Printing money, imports and inflation

Readers Question: I’ve recently been studying monetarism and I have a question with regards to printing money. It is well known than printing money leads to inflation as demonstrated by the Fisher equation, but say if the new money created was all spent on imports i.e. all the newly printed money leaked from the domestic …

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Economics and Positive Thinking

If you read any number of self-improvement books, you will come across ideas such as ‘what you think, you will become’. Over, 2,500 years ago, the Buddha said: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” When overused these positive thinking mantras …

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Does Quantitative Easing automatically cause higher inflation?

Readers Question: 1. I read somewhere that accommodative monetary policy (in other words, quantitative easing) does not automatically result in higher inflation. For higher inflation to occur, the output gap must be crossed. i.e. idle factories back in business, unemployment rates down, etc. However, I don’t think the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was preceded by increasing …

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End This Depression Now – Review

Paul Krugman has been one of the clearest and strongest advocates of fiscal stimulus to end the recession which we have faced since the credit crisis of 2008. The basic premise of the book – ‘End This Depression Now!‘ is based on Keynesian analysis of a prolonged recession and liquidity trap. The basic argument is …

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Question on Central Bank Lending

Readers Question:… So, basically we have the FED using it’s money to liquidate the fund’s of other people, and those other people are lending, or a portion of them are lending, the fund’s that they now have because of the FED. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the FED to, instead of purchasing bonds so …

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Prospects for Recovery in the UK economy 2012?

Given very low expectations, there are some encouraging signs for a weak economic recovery in the UK. The OBR increased growth forecasts to 0.8% in the UK for 2012. Helped by the recovery in the service sector, it looks like the UK will avoid a double dip recession. This still leaves GDP below the 2008 …

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Explaining Paradoxes of UK Economy

Readers Question: There just seems to be many paradoxical actions taking place in markets and economies at the moment. How do we explain? Paradoxes of UK economy Low interest rates have not increased spending / economic growth Despite recession, inflation has been above target. Despite recession and depreciation of Pound, current account deficit increased in …

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Question: Why does economics create so many opinions?

Readers Question: Economics is a social science, it contains graphs, diagrams and statistics to make strong evaluations and at university level it also often seems to have a strong Maths content which allows for even stronger analysis, calculation of events and evidence of theories. So how is it possible that often economic events such as …

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