114,014 research outputs found
"The Ownership Society: Social Security Is Only the Beginning"
No full textFrom this paper's Preface, by Dr. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President: As his new term begins, President Bush has been trying to focus his domestic agenda on what he calls the Òownership society,Ó a sweeping vision of an America in which more citizens would hold significant assets and be free to make their own choices about providing for their health care and retirement, and educating their children. L. Randall Wray, who has written for the Levy Institute on many topics, evaluates the premises and logic of this program in this new public policy brief. Wray points out that much of the history of the Western world since the advent of liberalism has been marked by a gradual rise in the power of those who lack property. Some of the milestones in this progression include universal suffrage, regulation of business, and progressive taxation. BushÕs ownership society proposals, according to Wray, would result in a partial reversal of the progress of the last 250 years. The reason is that, while BushÕs plans would undoubtedly increase the choices and power of those who have property, they would fail to democratize ownership. Many gains to the wealthy would come at the expense of the poor, the sick, and the elderly. Consider, for example, the condition of the nationÕs private pension system. Increasingly, firms are switching from defined-benefit to definedcontribution plans. This development would seem on its surface to favor the establishment of a new class of stockholders, empowered and holding a larger stake in the system. But, as Wray demonstrates, retirement accounts and other assets just do not add up to a substantial amount for most Americans. This means that most citizens have much to lose indeed from attacks on Social Security and the erosion of the traditional pension system. Much as the safety net for the poor has largely vanished since the Reagan years, the bread-and-butter benefits and rights of the middle class are now threatened by the ownership-society agenda. To many, the claim made by Republicans that all should take responsibility for their wellbeing rings true. But it is important to keep in mind the real alternative to public benefits for the middle class: a society in which success would depend largely upon luck, inheritances, or charity. A society that forces individuals to read their future in their Microsoft Money files inevitably creates a class of nonowners who are insecure and lack independent means. Ironically, this runs up against the aims of those who sincerely hope for a world in which more have the opportunity to become rich: moving upward often brings some setbacks along the way, which might be fatal in a world of reduced bankruptcy protection, disability and medical benefits, and educational aid.
"Government Deficits, Liquidity Preference, and Schumpeterian Innovation"
No full textWray asserts that rigorous analyses of the role played by innovation in economic development must acknowledge the contribution of Joseph Schumpeter. However, the author suggests that the current stagnation confronting most developed, capitalist economies "cannot be understood without synthesizing Schumpeter's insights with those of Kalecki and Keynes." Hence, Schumpeter's work alone is inadequate in explaining the links between government deficits in ensuring aggregate demand and corporate profits.
"The Origins of Money and the Development of the Modern Financial System"
No full textThe origins of money and banking are explained in nearly every introduction money and banking course, but Wray proposes an alternative approach that emerges from a comparative analysis of economic institutions. Orthodox theory suggests that barter replaced self-sufficiency and increased efficiency by fostering specialization- subsequently, establishing some object as a medium of exchange permits greater efficiency. In essence, the orthodox economist espouses the view that we operate in a free market economy in which "neutral money is used primarily to facilitate exchange of real goods, undertaken by self-interested maximizers for personal gain." Institutionalists reject this argument because it emerges from the perspective of a rational economic agent facing scarce resources and unlimited wants-thus, the focus is on choice. Wray states that economic analyses must incorporate interactions between humans and nature, and that the economy is a "component of the material life process of society." Hence, the conventionalists' focus on choice should instead be directed at production and distribution. The Wray thesis suggests that money is necessarily endogenously determined: Monetary economies have not, and cannot, operate with exogenous money supply can function with a commodity reserve system, such a system is subject to periodic debt deflations. In sum, the monetarist policy prescription would be counterproductive to systemic stability and would not yield greater control of the money supply.
58528: Letter from Pte Sid Wray
No full textLetter sent by Private Sid Wray from Curragh Camp to his pal Sid Morgan (my father) on the Somme, recalling good times past and complaining about the army life. Pte Wray was later killed at Arras (see other items submitted).
Editor's Comment:
Pte. 23959 Sidney George Wray, C Squadron, 1st Troop, 16th Lancers, later transferred to the 1st Bn. East Surrey Regiment, taking a new regimental number (32541). Killed in action, 8th May 1917, aged 19. He has no known grave, and is commemorated on Bay 6 of the Arras Memorial.
Driver 146147 S. Morgan, Royal Field Artillery, 23rd Division, served in No. 3 section, Divisional Ammunition Column, and later in V/23 Trench Mortar Battery.</p
"The Fed and the New Monetary Consensus: The Case for Rate Hikes, Part Two"
No full textFrom this paper's Preface, by Dr. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President: In Public Policy Brief No. 79, L. Randall Wray wrote about the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate hikes that "the most charitable interpretation of the Fed’s policy change is that it appears to be premature."Wray marshaled a convincing array of data on payrolls, employment-to-population ratios, and other labor market indicators to show "that the current recovery has not yet attained the degree of labor market tightness that was common in previous recoveries," and therefore that the threat of inflation was minimal. Hence, the Fed, in raising rates, was unnecessarily jeopardizing the economy’s weak recovery. In this new brief, we learn about the flaws in the Fed’s thinking that have led to its frequent policy mistakes.Wray traces several strands of current central bank thinking back to their roots in the Fed’s internal discussions in the mid-1990s. Transcripts of these discussions have recently been released, a development that has yielded some disturbing and telling insights about the way in which monetary policy is formed. The situation of 1994 closely parallels that of current times. Unemployment was clearly above its lowest sustainable level, and inflation was low. Still, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and its chairman, Alan Greenspan, believed that interest rates had to be raised to keep prices in check. As it turned out, inflation stayed low, even as unemployment sank to levels previously believed to be inflationary. The Fed’s interest rate hikes proved to be unnecessary at best and counterproductive at worst. Not only is the current economic environment reminiscent of 1994, but so are contemporary justifications for recessionary policies.Wray lists six tenets of policy making common to both periods: transparency, gradualism, activism, low inflation as the only official goal, surreptitious targeting of distributional variables, and the neutral rate as the policy instrument to achieve these goals. The Fed would not be eager to espouse some of these principles publicly, but they were all discussed in committee meetings, as the recently released transcripts make clear—and there is no reason to think the Fed has changed its philosophy. Wray shows that this philosophy is convoluted. Fed officials claim that they are attempting to reach a neutral interest rate that neither provokes inflation nor causes recession. But they also say that they will not know the level of the neutral rate until they reach it. Little can be gained by pursuing such a chimerical goal. Moreover, even when the interest rate was far below its supposedly neutral level, the economy seemed to be free of inflation. Finally, the Fed seems to have painted itself into a corner by promising in advance a gradual series of interest rate increases. It is small wonder that the press finds the Fed’s public statements to be somewhat confusing and cryptic. The Fed transcripts shed light on the events of 1994 and those of the present day. I think that it is time for a new approach to monetary policy; this brief shows why.
Paraneoplastic Opsoclonus/Flutter
No full textOpsoclonus; Ocular FlutterOscillopsiaIn 1975 this patient presented with oscillopsia due to opsoclonus with ocular flutter. Opsoclonus with flutter is a paraneoplastic syndrome associated with occult cancer of the breast, ovary and lung. This patient had cancer of the breast. In 1954 Cogan first used the term "ocular flutter" to describe a rare disorder of horizontal eye movements characterized by rapid bursts of synchronous back-to-back horizontal oscillatory movements usually seen in the primary position of gaze. Since then, there have been over 50 reports, usually single cases or small series, linking the phenomenon to a wide variety of brainstem and cerebellar conditions, e.g. post enteroviral infection, cerebral malaria, cyclosporine treatment and meningitis, but perhaps most frequently associated with parainfectious states or, with opsoclonus, as a paraneoplastic manifestation of occult malignancy. In 1986, a patient of mine presented with opsoclonus as a manifestation of occult adenocarcinoma of the breast. Her cerebrospinal fluid and blood were found to contain an anti-neuronal antibody which was named after her, using the first two initials of her surname, the Anti Ri antibody. Anti-Ri Antibody: The index case ID931-1 is in this collection. Review this case alongside the current case for additional information.This patient with paraneoplastic opsoclonus/flutter has: • Continuous, spontaneous, rapid multidirectional conjugate saccades characteristic of opsoclonus. • These oscillations persist under closed eyelids and during sleep. • In addition she has ocular flutter seen here as horizontal back-to-back saccades without an inter- saccadic interval.Review ID166-2 No imaging studies are available in this patient.Review ID166-2Breast adenocarcinomaTable 10-8 Etiology of Ocular Flutter and Opsoclonus. Pg 525 (6)1. Averbuch-Heller L, Remler B. Opsoclonus. Semin Neurol 1996;16 (1):21-26. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8879053 2. Budde-Steffen C, Anderson NE, Rosenblum MK, Graus F, Ford D, Synek, BJL, Wray, SH, Posner JB. An anti-neuronal autoantibody in paraneoplastic opsoclonus. Ann Neurol 1988;23:528-531. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3389761 3. Buttner U. Straube A, Handke V. Opsoclonus and ocular flutter. Nervenarzt 1997;68:633-637. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9380208 4. Cogan DG. Ocular dysmetria: flutter like oscillations of the eyes, and opsoclonus. Arch Ophthalmol 1954;51:318-335. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13123617 5. Helmchen C, Rambold H, Sprenger A, Erdmann C, Binkofski F. Cerebellar activation in opsoclonus: An fMRI study. Neurology 2003;61:412-415. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12913213 6. Leigh RJ, Zee DS. Diagnosis of Nystagmus and Saccadic Intrusion. Chp 10:475-558. In: The Neurology of Eye Movements, Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press, NY. 2006. 7. Luque AF. Furneaux HM, Ferziger R, Rosenblum MK, Wray SH, Schold SC Jr, Glantz MJ, Jaeckle KA, Biran H, Lesser MK, Paulsen WA, River ME, Posner JH. Anti-Ri: an antibody associated with paraneoplastic opsoclonus and breast cancer. Ann Neurol 1991;29:241-251. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2042940 8. Shams\u27ili S, Grefkens J, de Leeuw, B, van den Bent M, Hooijkaas H, van der Holt, Bronno, Vecht C, and Smitt, PS. Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration associated with antineuronal antibodies: analysis of 50 patients. Brain 2003; 126(6):1409-1418. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12764061 9. Wong AM, Musallam S, Tomlinson RD, Shannon P, Sharpe JA. Opsoclonus in three dimensions: oculographic, neuropathologic and modeling correlates. J Neurol Sci 2001;189:71-81. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1153523
author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 – Supplemental material for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct
No full textSupplemental material, author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct by George Wood, Daria Roithmayr and Andrew V. Papachristos in Socius</p
"Financial Markets Meltdown: What Can We Learn from Minsky"
No full textAccording to this new Public Policy Brief by Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray, the current crisis in financial markets can be traced back to securitization (the "originate and distribute" model), leverage, the demise of relationship-based banking, and the dizzying array of extremely complex instruments that--quite literally--only a handful understand.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
WRAY-977 (GX301-2) - A HYPERGIANT WITH PULSAR COMPANION
No full textWray 977, the B supergiant companion of the X-ray pulsar GX301-2, should be classified as B 1 Ia+, based on a comparison of its optical spectrum to that of zeta(1) Sco, a well-known B hypergiant and one of the brightest stars in our galaxy. The classification of Wray 977 as a hypergiant results in a new distance determination of the binary system, i.e. d = 5.3 kpc (previously 1.8 +/- 0.3 kpc). The ''average'' X-ray luminosity of the pulsar is then similar to 10(37) erg s(-1), in good agreement with the predicted X-ray luminosity resulting from accretion of a dense, low-velocity (v(infinity) = 400 km s(-1)) stellar wind. A mass-loss rate of less than or similar to 10(-5) M. yr(-1) is estimated from the H alpha profile. A new upper limit for the inclination of the system is derived which provides a lower limit to the (present) mass of Wray 977 (48 M.). Regarding current binary evolution scenarios, the empirical lower mass limit for black-hole formation in a binary increases to M(ZAMS) greater than or similar to 50 M..</p
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