pushing on a string Concepts

The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street

by Justin Fox · 29 May 2009 · 461pp · 128,421 words

the Depression, Keynes took things a step further. The remedy Fisher prescribed was to print more money. Keynes despaired that this would amount merely to “pushing on a string,” and argued that government needed to spend money to get the economy moving again. As a matter of economic policy, this was a big difference

Termites of the State: Why Complexity Leads to Inequality

by Vito Tanzi · 28 Dec 2017

decades the attitude toward the role of monetary policy in promoting economic stabilization has changed. It has changed from the earlier view, that “you cannot push on a string” or “you can take a horse to the river but you cannot make it drink,” to one that believes monetary policy can bring “great moderation

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

by Dani Rodrik · 8 Oct 2017 · 322pp · 87,181 words

very little to solve the short‐run problem of inadequate demand. Dealing with this problem through supply‐side reforms aimed at increasing productivity is like pushing on a string. What is needed instead is some good old‐fashioned Keynesianism: policies to boost eurozone–wide demand and stimulate greater spending in creditor countries, especially Germany

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy

by Stephanie Kelton · 8 Jun 2020 · 338pp · 104,684 words

. Lower interest rates might work to induce enough new borrowing to substantially lower unemployment. But they might not. As Keynes famously observed, “You can’t push on a string.” What he meant was that the Fed can make it cheaper to borrow, but it cannot force anyone to take out a loan. Borrowing money

The Great Economists Ten Economists whose thinking changed the way we live-FT Publishing International (2014)

by Phil Thornton · 7 May 2014

at containing an expansion by pulling monetary policy tighter, they are less effective in a downturn – summed up in the phrase attributed to Keynes of ‘pushing on a string’. In a depression people will not want to borrow but will hoard money in their banks rather than spend or borrow more. The mere fact

The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite

by Duff McDonald · 24 Apr 2017 · 827pp · 239,762 words

responsibilities, labor laws, corporate citizenship, socially responsible investing, and serving the public interest. But in this, its influence can clearly be seen as akin to pushing on a string. “[While] the average firm has assiduously applied the agency theory principles that increase corporate entrepreneurialism and risk,” write Frank Dobbin and Jiwook Jung in their

Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover

by Katrina Vanden Heuvel and William Greider · 9 Jan 2009 · 278pp · 82,069 words

last summer started lowering interest rates on loans to the banks. But in a phrase from the bank crisis of the 1930s, it was like “pushing on a string.” The bankers’ problem was not that money was too expensive to lend out; it was that they were afraid they wouldn’t get their money

Why We Can't Afford the Rich

by Andrew Sayer · 6 Nov 2014 · 504pp · 143,303 words

people cutting back on spending to pay off their debts. From the point of view of economic regeneration, the bailouts were about as successful as ‘pushing on a string’.135 Governments that had to fund substantial bailouts put themselves at risk. Stagnant or shrinking economies also mean increased government debt, because revenues from taxes

European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics Are in a Mess - and How to Put Them Right

by Philippe Legrain · 22 Apr 2014 · 497pp · 150,205 words

banks, households and companies all want to hoard money not part with it, monetary policy becomes largely ineffective. In a liquidity trap, it is like pushing on a string. Normally, when the Bank of England cuts its bank lending rate, the rate at which banks can borrow more generally also falls.428 Banks then

Endless Money: The Moral Hazards of Socialism

by William Baker and Addison Wiggin · 2 Nov 2009 · 444pp · 151,136 words

loan demand sated and a need for banks and consumers to deleverage, they saw any Fed action to inject reserves into the monetary system as “pushing on a string,” to use the phrase invented by the monetarist Friedman in his analysis of the Great Depression. From within the Fed in the days that the