Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Who Is Hyman Minsky

and what does he have to do with all this economic meltdown stuff?
Lawyers always say you should never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to.
(Inelegant writing, I know, I should go back to bed.)
I don't know who Hyman Minsky is, but this guy does.
For those of you able to bear it, there's an enlightening and probably useful discussion going on over at TPM Cafe focused on the reissue of Krugman's book on the Depression (Great Depression? were there minor depressions? then what's a recession? Hyman Minsky? Huh?)
Some have called this current crisis the "Minsky Moment", but actually it is more accurate to recognize this as the culmination of the "Minsky Half-Century".

Minsky, schminsky, I just always loved the name Hyman. If I were to have a son, I would surely name him Hyman.

4 comments:

  1. Professor Wray is a student of Hyman Minsky and wrote his PhD Dissertation under Minsky, I believe. He (Wray) is at the Univ. of Missouri - Kansas City last I heard.

    Yeah Minsky is experiencing a real resurgence lately. I have one of his books on order. When I was in graduate school, his ideas were kept in a room in the basement with rugs thrown over them (not relevant to the conventional wisdom of the time --or at least where I went to grad school).

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  2. When I was in graduate school, his ideas were kept in a room in the basement with rugs thrown over them

    hilarious

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  3. " If I were to have a son, I would surely name him Hyman."

    And he would be the toughest kid in school. Didn't Johnny Cash record a song like this?

    "A Boy Named Hyman"

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