The Wall Street Journal recently featured a lead article on economist Hyman Minsky: In Time of Tumult, Obscure Economist Gains Currency . Minsky is increasingly cited by leading financial figures such as PimCo bond fund manager Paul McCulley and Prudent Bear ‘s Dave Noland . According to the WSJ article, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard
Aside from the error identified by Shostak this morning , another error concerning financial markets is that they are systematically irrational - the very opposite error of the EMH. Michael Kinsley , for example, condemns the stock market as a swindle. Kinsley admits that markets do well with commodities, but insists that markets fail elsewhere.
I was amazed that when Muhammad Yunus, head of the state-supported, quasi-socialist, regimentation-promoting Grameen Bank, received his Nobel Prize that free-market commentators bought into the propaganda. They threw their hats in the air, and their brains too. It reminded me of how conservatives all lauded Jack Kemp’s program for “home ownership”
Chris McGreal reports from Harare : Zimbabweans are shopping like there’s no tomorrow. With police patrolling the aisles of Harare’s electrical shops to enforce massive government-ordered price cuts, the widescreen TVs were the first things to go, for as little as £20. Across the country, shoes, clothes, toiletries and different kinds of food were
In the Christian Science Monitor, here is George Selgin: The subprime lending crisis also shows that, while central banks certainly have the power to expand a nation’s spending power, they can’t guarantee that the extra power gets used as intended, namely, to give a roughly uniform boost to the overall demand for goods. On the contrary: The crisis
It’s been a grueling Fall 2007, with the continued shocks from the housing mess, the market sell-off, oil still sky high, the dollar hitting new lows, and the rising gold price giving that ever-ominous sign of trouble ahead. Business conditions have deteriorated dramatically. And the gold price reflects a general trend: the consumer and producer
The turmoil in the US subprime mortgage market has developed into an international credit crisis. It is eroding investor confidence in credit and credit-related products and, most important, raising concerns about the solidity of the banking sector, as evidenced by banks’ elevated funding terms and diminished stock prices. As a direct response to
ZIMBABWE’S tough-talking central bank chief Gideon Gono unveiled three new banknotes yesterday in the clearest sign yet that he is losing the battle against skyrocketing inflation. In a live TV broadcast, Dr Gono said he was introducing a Z$250,000 note, a Z$500,000 note and a Z$750,000 note. None of them is enough to buy a single loaf of bread.
Please alert your loved ones about the coming price deflation . Assuming that mainstream economists are correct, tomorrow’s sales signal the beginning of the end. Ah, yes, the quality of customer service during holiday shopping . Customer service is the result of consumer valuation of service versus price. Quality service is still available, but
Why, after years of the market’s neglect of gold, is the paper money price of gold now on the rise? Would it be too far-fetched to assume that it could reflect market agents’ growing concern about a forthcoming great inflation of government controlled paper money? Tensions in credit markets might indeed provoke fears that central banks could, by
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.