New Internationalist

Economics in seven days

Only slightly daunted by the size of the task, Peter Stalker sets out to communicate the entire body of economic thought… well, certainly a lot of it… some of the most important theories at least… or maybe just the bits that caught his fancy.

April 1984, Issue 134

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The Big Story

Day one - the seven day economic plan
Peter Stalker attempts to demystify economics by offering seven doses of explanation – to be taken daily or more often if required.
Day two - making money
How money arose, how it is made – and how fast it moves.
Day three - demanding work
Full employment just does not come naturally. It took John Maynard Keynes to show that government intervention was needed to keep the money moving round.
Day four - sizing up inflation
As the market-place became older and less flexible, inflation started to creep into Western economies. A look at the monetarist and Keynesian solution to this growing problem.
Day five – a third dimension
Developing countries usually find themselves to be the victims of the global economic system. the changes they need are as much political as financial.
Day six - trading terms
You might expect the flow of currencies internationally to follow economic patterns – but do they merely follow them or actually shape them?
Day seven – finding funds
World Bank and IMF officials stride around the developing countries offering their advice. But they are not so much financial technicians as politicians in bankers' suits.
Economic mechanisms - THE FACTS
The machine under stress: basic facts and figures.
The floss national product
A cartoon based on an idea by Peter Donaldson which looks at the ambiguous benefits of economic growth.
Action and reading on economics
Ideas for how to take action and where to read on...

Regulars

Update
New information on subjects covered in previous issues of the New Internationalist including US aid, video in India and Nestlé boycott suspended.
Briefly...
News on economics, human rights, Costa Rica, population, energy, minorities, disarmament, aid, communication and Indonesia.
Country profile
Vietnam
Reviews
Are Western experts ‘development tourists’? Two books this month show how poor world farmers are hindered by the West. And we review two do-it-yourself printing manuals.
Letters