I've just been reading Joseph Stiglitz book called "Freefall - America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy"
It's really excellent. His analysis of the reasons why the unregulated markets led to the 2008 financial crisis is absolutely compelling, and his suggestions for routes for action are very appropriate. However, it's a shame that he didn't say anything about the possibility of using a Financial Transaction Tax. Even the paperback edition, that includes an extensive afterword about the events that happened during the 8 months since the publication of the hardback edition doesn't mention it.
However, I note that there have been a couple of reports that Joseph Stiglitz is now talking positively about FTTs - see here and here.
I can't wait for the second edition of Freefall....
Oh, I've found a couple of new interesting papers.
First, there's a very nice paper by Robert Pollin entitled "Austerity is not a solution: Why the deficit hawks are wrong".
But there's also a paper that I missed by Marcos Cintra that came out in the Journal of Accounting and Taxation last june that is called "A new tax technology: The Brazilian experience with a general bank transactions tax".
My best wishes to you all for 2011. Despite the desperate economic situation, I really do think there is hope....
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