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 [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in 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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The UK may not be able to afford projected levels of spending on military equipment over the next decade, MPs are warning. The Commons Public Accounts Committee said it did not “yet have confidence” the planned £159bn equipment budget between now and 2022 could be paid for. It urged the Ministry of Defence to be [...]
The Turkish government has signed a deal with a Japanese-French consortium to build a new nuclear power station. The $22bn (£14bn) contract is Japan’s first successful bid for an overseas nuclear project since a tsunami wrecked the Fukushima power station. The deal was signed by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Turkish Prime Minister Recep [...]
Two things have come to my attention in the last 24 hours. First, in Australia, both Labor and the Coalition are introducing/plan to introduce a form of paid parental leave to replace the baby bonus. Labor’s policy is set at the minimum wage and is therefore cheaper to the taxpayer and less onerous on the [...]
JULIA Gillard has denounced the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement ahead of anti-Israeli protest action planned at the University of NSW today. BDS action at UNSW has turned ugly, with anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying material appearing on a Facebook page opposing the opening of a Max Brenner chocolate shop on campus. Postings on a Facebook page [...]
By DeusExMacintosh
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Also posted in Australia, Education, Funnies, Human/Civil rights, Media, Middle east, Politics
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Tagged anti-Semitism, BDS, boycott divestment and sanctions, chocolate, Facebook, IDS, Israel, israeli strauss group, Julia Gillard, Max Brenner, max brenner boycott, Palestine, university of new south wales, zionism
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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. [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in 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 [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in 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 20, 2013 – 12:30 am
A giant mountain of maturing cheddar cheese is to be used as security for a pension fund. Twenty million kilos of Cathedral City cheddar will now back up pension funds of workers at Dairy Crest, one of the UK’s biggest cheesemakers. Some 20,000 pallets of the cheese, nearly half the company’s total stock, have been [...]
By DeusExMacintosh
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Also posted in Britain, England, Fark!, Funnies
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Tagged business, cathedral city cheddar, dairy crest, finance, pension deficit, pensions, retirement, superannuation
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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 [...]
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 [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in 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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