US Politics: Economist's View comments via NachDenkSeiten on James Galbraith Interview and the United States Political Spectrum

Mark Thoma at Economist's View in James Galbraith on US Politics writes regarding the English version produced at his blog:

"Here's the second part of the the interview of Jamie Galbraith (German version) conducted by Roger Strassburg and Jens Berger of the German blog NachDenkSeiten (the first part is here). This is on US politics...."

Interesting is the idea that rampant right wing economics has in part developed because of the fall of the Soviet Union and the erroneous idea of a number of people that there are no workable alternatives to capitalism.

Of course, there is a serious flaw in that view, because pure capitalism does not exist.

That is the colossal error of far right wing economics, as we posted at Law Pundit at Social Capitalism and the USA: America, You Have Socialism, You Just Don't Know It, with many people in the USA not realizing that what America and the rest of the free world actually has, is social capitalism, and that is a completely different animal than the pure entrepreneurial capitalism that everyone is touting, but which does not exist at all. It is a nostalgic myth.

Economic Instability: Economist's View comments via NachDenkSeiten on James Galbraith Interview and the Idea that Inequality Goes Hand and Hand with Instability

Mark Thoma at Economist's View in Via NachDenkSeiten: James Galbraith on Inequality writes regarding the English version produced at his blog:

"Roger Strassburg and Jens Berger of the German blog NachDenkSeiten thought you might enjoy this interview about inequality with James Galbraith (German version). There are two additional segments, one on the Euro crisis and one on US politics, and I'll follow up with those over the next few days."

Interesting is Galbraith's core idea that measures of inequality are very good indicators of instability.

Socialist Francois Hollande Defeats Nicolas Sarkozy in French Presidential Election as Paul Krugman Reader Hollande Will Surely Follow a Growth and Income Equality Policy Rather than Austerity and Income Inequality

As reported by all the news media, e.g. BBC News in

France election: A vote for change

Francois Hollande has defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in the French Presidential Election, only the second time in the Fifth Republic that a socialist is going to occupy Elysee Palace and the first such win for the French political left in 25 years.

As written at the BBC by Gavin Hewitt:

"Before the first round of voting Francois Hollande spoke the language of the left. "My true adversary in this battle," he said "has no name, no face, no party... it is the world of finance."

He promised to create 60,000 new education posts. He promised to squeeze the rich. "The soul of France is equality," he said."

Nevertheless, the direction is set, as Hollande is almost surely to follow the path of economic growth and income equality rather than austerity and income inequality, especially since Hollande is a reader of Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who has been attacking austerity for the past decade, arguing it is the totally wrong solution to the world's economic and financial problems.

Simon Kennedy at Bloomberg Business Week in Krugman Wishes He Were Wrong on EU wrote as follows just a few days ago:

"In a camp that boasts fellow Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Krugman’s voice has been loudest in warning that deploying austerity in a slump is self-defeating....

“Francois Hollande has read Krugman,” Michel Sapin, one of Hollande’s economic advisers, said in an interview...."

French unemployment has hit 10% and austerity measures were certainly not working well in France, so that this change was no surprise from the standpoint of economics, but nevertheless a surprise in the defeat of an incumbent.

It will be interesting to see what impact this election has on the politics and policies in the rest of the European Union as well as in the United States and the world. Arguably, the road to austerity has been met by a fork in the road.

Albert Einstein Archive Digitization Online: High Resolution Document Scans Available

For those physic(ally) inclined....

The Einstein Archives Online
at alberteinstein.info,
are a joint project of the

• Albert Einstein Archives
  The Library Authority
  Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  , and the
• Einstein Papers Project
  California Institute of Technology
  with the support of
  the Princeton University Press

and now, as part of a 2012 digitization project,
high resoluton document scans are being made available

for free viewing or browsing.

Keyword search of the Archival Database is provided
together with a Finding Aid to the Albert Einstein Archives,
which includes Einstein's Biographical Timeline.

Hat tip to the just published print version of the German computer magazine CHIP, 06/2012, p. 11. See also online chip.de.

Crossposted from Einstein's Voice.