A World on Fire: Observations and Speculations in a Crottyian Vein

Abstract

I offer this article as a small way of honoring my friend, mentor, and role model Jim Crotty, whose intellectual legacy, commitment to engaged scholarship, lived experience, and warmth and generosity continue to influence me profoundly. Here, I offer several observations and speculations on the state of play in the global and US financial systems in a Crottyian vein. These include several 1980s throwbacks—bank failures in the United States; rentier-driven tight monetary policies across the world with attendant negative effects; and, debt distress and the likelihood of a (new) “lost decade” in the Global South. These familiar experiences are unfolding against the backdrop of an interregnum in which a “post-American global financial order” is emerging in an environment marked by “productive and destructive incoherence.” JEL Classification: F02, F33, O23, E44, E58