Tom Streithorst
Spend, spend, spend: in this climate, you can't have too much of a good thing
Britain, along with much of the western world, has (barely) managed to crawl its way out of recession. That it has done so is mostly thanks to unprecedented and, I dare say heroic, government easing. For two years, monetary policy has been spectacularly loose, with interest rates close to zero, and fiscal policy has been hugely expansive, with deficits more than doubling. Finance ministers haven’t had much choice. With the private sector deleveraging, households and businesses saving instead of spending, the government has had to step in order to maintain demand. Imagine what a mess we would be in today with interest rates at normal levels and without massive deficit spending. Unemployment would be through the roof. But all this government expenditure, combined with lower tax revenues, has pushed deficits to almost wartime levels. The question is: will bond markets continue to shrug off what some see as unsustainable budget deficits?
Economists are fighting a civil war over what is more frightening: government deficits or their eradication. We should all pay attention, because the consequences of either side winning could be brutal.
Read more »
James Crabtree
Generally intellectual
Noam Chomsky. Francis Fukuyama. Anthony Giddens. Christopher Hitchens. Slavoj Zizek. All names that didn’t even make the top 10 in Prospect’s contest to crown 2008’s public intellectual of the year. So who did? Moving on from previous attempts to list the world’s 100 greatest living public intellectuals, this year we decided to name those who had the most impact in 2008 alone. We took soundings—from friends, here on First Drafts and on our Facebook group—to bring up a shortlist. From there it was down to our panel of judges. A three-way contest emerged, between economist Nouriel Roubini, social scientists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and General David Petraeus. Our judges voted according to type: the wonks liked the Nudge duo, the more economically minded wanted a thinker linked to the credit crunch, while foreign policy watchers thought the soldier-philosopher deserving of the nod. On our website we provide details of all our judges’ votes, and their reasons, along with short bios of all those we considered. Ultimately, though, there could only be one winner. As in Iraq, so in Prospect: Petraeus surged to victory.
James Crabtree
but who is 2008's biggest public brain?
We just put the Christmas edition of the magazine to bed, at 3am on Wednesday morning. If you join up for our Facebook group you can see the new cover, and get an overview of the contents. If you aren’t on Facebook, like David Goodhart, our hold-out editor, I’ll put it up here in a day or two. The magazine, meanwhile, arrives at a train station near you in the middle of next week.
Personally, I’m most excited about the results of our public intellectual of 2008 poll. This is different from our previous public vote poll, run with Foreign Policy, to find the greatest living public intellectual. This one is just about the figure who did best in 2008 – and is picked by us, and a team of all-star judges. Thanks to any of you who threw names into the hat for consideration, when we announced it here on First Drafts a month or so ago.
I can’t put the winner on here just yet, but will put the shortlist up shortly. In the meantime, below, are the people who just missed out on the top 10 – those we liked a lot, but didn’t make the cut. More on who actually won in due course – along with the judges’ decisions, and the eventual winner. If this lot didn’t win, who would you have given it to? And what do you make of this longlist – just the same old group of old white English-speaking men? Click the more button to see the list…….
Read more »
Post a comment »
