The notion that “easy money” created asset booms is levelled (famously by Austrian school economists such as von Mises and Hayek) against the 1920s boom and by a range of commentators about the Great Moderation boom. In both cases, the Fed (dominated by Benjamin Strong as New York Fed Governor up to 1928 and by Alan Greenspan as Fed Chair 1987-2006) is held to be to [...]
Posted in Economics, History, Law, Public Policy, Technology
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Tagged Alan Greenspan, asset markets, Austrian business cycle, Austrian school, Bank of France, Benjamin Strong, bimetallism, bubble economy, china, ECB, expectations, FDR, Frederich Hayek, George L Harrison, GFC, gold standard, Great Depression, Great Moderation, Great Recession, housing booms, India, lost decades, milton friedman, monetary policy, natural interest rate, NIRA, permanent income effect, railway manias, Roger W. Garrison, silver standard, theory of the unsustainable boom, Time and Money, US Federal Reserve, von Mises, world war one
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Smart Growth is a term of art. In the words of Wikipedia(tm), Smart Growth: is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, andmixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term ‘smart growth’ is particularly used in North America. In Europe [...]
Posted in Australia, Immigration, Public Policy, Society
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Tagged california, Doncaster rail line, Hong Kong, infrastructure, Manhattan, power outages, public transport, Sayers Road, Smart growth, water shortages, Western Melbourne
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I have found that YouTube is something that can swallow lots of one’s time. Particularly given the “similar recommendations” column down the right-hand side. Recently, for example, I got sucked into the Sterek phenomena. The interest by fans in imagining that there is some budding (or actual) relationship between the characters Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale in [...]
Posted in Art, Blogging, Music, Popular culture, Saturday chit-chat, Sexuality
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Tagged Basketball Math Guy, Dylan O'Brien, films, James, music videos, Placebo, Sterek, Teen Wolf, The Boy Next Door, The Love Within, The Matrix, Tyler Hoechlin, Water, Wavey Davey, We Once Were Tide, YouTube
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April 29, 2013 – 10:00 am
Adam Smith called the crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus and rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama the greatest events in human history. They led to, for the first time, a truly global trading economy, where the Eurasian trade economy was extended to, and profoundly changed by contact with, the Americas. [...]
Posted in Economics, History
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Tagged Adam Smith, Atlantic passage, Bank of France, bills of exchange, bimetallism, Black Death, Brazil, British East India Company, British Empire, Castile, cavalry, chariots, china, Christopher Columbus, clipper ships, coin debasement, Constantinople, Crisis of the 3rd Century, Deng Xiaoping, Eastern Roman Empire, eunuchs, Eurasian disease pool, Eurozone, FDR, Ferdinand II of Aragon, foraging, forced labour, foreign humiliations, globalisation, gold standard, Granada, Great Depression, Han dynasty, horses, Indian Ocean, industrial revolution, Isabella of Castile, knight service, labour camps, Leninism, Mamluk Egypt, medium of account, medium of exchange, mercantilism, Music, Nazism, nomads, opium, Opium Wars, Ottoman Empire, Peasants' Revolt, Portugal, price level, Price Revolution, Prince Henry the Navigator, Qin dynasty, Qing dynasty, railways, Reconquista, Roman Empire, russia, Saharan passage, selenium, serfdom, Sharia, silk, Silk Road, silver, silver standard, slave trade, slavery, Spain, spices, Stalinism, steamships, Sudan, Suez Canal, Thirteenth Amendment, Trebizond, US Constitution, US Federal Reserve, Vasco da Gama, West Africa, Western Roman Empire, WWI
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April 26, 2013 – 10:30 am
The term that is. There seem to be few usages that are a greater barrier to clear thought and debate than free markets. Whether used as a term of sneering abuse to create straw-person arguments or as a slogan of the right and proper, it is ready-made to close minds and abstract away from the issues [...]
Posted in Economics, History, Law, Marriage, Middle east, Personal liberty, Public Policy, Racism, Religion, Sexuality, Taxation
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Tagged American Revolution, Arnold Kling, banking, barriers to entry, building design, Cato Institute, Clarence Thomas, David Boaz, Debt, discretion, discrimination, economic freedom, Equity, free markets, gains from trade, German Constitution, house design, Latin America, liability, logical fallacy, Political donations, rules v discretion, social mercantilism, time inconsistency, too big to fail, transaction costs, Wells Fargo, zoning laws
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April 22, 2013 – 10:30 am
Novelist Kerry Greenwood (the author of the Phryne Fisher books, now a successful TV series), has recently published a book on the Somerton Man mystery, Tamam Shud: the Somerton Man Mystery. The book interweaves Kerry’s memories of her late father–a wharfie who loved telling stories–and her memories of Adelaide with the famous mystery of the unidentified man [...]
Posted in Art, Australia, Books, Events, History, Society
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Tagged Castle, Drizzt Do'Urden, Dungeons & Dragons, Faerie, fiction, I am a Dark Elf, J R R Tolkien, Kate Beckett, Kerry Greenwood, Non-fiction, On Fairy Stories, Phryne Fisher, Richard Castle, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, secondary belief, Somerton Man, Sydney Review of Books, Tamam Shud, true crime
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April 19, 2013 – 10:30 am
Assets are items that produce income or retain value across time periods. Gold is a pure store-of-value asset, as it produces no income. Bonds are pure income assets, as they have no value apart from the income they produce–they are best thought of as a congealed money stream, their value being set by that money [...]
Posted in Economics, History
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Tagged 1880s land boom, 1890s Depression, asset bubbles, busted bonds, Carmen Reinhart, efficient market hypothesis, Kenneth Rogoff, positional goods, Scott Sumner, This Time Is Different
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April 17, 2013 – 10:30 am
That modernising societies experience a “demographic transition“–a change from high fertility and high death rates to low fertility and low death rates with an intermediate period of high fertility and low death rates–is well known. The likely reason is lags in adjusting to changes in death rates. The price of children Having children is a [...]
Posted in Economics, History, Marriage, Parenthood, Public Policy, Society, Technology, Welfare
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Tagged asset booms and busts, death rates, debt bondage, debt foregiveness, demographic transition, embedded transactions, fertility rates, gold standard, human capital, inflation targeting, manorialism, public bonds, public goods, railway mania, risk premium, serfdom
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April 15, 2013 – 10:30 am
Milton Friedman’s 1967 Presidential Address (pdf) is something monetary economists regularly say anyone interested in monetary economics should read. Having recently read it, I have come to the conclusion that it is something anyone interested in monetary economics should read. As is normal with Friedman, it is beautifully clear, one his great attributes. His analysis holds [...]
Posted in Economics, Public Policy
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Tagged central banks, Chuck Norris Effect, David Glasner, Edmund Phelps, equation of exchange, expectations, Goodhart's Law, Inflation, inflation targeting, interest rates, Irving Fisher, Knut Wicksell, Lars Christensen, Market Monetarism, milton friedman, monetary economics, monetary policy, monetary velocity, natural rate of interest, natural rate of unemployment, Paul Krugman, Phillips Curve, Scott Sumner, stagflation, unemployment
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April 13, 2013 – 11:09 am
Two Somerville Rd corner shops on opposite sides of Tuppen St have striking wall art. One has a very Oz bird scene. It is strikingly executed–somewhat better done than a lot of the wall murals one sees. I am no expert or bird-watcher but I am guessing it is a Willie Wagtail. The trees are [...]
