Monetary-policy

This remarkable work, published in 1900, is Georg Simmel's magnum opus given the fact that it contains most key ideas of this charismatic and versatile thinker. It is bulky, and at points very difficult to penetrate through,since the author's literary style -although very enjoyable- tends to abstract from the clarity of the point at hand. This work may be seen as a supplement to Marx's "Capital". Simmel deals with money at various levels of abstraction. He discusses money from an economic, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspective in an admirable attempt to develop via the concept of money a modern world-view. Chapter One is the most difficult since it explores Simmel's theory of value, using BOTH classical political economy and the Marxian theory of value. Then, he proceeds in order to develop it as a symbol of a relational epistemology (drawing heavily on Kant, Hegel and Spinoza). The following parts of the book associate money with exchange as a sociological category of interaction and display Simmel at his very best in the lengthy discussion of money in relation to personal values (dowry, prostitution, bribery etc.). Additionally, Simmel explores the axiological dislocations that take place in human consciousness and fail to address correctly the means-ends aspect of money's relationship to commodities. In this wonderful section, Simmel discloses the alienating attitudes of extravagance, greed, avarice, cynicism and indifference. Last, but not least, Simmel connects money to modernity pulling -albeit elliptically- all the threads of the previous arguments together. A book of great sociological and philosophical interest, full of dazzling dialectics, free of dogmatism and definitely one of humanity's most complete statements on "money"!

This book gives a detailed legal (constitutional) argument demonstrating that our present monetary system is a contradiction of what was intended and what is expressed in the U.S. Constitution. The book also describes the legal history of the Supreme Court cases that brought the system to this point.

This is a general book on project management that frames project management as a practice and makes a case for the Project Management Institute's approach and its Project Management Professional certification.

Sections 1 and 2 frame project management by giving a brief history of the profession, defining project management as a practice, and discussing knowledge areas and providing statistics based on PMI's research of project costs, scope and challenges.

Specifics about the profession of project management are given in Section 3, including job descriptions, ethics, credentials and typical compensation. This is followed by a discussion of the PM environment in Section 4, which covers organizational issues such as the ratio of project managers to the total number of employees, globalization of project management and certifications. In this section the case is made for the PMP certification, which is valid in the US, but the conclusion made of the global acceptance of this certification, in my opinion, misses the point that PRINCE2 is more accepted in the UK and former Commonwealth countries. Section 5 is devoted to the Project Management Institute, its organizational structure, standards and standards making groups, membership benefits and its influence.

For PMI members, PMPs or those considering joining PMI and/or pursuing the PMP certification this is an excellent book because it describes the PM profession from PMI's point of view, gives a wealth of supporting statistics and facts, and provides insights into PMI.

The Power of Money (I suspect the title is the fault of the editor or publisher) deals with the Athenian Coinage Decree. When Athens controlled much of the greek world it promulgated a law restricting coinage in silver, requiring foreign coin to be converted to the Athenian standard. The decree survives in fragments of carvings and there is a reference to it in a play by Aristophanes. Figueira analyzes whether we can know when the law was in effect, how widely and if it was enforced. The evidence is scientific, that is, what inferences are drawn are based on logical study of evidence. There are the textual variants of the law, where they are found, when they may be dated. There are coin hoards which show whether there is a hiatus in non-Athenian silver coinage, etc. Figueira is able to touch on peripheral subjects such as the problem of correlating a silver/electrum exchange ratio.I recommend this book to students of history, numismatists, and anyone who wants to know how history is 'done.' The narratives of our commonly-accepted history are not the constructs of power or class.They are based on scraps of evidence that may seem dry and boring but which yield treasures when studied calmly and logically. This book is an antidote to the radical aporia and solipsism induced by postmoderism and its works.

I typically am not interested in this kind of literature. However, after reading about the author's death, I decided to try this book. I found it extremely intersting and it increased my knowledge about the subject. I recommend this book for anybody who is intested in the history of some of our most popular companies.

Oh, how things have changed. In the mid-1950s to be a free market economist in Britain was a lot like being a leper. Considered a reactionary by peers and politicians alike, the free marketeer was seen as an anachronism and not relevant to the modern world. In the midst of the Keynesian Empire, the Institute of Economic Affairs was established, a solitary outpost of freedom. The story of the Institute has been told elsewhere (Thinking the Unthinkable by Richard Cockett), and in today's world it is hard to imagine the difficulties faced by the founders in the face of the intellectual adversity which existed.

The Journal of Economic Affairs, later just Economic Affairs, was first published in the late 1970s. More topical than the other series of IEA publications, the journal offered the opportunity of shorter articles, as always characterised by the sharp editing skills of the redoubtable Arthur Seldon, on any and every aspect of life which may be subject to the influence of the state.

As always the Institute and it's journal were concerned with the central role of markets. Whereas the books and papers were largely directed at academics and policy-makers, the journal was directed at a wider audience and in particular, students. The format changed over the years but generally was a mixture of long and short articles written by academics and professionals with academic rigour but written in terms that could be understood by the layman. In short the purpose of the journal (I hate to call it a magazine) was to bring the sometimes esoteric arguments about markets to the wider public. And it succeeded. As I write this review in early 2002 the Institute has a substantial student outreach programme, and Economic Affairs, in a rather revised format is required reading for students.

This book is a collection of articles taken from Economic Affairs over a period of about ten years which just happens to coincide with the Thatcher administrations terms of office. Within it's pages can be found papers which cover almost all of the ground that was the subject of intense debate as Britain finally came to terms with the dreadful impact of the lost years of Keynesian rule. Many of the papers continue to have validity today as the world economy, already beaten by economic slowdown, is battered by the impact of September 11. Keynesianism once again is rearing it's head, not a moment too soon for it's devotees. Other papers will still have relevance for the serious student of public policy. At the heart of all of the argument still lies the central issue of the relevance of markets in today's world and as such, the book like the magazine is still mightily relevant.

Great book! Not too dry for financial reading, and inflaming to say the least. Robert deFremery spent his lifetime working up to this book, and it was definitely a message worth spreading. I highly recommend that you read this book!

Very recommendable either for a Ph.D. student interested in the history of emerging markets crisis or the scholar aiming to tell her students how modern theory and empirical tests are applicable to some stories like the Argentine one.

Not only is this book a magnific contribution to understand the monetary and banking history of Argentina, but also a contribution that informs present-day debates in macroeconomics (e.g. the choice of optimal exchange rate regime, various generations of financial and currency crisis, bank runs). The authors make a significant effort to formalise major stylised facts across different crisis episodes, through the lens of modern monetary and banking theory. Moreover, they offer a fresh look at issues concerning crisis management and resolution and policy evaluation in the "first" era of economic globalisation (1880-1914) as well as during the interwar period all the way down to the 1930's depression.
Modern tools help test the hypothesis laid out generally at the beginning of the theoretical framework introduced in each chapter. Ranging from accounting exercises (fiscal solvency, banking balance sheets, as a few examples)to cutting-edge time series econometric modelling, the evidence found by the authours sheds light on crucial empirical issues. Some examples may illustrate this point:
a) The Purchasing Power Parity assumption (PPP, in a single equation cointegrating framework);
b) Money supply and demand, and exchange rate determinants in 1884-1913;
c) The Internal-External Convertibility dynamics (phase diagram, Vector Error Correction Model estimation)

Finally, the lessons drawn by Della Paolera and Taylor are, in my view, very telling to the way Argentina got into the path to the collapse of the currency board 1991-2001.

The Preface of Monetary Reform by John Maynard Keynes is dated October 1923, in a time when there were few economists. As the Preface of this book states this dire aspect of the situation:

"Nowhere do conservative notions consider themselves more in place than in currency ; yet nowhere is the need of innovation more urgent. One is often warned that a scientific treatment of currency questions is impossible because the banking world is intellectually incapable of understanding its own problems. If this is true, the order of Society, which they stand for, will decay. But I do not believe it. What we have lacked is a clear analysis of the real facts, . . ." (p. vi).

There are charts in this book to provide the facts which Keynes was concerned about. Index Numbers of Wholesale Prices Expressed as a Percentage of 1913 on page 5 covers the years 1913 to 1923 (First half-year) for nine nations, looking most outstandingly bad for Germany, which has a final number of 765,000 for half of 1923, far larger than the maximum number of any other country. Italy was at 624 in 1920 and declined to 577 in 1921, still higher than the 510 monthly average that France had in 1920.

A chart at the top of page 18 with dates from 1815 to 1922 is supposed to illustrate "what a splendid investment gilt-edged stocks had been through the century from Waterloo to Mons, even if we omit altogether the abnormal values of 1896-97. Our table shows how the epoch of Diamond Jubilee was the culminating moment in the prosperity of the British middle class." (p. 18). But for people who were concerned about the tumble taken after 1914, things were not so great. "The whole of the improvement of the nineteenth century had been obliterated," (I'm looking at an old edition, so my page numbers might be way off from whatever book you might be able to buy today).

The basic information that is most important to Society as a whole is contained in Chapter I, The Consequences To Society of Changes in the Value of Money, considering separately the interests of the Investing Class, the Business Class, and the Earner. The power of any government which can produce money merely by printing it is considered in Chapter II, Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money, particularly with respect to Inflation as a Method of Taxation. In order to show that a government might have some choice in such matters, Keynes also considers "Currency Depreciation versus Capital Levy." If this seems like an odd topic now, Keynes is reassuring that such a move might only be considered "when the State's contractual liabilities, fixed in terms of money, have reached an excessive proportion of the national income." This might happen (sooner or later) to any country which stops producing anything except educational opportunities, medical bills, entertainment and banking, in years when a high national debt must be refinanced at high interest rates.

Chapter III gives us The Theory of Money and of the Foreign Exchanges. Recently INFECTIOUS GREED by Frank Partnoy provided an example, early in his book, of how bankers still don't have any yardstick for figuring out how much they are making when Bankers Trust was trying to figure out how much profit it could declare on trading in the foreign-exchange markets by Andy Krieger in 1987. Being able to bet the assets of a large bank on the direction that a currency would go in 1987 allowed Andy Krieger to get a job with George Soros in April, 1988, where turnabout became his main play. "Krieger reversed the position, and bet against the pound. A single trade with Chemical Bank was for more than $1.8 billion." (Portnoy, p. 33). Really and truly, I think Partnoy blames Krieger for taking stable currencies and earning large bonuses by making them worth much less than they had been worth before he had the option to sell it at a given price. Part IV. The Forward Market in Exchanges in Chapter III of Keynes's MONETARY REFORM attempts to state three practical conclusions. First, hedging a risk won't work when the situation is so bad that there is "a fear of a sudden implosion of exchange regulations or of a moratorium." Partnoy seemed to think that the private trading in derivative contracts was where the big money was made, and public positions in an exchange could be fake positions hedging a bet in the opposite direction, but that there was no law against this kind of manipulation of the market for money. Keynes was more interested in stability. "With free forward markets thus established no merchant need run an exchange risk unless he wishes to, and business might find a stable footing even in a fluctuating world."

Second, there must be money from speculators in such a market for the market to function. "The wide fluctuations . . . have been due, not to the presence of speculation, but to the absence of a sufficient volume of it relatively to the volume of trade."

Third, high interest rates don't matter as much "unless the change in relative money-rates is comparable in magnitude (as it used to be but no longer is) with the possible range of exchange fluctuations.)" Possibly things have changed so much in the last 80 years that Keynes would phrase that differently today.

Chapter IV turns to "the United States, which has enjoyed a gold standard throughout, has suffered as severely as many other countries," but not as badly as Germany and Austria back then.

This book is a must in understanding globilization, the hoarding of the dollar abroad, the potential repercutions of a liberal trade policy and solutions for a soft-landing. Due to a lack of understanding of this subject the first chapter was laborsome, but soon I became facinated with this subject. Overall, this book significantly elevated my understanding of the subject and provides an insightful view into this transparent issue.