Research Catalog

Title

Toxic economic theory, fraudulent accounting standards, and the bankruptcy of economic policy / Robert Anthony Rayman.

Author

Rayman, R. A.

Publication

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

253 pages; 23 cm

Summary

Toxic economic theory originates from its 'schizophrenic' division into separate macro- and macro- compartments. The microeconomic market-value fallacy - by ignoring the macroeconomic repercussions - fosters the delusion that an increase in market value necessarily represents a gain in real wealth. This fallacy is responsible for fraudulent 'fair value' accounting standards and for an epidemic of 'balance-sheet myopia'. In creating an unsustainable pyramid of ever-increasing loans secured on ever-rising house-prices, it is the root cause of the current economic crisis. The macroeconomic single-gear fallacy - by disregarding the microeconomic foundations - encourages the misconception that the economy is a single-gear machine requiring no more than the lubrication of free competition for operation at its full employment potential. This fallacy is the product of a forty-year-old consensus manufactured to cover up a theoretical schism between squabbling Keynesian and monetarist sects. By inducing misplaced confidence in structural reform as the only long-term cure for unemployment, it continues to prevent a solution to the crisis. The legacy of toxic economic theory is the bankruptcy of economic policy. The accounting system (burdened by unhelpful and occasionally fraudulent standards) is hardly 'fit for purpose'; it is not reliable for assessing or comparing corporate performance and has become an almost overpowering incentive to 'short-termism'. The tax system has evolved (through a series of historical accidents) into a dysfunctional 'non-system' that obstructs the goals of economic policy. Single-gear macroeconomic policy, having failed to deliver full employment without inflation, now offers little more than a choice of evils: either single-gear 'austerity' - which jeopardises growth; or else single-gear 'growth' - which risks fuelling inflation. A Multi-Gear Strategy for Economic Recovery is outlined in the companion volume.

Subject

• Accounting > Standards
• BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / General
• BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Reference
• Economic policy
• Economics
• Financial crises

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Part I A Very Dismal Science -- 1 The Greatest Pyramid Scheme since the Time of the Pharaohs? 3 -- 2 From Economic Miracle to Credit Crunch: Thirty Years of Self-Delusion 9 -- Part II The Microeconomic "Market-Value" Fallacy -- 3 A Mediaeval System of Accounting 25 -- 4 Fair-Value Accounting and Balance-Sheet Myopia 37 -- 5 The Market-Value Delusion and the Credit Crunch 47 -- Part III The Macroeconomic "Single-Gear" Fallacy -- 6 The Topsy-Turvy Wonderland of Single-Gear Economics 65 -- 7 Traffique: The Praeheminent Studie of Princes 76 -- 8 Capitalism and Socialism: The Fatal Conceit 84 -- 9 A Genuine Free-Market Alternative 93 -- Part IV The Tax that Got Passed by Mistake -- 10 Income Tax: A Two-Hundred-Year-Old Myth 103 -- 11 The Assessed Taxes 108 -- 12 Not So Much a Tax, More an Anti-Avoidance Provision 116 -- 13 The Growth of the Monster 126 -- Part V Reform of the Tax System -- 14 Economic Efficiency or Social Justice? 141 -- 15 Taxation and "The Law of the Market" 149 -- 16 Pay As You Spend 160 -- 17 Pay As You Spend: The Social Justification 172 -- 18 Pay As You Spend: The Economic Justification 181 -- Part VI The Bankruptcy of Economic Policy -- 19 Toxic Economic Theory and Global Recession 197.

ISBN

9781137302014

LCCN

^^2013013305

OCLC

837924205

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library