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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Posted in Economics, History, Law, Public Policy, Technology
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Also tagged Alan Greenspan, asset markets, Austrian business cycle, Austrian school, Bank of France, Benjamin Strong, bimetallism, bubble economy, 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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Posted in Economics, History
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Also tagged Adam Smith, Atlantic passage, Bank of France, bills of exchange, bimetallism, Black Death, Brazil, British East India Company, British Empire, Castile, cavalry, chariots, 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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January 29, 2013 – 8:00 am
I have previously posted elsewhere about how similar the failures in indigenous policy and development (particularly foreign aid) policy have been. Remarkably similar, indeed. They also show some distinct similarities to the more unfortunate effects of welfare provision. (By ‘welfare provision’ I do not mean the aged pension or health or education services; I am talking [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Economics, England, History, Law, Personal liberty, Philosophy, Public Policy, The Left, The Right, Welfare
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Also tagged afghanistan, ALP, Amerindians, Anglo-Saxon law, Arnhem land, Assizes, Australian Aborigines, canon law, cliodynamics, collectivisation, common law, Commonwealth Intervention, Curley effect, Danelaw, development policy, Earl Ferrers, Elinor Ostrom, farming, foragers, foreign aid, france, free riding, Glenn Reynolds, Henry II, House of Elders, house of lords, human capital, hunter-gatherers, Immigration, indigenous policy, iraq, japan, Jesse Helms, Lapps, magna carta, narcissism, Norman law, North American colonies, Peter Turchin, singapore, sit down money, Somaliland, Thomas Hobbes, time horizons, trial by jury, Vernon Smith
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January 16, 2013 – 9:30 am
Conservative humourist P J O’Rourke once observed, after flying over West and East Germany, that one should probably try to avoid public policy mistakes you can see from 20,000 feet up. Then there are public policy mistakes one can see from orbit. The two Germanys and the two Koreas constituted natural public policy experiments. Take [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History, Politics, Public Policy, Sexuality, Society, Technology
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Also tagged Botswana, Castro regime, Chiang Kai-shek, CPC, Cuba, cult of personality, DPP, East Germany, hyperinflation, Ian Smith, KMT, Latin America, legitimacy, Mao Zedong, Nelson Mandela, North America, north korea, P J O'Rourke, property rights, Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe, south korea, Taiwan, West Germany, Xavier Marquez, Zimbabwe
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November 21, 2012 – 1:05 pm
This post from Stratfor points out that the US faces much less stressful challenges than the EU or China or Iran. So, the re-elected President Obama faces a world where the US’s hand, vis-a-vis other Powers, is strengthening rather than weakening. I really don’t get the angst about President Obama’s foreign policy. Yes, he has [...]
November 8, 2012 – 9:30 am
A useful way to think of organised crime is as the application of coercion for profit in social spaces where the power of the state does not effectively reach. It is common to think of organised crime gangs as having “territories”. Such as this map of the territories of Mexican drug cartels. Obviously, the drug [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Drugs, History, Law, Public Policy
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Also tagged anarchism, asabiyya, Bo Xilai, corruption, feudalism, Gu Xilai, honour, knights, organised crime, street gangs
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October 16, 2012 – 9:30 am
We think of the World Wars of the C20th as being unprecedented in their death tolls. That is not true in either total deaths or, still less, death rates. While the 1939-45 War did have the largest death toll of any war in history, the 1914-19 War does not come second. When one considers the huge [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in History, Law, Philosophy, Public Policy, Religion, Technology
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Also tagged chaos, Confucianism, Leninism, north korea, order, war
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Who would want the global monetary system to be at the mercy of the Bank of China? Not conservative, free market types in the United States and elsewhere, one guesses. Actually, it turns out lots of them do; all the people who support some sort of return to the gold standard, who think that the [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History, Public Policy
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Also tagged asset bubbles, Austrian school, Bank of China, Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Iran, Benjamin Strong, central banks, clipping, convertibility, equation of exchange, Euro, fixed exchange rates, Friedrich Hayek, George Selgin, gold, gold standard, Great Depression, India, jewellery, Marc Flandreau, real interest rates, reeded edges, silver standard, Thomas Sargent, US Federal Reserve, USA, William Garrison, Wizard of Oz, World Gold Council, WWI
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In a real sense, human history starts with the creation of a social surplus, a surplus beyond simple subsistence. Such a surplus could be used for–indeed, was required to–build more complex societies. This included the literal building of the monumental architecture, the most striking creations from the existence of such surpluses. More food, more babies Merely increasing production does [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Economics, History, Law, Politics, Public Policy
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Also tagged asset bubbles, asset recovery, Barclays Bank, Debt, finance, four pillars, incentives, Lord Acton, Malthusian, milton friedman, monumental architecture, paradox of rulership, pastoralists, Peter Turchin, priests, Say's Law, sovereign debt, surplus, UN Convention Against Corruption, vincent cable, voting, Winston Churchill
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[LE: Something I often wonder about when studying history is: why do certain civilisations develop in certain ways, and others (which are equally technologically advanced, if not more so) do not develop in the same way? I suppose it's one of the reasons why I enjoy speculative fiction so much: speculative fiction plays a game [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Guest Post, History, Law, Middle east, Religion
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Also tagged brahmins, christianity, divinely ordained law, europe, global history, Guest Post, Hinduism, History, industrial revolution, islam, japan, Judaism, Lorenzo, Mesoamerica, Middle east, Sharia, sharia law, South East Asia, Western Civilisation
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