Daily Archives: March 31, 2019


Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey

Here is the entry point the online course Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey. This is where you will get to the table of contents for the course.

A close reading of the text of Karl Marx’s Capital Volume I in 13 video lectures by Professor David Harvey.

I don’t quite know what to put here to explain why I think this course might have such great value. I’ll list the two podcasts that gave me the hint, in case you are interested. It is not necessary to listen to either one of them if you are already interested in diving into the course. Social Media and the Internet as a Powerful Organizing Tool – Part 1 and Social Media and the Internet as a Powerful Organizing Tool – Part 2. I actually listened to Part 2 before I listened to Part 1.

The Getting Started web page for the course will tell you how to get the version of the book that has the same page numbers as discussed in the lecture. This link is also in the table of contents mentioned at the top of this post.


Fed Official: Climate Change is an ‘International Market Failure’

Naked Capitalism has the article Fed Official: Climate Change is an ‘International Market Failure’.

Since Congress has yet to take sufficient action, Rudebusch says that the Fed could, in theory, take matters into its own hands by encouraging a shift away from fossil fuels. The problem is, the Fed’s only official job is to keep inflation tame and unemployment low. And its tools are limited to buying and selling government debt to tweak interest rates.

What was the Fed buying in the various phases of quantitative easing? Quantitative Easing Explained.

The bank buys securities from its member banks to add liquidity to capital markets.

So, there already seems to be a little stretchiness in the definition of what the Fed can buy. Still, the stretchiness that already exists might not be enough to cover what Rudebusch thinks is necessary.