Optimal Money Flow
Brand: Avila University Press
Categories: Books, Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government



Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
ISBN-13: 978-1734225204
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1734225203
Publisher: Avila University Press
Print length: 250 pages
Publication date: June 16, 2020
subtitle: Hardcover – June 16, 2020
author: Visit Amazon's Lawrence C Marsh Page search results Lawrence C Marsh
review: Editorial Reviews Review "Optimal Money Flow: A New Vision on How a Dynamic-Growth Economy Can Work for Everyone by Lawrence C. Marsh. Marsh (Brain on Fire), economics professor emeritus, delivers a lay-reader friendly examination of the ways economics and politics intersect in this timely take on solutions for steering economies back from recession. Marsh highlights the positive role government can play in nurturing a sound economy, both on the national and international stages. Readers will appreciate his well-reasoned discussions of the advantages of immigration and trade, in terms of mutually beneficial partnerships between nations, though they may be skeptical of Marsh's ambitious "My America" plan of providing Americans with Federal Reserve bank accounts, into which the Fed could deposit funds when recession threatens. Marsh argues that this would provide the Fed with a more direct method of stimulating the economy than the current approach of slashing interest rates. An unexpected but most welcome side benefit of Marsh's book is his ready sense of humor, seen in his account of a robbery that concluded with Marsh lecturing the thief on his criminal occupation's inherent cash-flow problems. In light of the financial repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, readers should appreciate this optimistic book's look at the importance of building a resilient economy well-prepared for extraordinary circumstances. (June)" Publishers' Weekly at publishersweekly.com/978-1-7342252-0-4 From the Author My father was a Wall Street banker. Vance Packard in his book "The Status Seekers" had labeled our town of Westfield, NJ as a bedroom community where half the town (mainly the males) left for NYC on the train each morning. In the 1950s I lived in a highly segregated world, which made me wonder why, when my mother drove my father to the train each morning, he would wave to a black man at the bus stop. One day I asked my father why he waved to this man. My father said there was no reason, they had just started waving to one another each morning. When my grandparents died, my father took me along to their estate on Park Avenue in East Orange, NJ. He wanted the advice and help of the black butler who managed my grandparents' estate. When we arrived, the butler immediately told my father that he needed to take me to the emergency room at Orange Memorial Hospital. My thumb was bright red with an infection. My father followed his advice and took me there. The doctors were very worried. They gave me shots to prevent the gangrene from setting in. I then realized that the butler had saved my life. I later realized that the reason my father waved to an unknown black man was because he had grown up with the servants' children who he saw as his good friends. In 1964 in my freshman year in college, I joined the NAACP. From the Inside Flap Lawrence Marsh sees government as the heart of the free enterprise system--where it does and should play an active part in maintaining and ensuring efficient and equitable resource allocation in an economy. Previous economic paradigms viewed government as an external, alien force outside the system, but Marsh promotes a very different approach. While he acknowledges there is efficiency in the market for ordinary goods and services, he sees contagion effects and inefficiency in many financial markets. With higher levels of globalization, low levels of unionization, and more rapid technological change, a new type of business cycle has emerged--one in which rising middle-class debt and stock market bubbles have replaced price and wage inflation as the source of economic instability. Marsh believes government can contribute to the efficiency of the free enterprise system by better aligning marginal costs and marginal benefits, and that in the long run, government can greatly enhance efficiency, productivity, and economic growth. Marsh also takes on the commonly held notion of a static fight over a fixed economic pie with the assertion that this view must be replaced with one of a dynamic process that maximizes the growth rate of the economic pie for everyone--by keeping the money flowing to all parts of the economy. Optimal Money Flow's important message and unique proposals deliver a fresh view of the interconnectedness of the globe and an updated understanding of the underlying economic forces that shape our lives today--including international trade and how one country's decisions now impact the rest of the world. Readers will rethink their basic assumptions about the nature of economics and the role of government. From the Back Cover Excerpt from Optimal Money Flow: "We had seen the stranger in the alley behind our home earlier that day. But we didn't see him sneak into the garage, grab my wife's purse, and steal her cash. The next day I saw him again. This time I followed him down the alley. When I caught up with him, I explained that anyone stealing small amounts of money here and there was making a mistake. I told him what he really needed was not money but money flow. These neighborhood families were making six-figure salaries, but he was just getting occasional crumbs. Fighting over the crumbs is no way to get rich, neither for an individual, nor for a country. I never saw him again. Perhaps he was afraid of getting caught or wanted to avoid another boring lecture. Money flow is important in the international economy, in the domestic economy, and in state, city, and local economies, just as it is in our own family's economy. Too often we think of money as a static concept. We fight over the economic pie. But, in reality, money is a dynamic flow. Money flows through our economy just as blood flows through our body. Our economic well-being and that of our fellow citizens is more closely defined by our money flow than by the amount of money we have at any particular time. Just as getting money flow right is important for us as individuals, it is also important for us at the local, state, national, and international levels." About the Author Lawrence C. Marsh is professor emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame where he taught graduate and undergraduate economics for 30 years. He served as Director of Notre Dame's Ph.D. program in economics for 13 years. In ''retirement'' he served in 2010 as visiting professor of econometrics and statistics in the MBA program at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and in 2016-2017 at Avila University in statistics and research methods in psychology. Read more