All power to the state! – money madness at the IMF
byYou cannot escape an all-pervasive sense of crisis these days. Impending doom does not only announce itself in actual events but also via the…
Pity the central banker
byIf central banking were a stock, you’d go short. Blue-chip mystique still clings to it but you can feel the reputational parabola slowly gathering…
Why real interest rates can’t be calculated?
byWould it be possible in a world without money to establish the rate of return on present goods in terms of future goods? In…
The free market’s slow death
byMuch has been made in the press of the manipulation of LIBOR, without much explanation of the consequences for prices of all things that…
Hope springs eternal
byThe minor uptick in China’s ‘flash’ PMI estimate for October – from 47.9 to 49.1 – has sparked the usual explosion of uncritical hopefulness…
What comes after the welfare state?
byYoung people today are being robbed … [of] their rights … freedom … dignity .. [and] futures … [by] the world-straddling engine of theft,…
A golden opportunity
byThe euro debt crisis in Europe has presented Germany with a unique opportunity to lead the world away from monetary destruction and its consequences…
The loss of trust and the Great Disorder
byAt its most fundamental level, economic activity is no more than an exchange between strangers. It depends, therefore, on a degree of trust between…
A trip to the Japanese Currency Museum
byYou probably didn’t know there was a Japanese Currrency Museum, did you? Well, neither did I until I found myself stood outside it one Saturday…
“But there is no inflation!” – Misconceptions about the debasement of money
by“But there is no inflation!” – This is a statement I hear quite often, sometimes from people who are, in principle, sympathetic to my…