Historically, taxing land (rents) and trade have been the dominant income sources of rulerships not reliant on labour service (not to be confused with taxes on labour income, which have a different dynamic).* Trade was a particularly attractive source of income because it often involved taxing outsiders. But trade was also mobile–too much tax for [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in Economics, Law, Middle east, Public Policy, Taxation
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Tagged Abbasid Caliphate, Alexander the Great, British East India Company, Caliphate, Carthaginian Empire, china, Chinese Civil War, Crusades, David Friedman, Diadochi, Eastern Roman Empire, Fatimid Caliphate, Genghis Khan, Ghaznavids, Graeco-Roman Empire, Han dynasty, Hellenistic kingdoms, history of trade, hyperinflation, Ilkhanate, India, Iran, islam, jihadi, Jin dynasty, Jurchin, Mongol Empire, Napoleon, Opium Wars, Ottoman Empire, Parthian Empire, Qing dynasty, Roman Empire, Sassanids, Seljuq Empire, Shia, Silk Road, silver, Sino-Japanese War, Song dynasty, Spanish silver peso, Sui dynasty, Sultanate of Rum, Sunni, Taiping Rebellion, Tang dynasty, Thomas the Apostle, Warlord Era, Western Roman Empire
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This post is partly prompted by this comment and this paper (pdf) (via) on the US housing price bubbles and busts and (greatly) extends this comment by myself. It is also a response to the work of mathematician-turned-historian Andrew Odlyzko. In a previous post, I argued that easy monetary policy was not to blame for the asset booms [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in Economics, Public Policy, Technology
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Tagged Alan Greenspan, Andrew Odlyzko, APRA, asset bubbles, behavioural finance, Ben Bernanke, David Hume, EMH, Eugene Fama, expectations, externalities, FOMC, formal logic, Frank Knight, fuzzy logic, Great Moderation, Greenspan put, gullibility, information cascades, infrastructure, Irving Fisher, Jan Brueghel the Younger, positional goods, railway manias, railways, RBA, risk, Robert Shiller, Rothschilds, symbolic logic, Tulip mania, uncertainty, US Federal Reserve, Venus
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US car giant Ford Motor will shut all its Australian manufacturing plants by October 2016, after more than 85 years of making vehicles in the country. About 1,200 workers are expected to lose their jobs from the Broadmeadows and Geelong plants, in Victoria state. Ford said its Australian operations had lost A$600m ($580m; £385m) over [...]
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 Economics, 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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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 Economics
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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, history of trade, 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 Economics, 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 [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in Art, Australia, Books, Events, 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 [...]
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 Economics, 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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I am deeply sceptical about any legal recognition of Sharia on two grounds. First, it is profoundly misogynist, starting with the discounting of evidence from women. Second, it evolved as an imperial legal system. It does not claim to be a legal system for only the faithful, as Jewish law does, but God’s law, applying [...]
By Lorenzo
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Also posted in Britain, Economics, England, Law, Marriage, Public Policy, Religion, Wales
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Tagged 1996 Arbitration Act, bequests, bride-price, Catholic doctrine, Divorce, domestic violence, dower, dowries, Dr Rowan Williams, established church, family law, Gary Becker, groom-price, homicide rates, inheritance, Islamic Sharia Council, Jewish law, mahr, monogamy, Muslim law (Shariah) Council, Orthodox doctrine, patrilocal, polygyny, pre-nuptial agreements, Religious courts, Roman law, sacrament, Sharia, Sharia Tribunals, wife-beating
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