The Failures of the ‘War on Drugs’
byI would like to congratulate drugs… for winning the war on drugs. Ever since its declaration by Richard Nixon in 1971, a vicious cycle…
Markets
How Markets Price a Pandemic—and How They Lower Risk
byIn economic terms, war and pandemic are the same without even evoking imagery of the virus as an invisible enemy or of a long…
To Kill Markets Is the Worst Possible Plan
byomentous events usually leave strong memories on those who have lived through them, and those memories often become passed on to later generations in…
Debt, Deficits and the Cost of Free Lunches
byIt seems that every generation or two, fundamental economic ideas are questioned and challenged. The reasonable and important idea that governments should balance their…
Emerging Market Sensitivity to US Monetary Policy – What does the Fed think?
byEmerging market currencies have suffered from US interest rate increases The Dallas Fed proposes reserve/GDP ratio as a simple indicator of stress If tightening…
Coffee Sellers Are Not Fundamentally Different from Banks
byBy Joakim Book With the 2007-8 financial crisis came a splendid alphabetical soup of central bank interventions to stimulate financial markets, lower interest rates, provide…
Events
by“Events, dear boy, events.” Alleged response by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when asked by a journalist what is most likely to blow…
Fireworks
by“A key prediction of traditional economics.. is that the economy as a whole must at some point reach equilibrium – a prediction made by…
Not waving but drowning – Stocks, debt and inflation?
byNot waving but drowning – Stocks, debt and inflation? The US stock market is close to being in a corrective phase -10% off its…
On the wealth, and poverty, of nations
by“There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation.” Adam Smith, in correspondence discussing the Battle of Saratoga, which marked a turning point…