News about John Maynard Keynes

For some it sounds like a no-brainer. Others think it's too good to be true. To traditionalists who pride themselves on their work ethic, it's nothing more than a shirker's charter. The idea of a four-day working week - with five days' pay - to its advocates, is as seductive as it is simple. Fewer hours for the same pay and the same output. Hey presto, everyone gains. Employees benefit from a better work-life balance and well-being, with an extra day off to spend with friends and family. Companies bag an instant productivity boost as inefficient ways of working are purged and output per hour is boosted.

As he tells it, the story of Gary Stevenson, a working-class geezer and self-styled YouTube economics guru is a tale worthy of a modern-day Charles Dickens. The 37-year-old socialist, who claims to have the formula for a fairer economy, says he made so much money in the City that he never needs to work again. He also claims to dispense his economic wisdom for free - though his recent best-selling memoir, to be found on coffee tables all over trendy Islington, is said to have earned a six-figure advance. He's hardly John Maynard Keynes.

Normally, all roads lead to China these days, when it comes to the unexpected on financial markets. And this is as a result of the gold price's increase. However, it is not just gold, which has hit new heights, that is profiting from the search for assets beyond shares (currently hitting new peaks in New York) and government bonds. With Bitcoin reaching new heights, the gamblers' instinct is still alive and well. Insatiable demand, fashionistas will know the Birkin handbag and its Dior and Prada competitors are both soaring.

Last Thursday, Japanese shares finally soared past their previous record, which was more than 34 years ago. So what should we learn from Japan's experience, particularly in the light of the current AI-inspired market boom of US technology companies? The most important thing is that there is a fine line between 'animal spirits' and 'irrational exuberance.' We seem to be in the same situation as Japan ten to fifteen years ago, when it was fashionable to talk about the country down. That will change. I'm hoping we won't see irrational exuberance, but we might do with a little less irrational anxiety.

After three months of decline, an indicator of private sector employment in the United Kingdom returned to growth in November. In contrast, there was no such revival in the single currency bloc. Following the'remarkable' decline in inflation, the update came as a leading 'hawk' at the European Central Bank.

Students at a top London university are starting a war on awakening by inventing a 'faculty for common sense' at a rival university. At the University of Buckingham, Professor Eric Kaufmann, 53, formerly Head of Politics at Birkbeck, is establishing a Heterodox Social Science Center as a symbol of academic free discourse.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF's managing director, warned Russia that the war against Ukraine and an escalating US-China war may result in a second 'Cold War.' Georgieva knows the consequences of being born behind Bulgaria's Iron Curtain. When it comes to common enemies China and Russia, America's political leaders are united in opprobrium. It is this geopolitical fault line that is threatening to jeopardize the post-World War II economic order's cohesion. The pioneering work of the late British economist John Maynard Keynes, one of the IMF and World Bank's founders, has never been more compromised.

Russia's brutal and unrelenting war on Ukraine has changed lives around the world. The effect on energy prices, cost of living, and manufacturing has been shattering. Residents in the United Kingdom have been systematically exposed to the cruelty of families forced to choose between keeping warm and well fed.

Tory donor Chris Rokos is willing for something to happen by allowing the message to appear in the public newspapers. Why otherwise would he share his views beyond a small cluster of clients affording everyone else a trading opportunity? The founder of Rokos Capital Management isn't the only one who has predicted the success of the United Kingdom. This week, deputy governor of the Bank of England Dave Ramsden, a former Treasury mandarin, suggested that the UK still had work to do to repair its image in the aftermath of mini-Budget mayhem. One wonders what he has in mind

Consumer and company behavior drives 'normal' inflation, which is largely triggered by a dramatic jump in global energy prices, which was first triggered by Covid's reopening and then exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine. Has the Bank of England got a grip on inflation and is raising rates really its only option in a troubling time for the UK economy? We take a look at the topic.