Books On Economics, Politics, Fiscal Policy and Trade

This book is the first and only book on platinum coin seigniorage and the Trillion Dollar Coin! I published Fixing the Debt Without Breaking America: Austerity, the Trillion Dollar Coin, and Ending Debt Ceiling, Sequester, and Budgetary Crises, in early March of 2013 and updated it in January of 2014. A blurb on the book is at the link.

This book was motivated by the legislative battle to pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), so the President would have an easier time getting the Congress to agree to the “free trade” deals currently being negotiated by the Obama Administration. The first of these deals, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the main subject of the book, which evaluates the trade deals very critically.

It was hard, during the Spring and Summer of 2015 to ignore what was going on in the tug of war over fiscal policy between the Eurozone and Greece. At the end of July, I attended a Panel presented under the auspices of Senator Sanders to discuss the situations in Greece and Puerto Rico, though it was mostly focused on Greece. The panel included James K. Galbraith, Joseph E. Stieglitz, Jacob Kirkegaard, and was moderated by Stephanie Kelton one of the top MMT thinkers and also the Chief Economist for the Minority Side of the Senate Budget Committee. In addition Senator Sanders and the Greek Ambassador both made statements underlining the importance of the issues related to the crises in Greece and Senator Sanders remarks also included his evaluation of the Puerto Rico crisis. This panel produced a very deep discussion of the issues and motivated me to do a short book on the subject which included some suggestions for resolving some of the difficulties besetting Greece in taking on the financial blackmail being practiced by the Eurozone.

Declarations of Dependence is primarily a critical evaluation of the likely ruinous impact of the trade deals on the US system of governance. So, when I finished it, it was clear to me that I also needed to write one discussing alternative trade policies to the managed trade envisioned in the pending agreements. I also clearly saw the interdependence of foreign trade and fiscal policies of the United States. This book focuses on both the areas of policy and advocates for creating policies co-ordinating the likely impacts of both. I think the approach taken in the book breaks new ground and uses a Modern Money Theory approach to good effect.

Fiscal Myths of Campaign 2016 was written with the objective of helping people to work their way through the propaganda on fiscal responsibility and austerity that has been emanating from most of the candidates for the presidency of both parties, from the leaders of Congress, from the CBO, and from many non-profit organizations including, most especially, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF). The book analyzes and refutes many of the most common fiscal myths.

This is the first of two volumes showing that the common view of fiscal responsibility as deficit and debt reduction is, in fact, faux fiscal responsibility, and that real fiscal responsibility is something entirely different, which can even involve running continuous deficits for the foreseeable future, and complete lack of concern for debt reduction. This volume focuses on progressive politics in Washington, DC and shows that most progressives share the basic neoliberal assumptions about fiscal responsibility as “centrist” and conservative politicians and interest groups. This sharing of assumptions provides the foundation for a progressive give-up formula that has facilitated the rolling back of the New Deal and Great Society reforms.

This is Vol II in the Real Fiscal Responsibility series. It focuses on the dominant political network in Washington, DC influencing fiscal policy toward faux fiscal responsibility, according to the dictates of neoliberalism. This network is focused around the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and includes members and leaders of both major parties in Congress, Presidents, Former Federal Reserve Chairs, Board members, and Fed regional chief executives, former CBO officials, and prominent business leaders, media personalities, non-profit executives, and well-known policy analysts and economists. The analysis shows that the activities of this network are highly political, and heavily biased towards the interests of globalizing financial capitalism, huge corporations, government austerity and inequality.

Books on Knowledge Management

Riskonomics presents a Knowledge Management approach to risk, focusing on the risk of error in the knowledge we use to evaluate decisions viewed as risks or opportunities. The approach is based on Karl Popper’s thinking rather than on Bayesian approaches, and also incorporates the role of value judgments in assessing risks, and risk intelligence.

Key issues in the New Knowledge Management covers the following issues: (1) The knowledge conundrum (knowledge wars); (2) The nature of knowledge processing (origin and character of the Knowledge Life Cycle); (3) Information Management or Knowledge Management? (4) Generations of Knowledge Management: three views; (5) The role of knowledge claim evaluation in Knowledge Production and two formal approaches to measuring truthlikeness; (6) Applications of the Knowledge Life Cycle framework: theory and practice in TNKM; (7) KM as best practices systems – where’s the context? (8) What comes first: KM or strategy? (9) Is culture a barrier in KM? (10) The Open Enterprise and sustainable innovation; (11) Portal progress and Knowledge Management; (12) Foundations of Intellectual Capital frameworks and the need to broaden them; (13) Conclusion: the Knowledge Management landscape, the vision of Knowledge Management, and the future of TNKM.

Enterprise Information Portals and Knowledge Management thoroughly considers, explores, and analyzes: (1) The EIP orientation, outlook and evolution; (2) A new methodology for estimating EIP benefits and costs; (3) EIP and Enterprise Knowledge Portals (EKP) architecture; (4) The approaching role of software agents in EIPs and EKPs; (5) On knowledge, knowledge processes, and knowledge management; (6) The current and future contribution of EIP and EKP solutions to Knowledge Management; (7) The role of XML in portal architecture; (8) A comprehensive, multi-dimensional, and forward-looking segmentation of EIP products accompanied by portal product case studies; (9) Where EIP sector companies are headed and the pathways they will follow to get there.

Knowledge Management and Reducing Risk, a fictional business fable version of my Riskonomics kindle book, is for everyone who makes decisions and works in an organization of any sort. For the general reader it:

— is essential reading, in a world where our largest companies may be destroyed or brought low, our most prestigious governments robbed of legitimacy, and top executives made vulnerable to prosecution, by risky decision making;

— tells the story of how a large corporation, learned how to reduce risk in its decision making by taking the novel approach of surfacing problems, creating new decision models, and killing its worst ideas through critical exchange;

— is a quick, entertaining, brief, and simple read that provides both a new approach and practical advice for all in Business, Government, Non-profit, Non-Governmental, and Supranational organizations about how to reduce risk in decision making;

— provides a general approach to reducing risk that can also be used in everyday life and is not restricted to organizations, alone; and finally,

— is perfect for plane rides and rail commuters, because it is short and uses a conversational, storytelling approach.

Finally, you’ll find a bit more detailed information on the economics and politics books and on Riskonomics in individual posts here.