Douglas Knight

Introduction to ‘Gospel and Economy’

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Unregulated finance, the ideology of unfettered free markets, and state capture by corporate interests are what ended up undermining democracy both in North America and in Europe. All industrialized countries are at risk, but it’s the eurozone – with its vulnerable structures – that points most clearly to our potentially unpleasant collective futures.
As a [...]

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Spread out before the early settlers of this continent was incredible untapped wealth in the form of vast unsettled lands filled with natural resources—all for the taking. Now that the Frontier is mostly tapped out, we are seeing the long, slow, decline from prosperity to scarcity…and with it the loss of individual freedom. How [...]

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Here is a draft of the first chapter of the Economics book for your inspection.
1 Man and Economy

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I have been both a central banker and a market regulator. I now find myself questioning whether my early career, largely devoted to liberalising and deregulating banking and financial markets, was misguided. In short, I wonder whether I contributed – along with a countless others in regulation, banking, academia and politics – to a great [...]

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The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point. If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung. Austria’s finance minister Josef Pröll made [...]

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Industrial economies are still at the mercy of peak oil. This basic fact of life means that we can’t expect the regular cyclical growth in productive activity that formed the baseline parameters for modern capital finance – meaning that we can’t run on revolving credit anymore because growth simply isn’t there to create real [...]

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James Featherby is calling for Christian responses to the Credit Crunch
The structure of the banking and financial markets are complex, and the transactions within it equally so. This often calls for nuanced judgement calls to be made between a variety of issues and the balancing of one set of competing duties against another. It is [...]

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Karl Denniger at Market Ticker – The fact of the matter is that you have been lied to for the last decade about our economic state, and if we do not divert from the road we are on our economy, our monetary system and our government WILL COLLAPSE.
The correct action to take in 2000 was [...]

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The mission (of Bernanke and Geither) is clear: to convince the world of two things at the same time… both impossible and mutually exclusive! The Chinese vigilantes must believe that the feds won’t undermine the dollar… and the rest of the world must believe that they will! Inflation is necessary for recovery and growth in [...]

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Events have already forced Irish Premier Brian Cowen to carry out the harshest assault yet seen on the public services of a modern Western state. He has passed two emergency budgets to stop the deficit soaring to 15pc of GDP. They have not been enough. The expert An Bord Snip report said last week that [...]

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So at last some theology. About time this blog posted some theology, I know.
Covenant, Hope and Human Future – Theological Economics Covenant, Hope and Human Future – Theological Economics Douglas Knight This paper sets out a Christian theological economics for which the concepts of self-gift, generosity and public service and the distinctive vocation of [...]

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Everyone’s situation is different, but overal this looks like an especially treacherous bear market, made doubly difficult by the actions of the Treasury and the Fed in bankrolling malinvestment, imbalances and corrupted price discovery. When in doubt, get out. Don’t get hooked by greed. This rally ‘could’ have some legs if it becomes a [...]

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Still on the subject of money, have you met Thomas Greco, David Boyle, Ellen Brown, David Korten and Richard Douthwaite ? A clear victory for the popularisers over the academics. Though there is a flash of genius from Willem Buiter (you’ll need to persevere).

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Whatever governments do for the banks, credit will be a lot harder to obtain for businesses…we have now entered the period of an unprecedented convergence of the four planetary issues – financial instability, climate change, unemployment and the financial consequences of an aging society – that was described in the 2001 book, The Future of [...]

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It is apparent now there remains only one way for ordinary Americans who love their country and want at least some of what’s good about it to be preserved for future generations: We must kill the FIRE Economy beasts (FIRE: Finance, Insurance and Real Estate). We’re the victims in a hostage situation, if you didn’t [...]

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Our current crisis is due to the fact that we have, as a civilization, refused to live within our means – and the means afforded us by the natural world – over roughly the past 50 years. Mistaking a temporary glut of post-war wealth and resource plenty as a permanent condition, we are told [...]

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Those expecting this deleveraging to result in a stronger dollar could not be more mistaken. The Obama Administration is scrambling to obtain relief from Europe and Asia, getting them to inflate their own currencies through ’stimulus,’ in order to continue to hide the unalterable truth – the US must partially default on its debt as [...]

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There is only one mistake to make when talking about economics. That is to talk about economics first and the Christian faith second. If we put them this way around, nothing we say is either Christian or useful. When we do not put the gospel first, we are only repeating what all others say, and [...]

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A few of the money-center banks, some insurance companies and many hedge funds made a series of bad bets. They are insolvent. There is a procedure for insolvency. The banks should be go into receivership and be broken up. The losses should be written off, and that’s that. Nothing new or radical in that solution, [...]

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