I wrote in April that Transitory Inflation Is the New Buzz Phrase at the Fed , expressing various concerns including the idea that without transitory deflation , or a period where prices decline, all price increases become permanent. The professor continued, quoted as saying :. What we are seeing is inflation before the unemployment rate gets all the way to where we want it to get Seems strange. It sounds like he believes there really exists a trade-off between inflation and unemployment.
As for the significance of unemployment at 3. Large parts of the economy shutting down exacerbated the situation, likely leading to a reduction in production activities. Yet current White House Council of Economic Advisers member, Jared Bernstein, illustrates a deeper disconnect to the real economy by saying:. When Covid hit there was a massive shift from in-person services to goods demand, and savings went up as people stopped eating out and staying in hotels, and that combined with the financial relief provided by the government led to even greater savings and demand which have ultimately contributed to the issues at ports.
Bernstein follows with:. This axiomatic notion was necessary to achieve the inner logic of historical This axiomatic notion was necessary to achieve the inner logic of historical materialism. The matter of fact is that Marx and Engels could not imagine how the global socialist change could unfold in economically interconnected countries. Their solution was to call for an international brotherhood of proletarians who would be the agents of the coming socialist revolution.
Their justifications boiled down to the fact that the capitalists united the economies of all countries - thereby incidentally confirming the truism that capital has no borders and that entrepreneurs are truly international - and that is why the proletariat must be organized into world associations, in order to imbue them with class consciousness and ensure readiness for an upcoming struggle.
The emancipation of the working class ran like a cross-cutting theme in the writings of Marx and Engels because it was they who assigned workers the role of gravediggers of world capitalism, which the proletariat itself did not even know about. On the other hand, the founders of Marxism pursued another goal. They wanted their contemporaries to see their theory as not only scientific but also morally superior to any competing doctrines.
Highlighting the predetermined historical role of the proletariat, Marxism insisted that people with the best intentions would make the social change, in order to eliminate the contradictions in the development of productive forces and production relations under capitalism. Marxism endowed the proletariat with the moral qualities of holy people - this is an innate sense of equality, brotherhood and justice, unconditional love for different ethnic groups and races, contempt for fetishism and wealth, and readiness for mutual help.
That is why, from the earliest works, they intensively hammered the point of internationalism as the highest form of collective proletarian brotherhood in opposition to capitalist individualism. At the very first actual trial, where the working class had to show its moral superiority over the bourgeoisie and choose an internationalist stand, the proletariat showed a willingness to fight and die for their countries in the First World War.
The overwhelming majority of European socialist parties supported their people, regardless of class affinity, and did not unite with the proletariat of their enemies. Proletarian internationalism became a stumbling block in the labor movement, and insoluble contradictions between various factions led to the dissolution of the Second International in During the interwar period, National Syndicalists, Fascists, and National Socialists emerged on the European political scene and challenged ideological tenets of the communist international.
Ironically, even within the communist international, the racist card was played, as can be seen in a bitter quarrel between the Soviet and Chinese communist parties in the early sixties. But there is something else that rips the internationalist mask off the face of leftist movements.
Internationalism is an all-encompassing and reciprocal concept that is falsified if there is even a single exception or contradiction. If an individual, community, party, or country exhibits love for everybody except one, their internationalism does not pass the criterion of all-inclusiveness and thus gets debunked. Historically, anti-Semitism turned out to be a litmus test that unmistakably distinguished an internationalist from a nationalist and a real internationalist from a false one. In his groundbreaking research, the author has collected historical evidence of blatant anti-Semitism, including from prominent figures on the traditional left.
There are many such examples in the book. The truth comes out over time and the reappraisal of certain heroes of the socialist movement is still waiting in the wings. Anti-Semitism can be found in places that seem incredible at first glance. In his research paper, Anti-Semitism in International Brigade s, Andrew Smalling explores the paradox of hatred toward the Jews in International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, which were organized and managed by the Comintern and fighting a coalition of Nationalists supported by Italian fascists and German Nazis.
Anti-Semitism was widespread enough to undermine military performance of the Brigades, according to a secret report by Soviet emissary Karl Sverchevskyi to his Moscow leadership. It turns out that irreconcilable enemies were able to find a common denominator in anti-Semitism, which in itself is a refutation of genuine internationalism in the leftist milieu.
Thus, proletarian internationalism is an empty slogan, which is weakly argued theoretically in Marxism and does not stand up in practice. This is due to the fact that nationalism, as a watershed between ideologies, loses its meaning when opposing doctrines converge on the national issue, whether in words or in deeds.
The historical developments in the first part of the twentieth century invalidated Marxist postulate about an international brotherhood of proletarians. It turned out to be an ordinary political myth. But this myth has been kept alive by Communists as an extremely convenient propaganda ploy, allowing them to choose a high road in their international relations. The Communists often played this card, covering up their atrocities against their own people and other nations, on a par with the crimes against humanity of the fascists and nationalists, hiding behind the slogan of international duty.
In psychology, the effect has long been noticed when the guilty party blames others for the same sins that they themselves have committed. This is just the case that applies to the propaganda rhetoric of the leftists. They accuse their opponents of racism and xenophobia, while they themselves have racist skeletons in their closet.
But the truth of the matter is that it was predominantly the leftist totalitarian regimes that created the nationalist monsters that killed millions of innocent souls, either overtly or through camouflaging their actions with internationalist rhetoric.
Before the answer is given, consider the history of fiat currencies, from Roman times to Kublai Khan, pre-war Germany, to recent popular hyperinflations such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The common denominator is The common denominator is always the same.
In the case of hyperinflation, it is always the result of government intervention. Despite the history of currency debasement and collapse brought on through increases to the money supply, countries across the world still struggle with learning from the past. According to Cuban news sources :. Pay attention whenever hyperinflation is mentioned in the news. Often the headline will discuss outcomes of the currency debasement, such as shortages being the cause, or other backwards ideas such as an inexplicable demand for all goods and services.
Many goods are simply no longer sold in peso shops despite billions more pesos now being in circulation. There exists a lingering idea that the government's failure is due to the lack of printing enough currency which causes supply shortages and hyperinflation, rather than the excessive printing as the source. Few events cause a unilateral increase in the demand for all goods and services simultaneously.
Yet when billions of pesos suddenly come into existence, everything except the increase in pesos is considered the culprit. True, US imposed sanctions hurt Cuba's economy, since their trading is restricted. The world over, no one wants to stop money creation. All the while, everyone is surprised when currencies collapse.
Consider what the Havana Times suggests:. In addition to all of this, US sanctions increased and the embargo became stricter, which has been hindering financial operations since , and makes it impossible for Cuba to access credit from international financial bodies. The number of times a nation has defaulted on a loan from the International Monetary Fund IMF should be legend by now. When the choice is between printing a local currency into oblivion, borrowing from clandestine supranational organizations or to refrain from doing either are compared, only one outcome emerges as a clear winner.
A nation should always stop printing money because money printing has never led to a favorable outcome for any nation. When I was in grade school, I learned that America was a republic. There were checks and balances built into the political machinery of the country, our teachers taught us, and things like the Electoral College and indirect election of senators now defunct to insulate the body politic There were checks and balances built into the political machinery of the country, our teachers taught us, and things like the Electoral College and indirect election of senators now defunct to insulate the body politic against the will of the fickle masses.
Our American history textbooks had a fluttering American flag on the front cover, and the textbook pages were filled with text and images about our republican heritage and way of life. But somewhere between grade school and grad school, America had turned into a democracy.
It became retrogressive to insist, as I often did, repeating what I learned as a boy, that we lived in a constitutional republic. All that mattered, somehow, was that America be more democratic. And not just in politics, but in everything. Democracy became a kind of mood lighting for institutions, corporations, sports teams, and social clubs. America a republic? I might as well have tried arguing that states have the right to secede which I also did, and still do.
During the Trump years, this democracy-as-mantra phenomenon reached a fever pitch. Trump was anti-democratic, people kept insisting at me with very pained and worried expressions on their faces. The country was in grave peril, apparently because the Electoral College was working just as it was designed. Everywhere I turned, I heard people disclaiming the withering of democracy on the American vine.
Anti-democratic forces were abroad, were smuggling in their malicious anti-democracy from Russia and other such reactionary places.
If you were for a republican form of government, you were bad. But now, in , I think another lurch has wracked our once republican republic, our erstwhile and ersatz democratic democracy.
For autocracy is the name of the game today. What is the relationship between a fixed exchange rate policy and monetary policy, and who is responsible for the policies? A fixed exchange rate policy is one of several possible strategies available to a country in the formulation of its foreign exchange policy.
At one end of the spectrum is a regime of floating exchange rates under which the country does not seek to influence the exchange rate. The price of the currency is determined freely by the markets. This policy is practised, for instance, by the USA and Sweden. At the other end of the spectrum are countries that abandon their own currencies to use the currencies of other countries as their sole means of payment.
This provides for a completely fixed exchange rate. This policy is practised, for instance, by Kosovo and Ecuador. Monetary policy is the economic policy set by the central bank. When conducting monetary policy, the central bank basically sets a rate of interest that is passed through to the general level of interest rates in the economy. The exchange rate policy chosen by a country provides the framework for its monetary policy. When a country has chosen to conduct a fixed exchange rate policy, interest rates are reserved for managing the exchange rate, so they cannot also be used for impacting economic activity.
In Denmark, the government, in consultation with Danmarks Nationalbank, determines the foreign exchange policy to be conducted. Please read our comments policy before commenting. He joined the Ministry from Bank of America where he had worked over the previous 11 years. He was managing director, senior economist and co-head of European Economics based in London.
Before that we worked at the research department of Unicredit in Milan. He was a member of the Belgian parliament from to His research interests are international monetary relations, monetary integration, theory and empirical analysis of the foreign-exchange markets, and open-economy macroeconomics.
In order to join DK will have a referendum, and in order to have a referendum the main parties will need to be confident that they can win. Only a minority would vote to join the euro, so a referendum will not be held, and therefore DK will not join the euro. At the end of the day the decision boils down to the hearts and minds of the irrational voter, not economists working at the nationalbanken.
Search for:. Blog Team March 12th, Why Denmark should either abandon its peg to the euro or join the single currency 2 comments 1 shares Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. About the author Blog Team. Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Related Posts Brexit. Staying in the EU would not be perfect. Angela Tacea.
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