December 4, 2013 – 9:30 am
Young man, there’s a great deal of ruin in a nation. So Adam Smith responded to a correspondent who feared that a successful revolt by the American colonies would ruin Britain. Looking back, Adam Smith was right and the fearful young man was wrong. Indeed, Britain proceeded to gain and give up a great empire, and […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in History, Immigration, Politics, Religion, Technology, Terrorism
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Also tagged Adam Smith, Battle of Tours, bombing offensive, Communist International, ghazi, Gitmo, Henry Kissinger, islam, jihadi, Leninism, Leon Blum, Luftwaffe, Nazism, pakistan, Patriot Act, Siege of Vienna, soviet union, Soviet-Afghan War, Stalin, USA, Wehrmacht, Western Civilisation
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November 27, 2013 – 12:15 pm
Understanding the equation of exchange can help see what a massive evasion of institutional responsibility lies behind the Great Recession and the Eurozone crisis. Economist Irving Fisher developed the original algebraic formulation of the equation of exchange, in his The Purchasing Power of Money (1911): MV = PT Money x Velocity = Prices x Transactions. Fisher’s use of […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History
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Also tagged aggregate demand, aggregate supply, Balance sheet recession, BoJ, bubble economy, Cambridge equation, central banks, Debt-deflation, ECB, equation of exchange, Euro, Eurozone, Eurozone crisis, export price norm, FDR, fiscal multiplier, fiscal policy, gold standard, Great Depression, Great Recession, Greece, Howard Government, inflation targeting, Irving Fisher, Lars Svensson, liquidity trap, M.S.Eccles, milton friedman, national accounts, PIIGS, quantity theory of money, RBA, Richard Koo, Sumner critique, supply shock, US Federal Reserve
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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 […]
There is a joke in modern American politics–the Republicans want a big defence force they don’t want to use anywhere and the Democrats want a small defence force they want to use everywhere. Implicit in the joke is that the Republicans like military spending and the Democrats don’t. Because the right is “strong” on defence […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Britain, Defence, Economics, History, Politics, Public Policy, Taxation, The Left, The Right
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Also tagged al gore, alliance building, Anglo-French Entente, Anglo-Japanese alliance, appeasement, British Liberal Party, Cold War, deficit, dreadnoughts, Edouard Daladier, estate taxes, fixed exchange rates, france, Franco-Russian alliance, Germany, grand strategy, Gulf War, High Seas Fleet, hitler, house of lords, Inflation, John Kerry, Kevin Narizny, Korean War, Lebensraum, monetary policy, naval arms race, nazi germany, Paul Volcker, People's budget, Popular Front, President George W. Bush, re-armanent, Ronald Reagan, Second Reich, Spanish-American War, US democrats, US Federal Reserve, US republicans, Vietnam War, Weltpolitik, WWI, WWII
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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, china, 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, 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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The slogan for this post is: don’t think debt, think safe assets. (This post is partly provoked by this post by Paul Krugman responded to by Scott Sumner and by Marcus Nunes.) In my Debt, Doom and Despair post I noted that a hugely debt-burdened post-Napoleonic Wars UK (where the national public debt was probably about […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Britain, Economics, History, Public Policy, Taxation, Technology, Welfare
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Also tagged Alfonso IX, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Edward I, Ernest Gellner, Eurozone, Evan Soltas, foreign aid, GFC, ibn Khaldun, Marcus Nunes, Napoleonic Wars, paradox of politics, Paul Krugman, public debt, risk, Scott Sumner, US Federal Reserve
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The only place during our week in Venezia my business partner and I deliberately went back to to have another look was the Naval Museum. Naval Museum Venice It was full of things we found greatly engaging, such as C17th relief maps of various fortifications of the Serene Republic mounted on walls and lots of […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Defence, History
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Also tagged Admiral Yi Sun-sin, Baltic, Italian navy, Kingdom of Italy, Korea, Ottoman Empire, Romanov Empire, samurai, Serene Republic, sweden, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, turtle boats, Venezia
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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, china, christianity, divinely ordained law, europe, global history, Guest Post, Hinduism, History, industrial revolution, islam, Judaism, Lorenzo, Mesoamerica, Middle east, Sharia, sharia law, South East Asia, Western Civilisation
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Japan is experiencing its greatest hardships since World War II as it tackles the aftermath of an earthquake, tsunami and a growing nuclear crisis, Prime Minister Naoto Kan says. In a televised statement, Mr Kan warned of sweeping power cuts to come. He said the situation at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant remained grave, a […]
November 22, 2010 – 3:17 pm
(from Wikimedia Commons) According to Confucian ideals, filial piety is the ultimate value. Hence, it permeates many Asian societies. There is notionally no need for the state to provide for care for the elderly, because the children will look after their parents in their old age. The rather creepy statue above depicts Japanese man Ryochi […]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Law, Motherhood, Parenthood, Religion, Society
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Also tagged china, East, family, family law, father, filial piety, mother, old age, paganism, parenthood, parents, pietas, reform, Romans, singapore, welfare, welfare state, West
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