soared above 100%. In 2008–09 governments together offered a total of $15 trillion in a mix of loans
possible causes have been suggested. First, there was uncertainty over the international payments situation. Recent years had seen persistent balance of payments disequilibria. The US and the UK had experienced large deficits, which had been matched by large surpluses obtained by Japan and Germany. At the same time, corrective measures for the US
story exemplified … by Britain, later Japan, and the other countries that caught up [our italics]’. Figure 4.2 The CORE economics education curriculum
goods reached their final destination, were no longer readily available. The credit markets froze. This was one of the reasons for the vast reduction in global trade. At the peak of the crisis, in early 2009, exports fell on a year-to year basis by 30 per cent in China and Germany, and by 37 per cent and 45 per cent in Singapore and Japan. The Lehman bankruptcy did not cause the financial crisis, but it was a significant trigger, leading to widespread fear that the global financial system was about to collapse, bringing financial ruin in its wake. It is only as 2009
financial stability. These important societal functions have been outsourced to economic experts, with the bank employing two hundred economists in total.21 There have been similar developments elsewhere in the world. Independent CBs are present in the US, Japan, Australia and most starkly in Europe in the form of the European Central Bank, which is completely unaccountable to the democratic wishes of particular Eurozone countries. In an incredible turn of events in Italy in 2011, a coalition of technocrats headed by the economist Mario Monti Econocracy 13 was sworn