Adam Tooze is the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History and the Director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia he taught at Yale and the University of Cambridge. Adam Tooze is the author of four prize-winning books: Statistics and the German State: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (2001) Wages of Destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi economy (2006) Deluge: the Great War and the remaking of the global order (2014) Crashed: How a decade of financial crises changed the world appeared in August 2018. It was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize for 2019. Tooze is a prolific blogger and contributor to newspapers and journals around the world. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Foreign Policy magazine. In 2019 he was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 global thinkers. He is currently working on a book about the COVID-19 economic crisis.
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Episode 138
Adam Tooze
Germany’s Constitutional Court Ruling & the Myth of Central Bank Independence | Adam Tooze
Adam Tooze is the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History and the Director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia he taught at Yale and the University of Cambridge. Adam Tooze is the author of four prize-winning books: Statistics and the German State: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (2001) Wages of Destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi economy (2006) Deluge: the Great War and the remaking of the global order (2014) Crashed: How a decade of financial crises changed the world appeared in August 2018. It was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize for 2019. Tooze is a prolific blogger and contributor to newspapers and journals around the world. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Foreign Policy magazine. In 2019 he was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 global thinkers. He is currently working on a book about the COVID-19 economic crisis.
In Episode 138 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Adam Tooze, professor of history and Director of the European Institute at Columbia University about the German Constitutional Court’s recent ruling. In its decision, the German Court finds that the European Central Bank’s 2015 bond-buying program would be illegal under German law unless the ECB can prove the purchases are justified. The ruling threatens to undermine the very credibility of Central Bank independence, which has always been predicated on a political consensus about what the proper role of monetary policy is, how it should operate, and what its objectives should be.
This consensus no longer holds, not only in Europe but across much of the developed world. Left unresolved, the contradictions between the mandates of central banks and their policy actions will only worsen the type of political dysfunction that threatens the very independence that they seek to protect.
For Hidden Forces premium subscribers, this week’s hour-long episode overtime looks at how our collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic may say more about our own fear of death and disease than about the actual dangers posed by the virus. By calling into question our mastery over life and death the disease shakes the psychological basis of our social and economic order. It poses fundamental questions about priorities; it upends the terms of debate. It’s a conversation about history, philosophy, and the benefits and consequences of human progress.
You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Supercast Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.
Adam Tooze is the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History and the Director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia he taught at Yale and the University of Cambridge. Adam Tooze is the author of four prize-winning books:
Statistics and the German State: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (2001)
Wages of Destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi economy (2006)
Deluge: the Great War and the remaking of the global order (2014)
Crashed: How a decade of financial crises changed the world appeared in August 2018. It was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize for 2019. Tooze is a prolific blogger and contributor to newspapers and journals around the world. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Foreign Policy magazine. In 2019 he was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 global thinkers. He is currently working on a book about the COVID-19 economic crisis.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.