Marx2

This is an excellent, if dry book, but it suffers in comparison to the more politically focused books reviewed above because it aims for a new understanding of Keynesian economics as an antidote to failed neoliberalism. Reading economics, even good economics, just reminds me how general economics is, how easy it is for models to be more linked to currently fashionable ideologies then the messy complexity of our real world. Still, someday perhaps economics departments may again include significant sections which are not dependent on consultancy to business and which…read more

King wrote his book immediately after retiring as governor of the Bank of England. He sets the tone on page one with an evocative quote: “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/ Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” (TS Eliot). Despite – or because? – he was so close to the London financial sector’s undermining of corporate productivity and pillaging of global government tax revenues, his proposals for new central bank approaches are both practical and egalitarian. Changing The Banking Rules A central recommendation is…read more

This book will really open your mind to the fragility and corruption of modern corporations. Brooks traces the path of today’s Big Four accounting firms – who audit nearly all of today’s top 100 UK-listed firms –  from their humble origins as honest external auditors for business to today’s role as the drivers of corporate tax avoidance, shareholder wealth maximisation, and the race to the bottom called national competitiveness. The first western ancestor of today’s accountants was the Italian mathematician Fibonacci, who brought Arabic counting methods to the west in…read more