The Two Santa Claus Theory of Economic Growth and the Prospects of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
Intentional deficit spending is not strictly a Democratic agenda. Republicans pushed related ideas with the Two Santa Claus Theory: deficit spending and tax cuts for the rich. Written in March 1976, by Wall Street Journal editorial writer, Jude Wanniski stressed that for economy to be healthy, US politics should have a division of labor between Democrats and Republicans.
Four Futures: One Humanity
This post looks at a few of my favorite futurists and a book I recently found intriguing that presented four visions of the future.
The World is Bubbly: Capital, Cities, and Creative People
I’m concerned that as cities develop policies to become more attractive to the creative class, that they sow the seeds of their own demise by attracting excess real estate capital.
From Gold to G-20: Flexible Currency Rates and Global Power
When British author Ian Fleming published the James Bond spy novel, Goldfinger in 1959, the world was locking into a new framework for managing global trade and foreign exchange transactions. The New Deal’s Bretton Woods agreements tied participating currencies into a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar that itself was tied to $35 for […]
Apple’s GUI and the Creation of the Microsoft’s Excel Spreadsheet Application
Microsoft’s famous spreadsheet application, Excel, was originally designed for Apple’s Macintosh personal computer. This post explores the beginning years of the personal computer and its transition to its more modern interface pioneered by Apple and its Macintosh computer. This transition opened the way for new software innovations, particularly the development of the Excel spreadsheet application […]
The Cyberpunk Genre as Social and Technological Analysis
I once taught a Freshman seminar at New York University in Information System Management (ISM). The course was introductory and only two credits, so I felt we needed a focused yet comprehensive set of analytical concepts to shape our discussions and assignments about ISM in the modern world. I decided to use the “cyberpunk” genre […]
THE EXPERIMENT, Part I: NEW ZEALAND AS THE WORLD MODEL FOR DIGITAL MONETARISM
Starting “Down Under” One of the first “guinea pigs” for the new system of digital monetarism was New Zealand. A one time a leader in the development of the “welfare state,” the small two-island nation-state in the deep Pacific Ocean had run into economic problems by the early 1980s. It had borrowed heavily during the […]
Characteristics of Economic Goods and their Social Implications
In a previous post, I wrote about how media products can be considered “misbehaving economic goods” because most don’t conform to the standard product that is individually owned and consumed in its entirety. Economics is mainly based on the assumption that when a good or service is consumed, it is used up wholly by its […]
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