December 23, 2013 – 8:16 am
I was going to hold off blogging until the New Year, but irritation drove me to posting … In a recent article, Alan Kohler had this to say: The real war is between monetary policy and the Digital Revolution – between the world of finance trying to reduce the value of money and therefore debt, […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Blogging, Economics, History
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Also tagged Alan Kohler, Bank of France, Compromise of 1877, Etienne Gilson, Euro, F. A. Hayek, gold standard, Great Depression, inflation targeting, John Maynard Keynes, Keynesian school, productivity, productivity price norm, Second Reich
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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 crisis, export price norm, FDR, fiscal multiplier, fiscal policy, gold standard, Great Depression, Great Recession, Greece, Howard Government, inflation targeting, Irving Fisher, japan, 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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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, china, Christopher Columbus, clipper ships, coin debasement, Constantinople, Crisis of the 3rd Century, Deng Xiaoping, Eastern Roman Empire, eunuchs, Eurasian disease pool, 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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September 19, 2012 – 10:30 am
One of my basic analytical principles is that things reveal their nature in history (including the history that has not happened yet — that is, what has happened is not the sum of possibilities). If one wishes to understand current events, then cultivate a sense of history for the past is the cause of the […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Economics, History, Public Policy
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Also tagged Bundesbank, central banks, ECB, Evsey Domar, gold standard, Jorg Bibow, Mario Drahi, monetary policy, public debt, Reserve Bank of Australia, Scott Sumner, the Fed, Walter Russel Mead
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August 18, 2012 – 9:30 am
What can the price of beer tell us? Quite a lot according to this amusing piece (via). Here is a chart of beer prices in various Eurozone countries since 1996. Prices in Germany have remained pretty steady, with the price of beer rising about 1% a year. The price of beer in Greece has surged […]
What do the goldzone Great Depression (1929-3?) and the Eurozone Great Recession (2008-?) have in common? They were both created by European central banks with the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) as accessory during and after the fact. (Yes, the monetary shock which set off the Great Recession started in Europe though the responsibility of the […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History, Politics, Public Policy
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Also tagged Barry Eichengreen, business cycle, central banking, Charles Goodhart, deflation, disinflation, European Central Bank, European Union, exchange rates, expectations, fixed exchange rates, Frederich Hayek, free banking, gold standard, Great Depression, Great Inflation, Great Recession, Henry Thornton, hyperinflation, Inflation, land rationing, milton friedman, optimum currency area, Peter Temin, seigniorage, Thomas Sargent, time horizons, UK coalition government, uncertainty, US Federal Reserve, World Bank
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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, Evan Soltas, foreign aid, GFC, ibn Khaldun, japan, Marcus Nunes, Napoleonic Wars, paradox of politics, Paul Krugman, public debt, risk, Scott Sumner, US Federal Reserve
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Catholics and Orthodox are the Hindus of the Abrahamic world. The divine order is populated with many Personages–not merely the Trinity, but also Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, and a myriad of angels and saints. A supernatural prolixity that manifests in a certain approach to religious art and architecture. […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Art, Law, Religion, Science
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Also tagged Abrahamic, Baroque, catholicism, corruption, Hinduism, immanent, islam, Judaism, monarchy, monotheism, Sicily, Time, transcendent, Venezia
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What money is We use money to transact and the money we use is fiat money, money backed only by government decree. In economic terms, money is a transaction good and all that fiat money is, is a transaction good; the only point in holding such money is to be able to engage in transactions—its expected swap […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Blogging, Britain, Economics, Events, History, Internet, Law, Media, Politics, Public Policy
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Also tagged australia, BoE, BoJ, central banking, ECB, Economics, Euro, Inflation, margaret thatcher, monetary economics, money, Politics, RBA, the Fed, unemployment
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While the country was (is) entertained (ish) by News Ltd shenanigans, pie chucking in parliament and Wendi Deng coming out as one of the Charlie’s Angels, the Euro has been slowly tanking. There are now fairly short odds in various places that the whole thing will go belly-up, or at the very least the weaker […]