Back to podcastsMartin Wolf
- Volcker’s axe is not enough to cut banks to size
- Obama’s latest proposals for bank reform miss the point, says Martin Wolf. They may or may not be workable, but they do nothing to create a sustainable finance sector
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Share- The Greek tragedy deserves a global audience
- The problems of Greece are extreme, because it alone of the vulnerable eurozone member countries has both high fiscal deficits and high debt. Some say it should be bailed out, but there are two other possibilities – it toughs it out or just defaults, says Martin Wolf
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- How the Icelandic saga should end
- The combination of cross-border banking with generous guarantees to creditors is unsustainable. Taxpayers cannot
be expected to write open-ended insurance on the foreign activities of their banks, says Martin Wolf - Launch in Pop-up
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- What we can learn from Japan’s decades of trouble
- Japan’s experience indicates that when fast growth begins to slow in a catch-up economy with high corporate
savings and comparably high fixed investment, demand may well prove hard to manage, says Martin Wolf - Launch in Pop-up
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- The eurozone’s next decade will be tough
- The countries on the periphery of Europe’s single currency are in deep trouble thanks to the imbalances within the eurozone, says Martin Wolf. And none of the solutions looks palatable
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- The challenges of managing our post-crisis world
- The underpinnings of our global economy and so of our globalised civilisation remain dangerously fragile. Somehow, we must manage to sustain a dynamic global economy, promote development, deliver environmental sustainability and ensure peaceful and co-operative international relations, says Martin Wolf
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- How the noughties were a hinge of history
- The rest of the world was inclined to believe that the west, whatever its faults, knew what it was doing. But then the teacher failed the examination, says Martin Wolf
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- Why new challenges need new people
- Those parts of public sector spending that sustain the long-term health of the economy should not be sacrificed, says Martin Wolf
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- Britain’s dismal choice: sharing the losses
- Not only has the UK had a financial crisis, with the usual severe impact on output and the public finances; it has also been a ‘monocrop’ economy, with finance itself acting as the ‘crop’, says Martin Wolf
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- Why China’s exchange rate policy concerns us
- What we are seeing is a failure of adjustment to changes in global competitiveness that has unhappy precedents, notably during the 1920s and 1930s, with the rise of the US, and during the 1960s and 1970s, with the rise of Europe and Japan, says Martin Wolf
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- The post post-Thatcher era begins
- The era of reforms from Thatcher through to New Labour led to rapid growth which, even after recent falls, has left Britain better placed than most major economies, says Martin Wolf
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- Why Copenhagen must be the end of the beginning
- Next week’s summit will fall short, but at least there is now broad agreement that action is needed to tackle climate change, says Martin Wolf. Solving the problem needs a stable price for carbon, needs wealthy countries to pay up and needs big subsidies for new technology
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- Give us fiscal austerity, but not quite yet
- Slashing deficits now would be wrong, argues Martin Wolf. What is needed, instead, are credible fiscal institutions and a road map for tightening that will be implemented, automatically, as and when the private sector's spending recovers
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- Tax the windfall banking bonuses
- The case for generous subventions to banks is to restore the financial system to health, not to enrich bankers, says Martin Wolf
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- Grim truths Obama should have told Hu
- Obama should have made clear the need for China to revalue its currency and rebalance the global economy when he met Hu Jintao, says Martin Wolf. He could reasonably threaten punitive action, such is the need for change
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- Victory in the cold war was a start as well as an ending
- Has capitalism failed, as communism did? No. Some transition countries are in crisis; but transition itself is not. Liberal democracies and market economies can reform and adapt. They have shown these qualities before. They must do so again, says Martin Wolf
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- Time for a debate on immigration
- Diversity brings social benefits, but also costs, arising from declining trust and erosion of a sense of shared values, says Martin Wolf
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- Private behaviour will shape our path to fiscal stability
- It is idiotic to discuss the reduction of the huge fiscal deficits, without considering the nature of the offsetting adjustments in the private and external sectors. Some adjustments would be desirable, but others would be extremely perilous, says Martin Wolf
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- How mistaken ideas helped to bring the economy down
- The era when central banks could target inflation and assume that what was happening in asset and credit markets was no concern of theirs is over. Not only can asset prices be valued; they have to be, argues Martin Wolf
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- Why curbing finance is hard to do
- There is a way of making finance safe. But it would be radical: deposits would be 100 per cent reserve backed; and the liabilities of other investment vehicles would be adjusted for the market value of their assets at all times. Banking would disappear, argues Martin Wolf.
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- How to manage the gigantic financial cuckoo in our nest
- This recovery has been no accident. When central bank money is almost free, prices of risky assets are recovering, competitors have disappeared or are weakened, making money is a relatively simple matter for the strong survivors, argues Martin Wolf
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- Rumours of the dollar’s death are much exaggerated
- Recent figures have proved that the dollar’s fall is a symptom of success, not of failure. All the same, the dollar-based global monetary system is defective. It would be good to start building alternative arrangements, says Martin Wolf
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- Britain’s phoney debate on slashing spending
- In deciding what to do about the UK's general government deficit, we must recognise the uncertainties: we do not know how big the “structural” fiscal deficit is; we do not know how long correction can be delayed before investors lose confidence; and we do not know how far a fiscal tightening will weaken aggregate demand. But the costs of being too optimistic are likely to be higher than of being too pessimistic. That should determine how policymakers respond.
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- Finding a route to recovery and reform gets tough now
- The economy is back on track, but it is too soon to celebrate victory, says Martin Wolf. Rebalancing, reform and regulation are still needed, none of which will be easy. Resistance from the banks is already threatening to poison the political debate
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