A group of economic operatives have joined forces to mobilise the economics community through the IDEAeconomics initiative. Influential thinkers including Ann Pettifor, Michael Hudson, Dirk Bezemer, James Galbraith, Steve Keen and others, are promoting a dynamic monetary view of the economy – hence the full name Institute of Dynamic Economic Analysis – and are advancing practical policies that will stabilise the macro-economy while ensuring full employment and equitable prosperity. This is a movement worth supporting.
They have a number of programs running in order to bring fundamental change to economics practice and teaching (see them all here), one interesting project being a graphics novel centred on Keen’s book Debunking Economics, combined with the work of Ann Pettifor and Ha-Joon Chang.
A Kickstarter campaign is running now to raise the funds necessary to have the book produced. I’d encourage everyone to chip in where they can.
Here is a promotional video and some of the commentary from the fantastic artists and writers involved with the project.
Wouldn’t it be great to learn about the economy in a way that didn’t suck? Too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. Income inequality is a worldwide problem. Students are graduating with record debts. Trillion dollar wars are charged to the national credit card of debt. We’re inheriting economies in crisis, yet less than half of all U.S. high schools require any kind of economics or finance courses in order to graduate.
Help us launch our graphic novel series – CRASH, BOOM, POP! – to help lay a good foundation in economics. We want to expose how money and economics actually work, without the complicated rhetoric. Everyday questions that befuddle our brains like: How is money created? Why do housing prices keep rising? Why are interest rates at all time lows (even if your credit card interest may not be)? What’s the purpose of austerity? Why do central banks, like the Federal Reserve, continue printing more currency?
Confused? So were we. Then we read some books that cut through the confusion: Steve Keen’s Debunking Economics, Ann Pettifor’s Just Money – How to Break the Despotic Power of Finance and Ha-Joon Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, just to name a few.
As a team with a background in finance, education and economics, we did our best to digest all of this information for you. Now we want to share what we’ve learned.
Here is the link again.
*I am a contracted writer for IDEAeconomics