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economics

Risky Times

“The attempt to control risk by lowering interest rates reduces the cost of taking risk and so ends up increasing the aggregate amount of risk in the system.” Edward Chancellor, author The Price of Time

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Competing in the 21st Century

“The ability to assimilate immigrants quickly may be our greatest competitive advantage in the twenty-first century.” Ben Wattenberg Author: Fighting Words Rational Immigration Movement

The Purpose of Business

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.“ Milton Friedman, Free to Choose This is Friedman at his most controversial. I agree with him. They don’t have two or three different ways of scoring a basketball game and there should only be one way of scoring… Read More »The Purpose of Business

Mass Extinction

“The virus—or specifically the political response to it—is causing a mass extinction event for small businesses in certain sectors.” John Maudlin

Intentions vs Results

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.“ Milton Freidman, Free to Choose

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WWIT About the Economy

The vast majority of our national wealth isn’t money or gold or real property or personal property. Our wealth is intellectual, intangible capital. We know how to do stuff, and that’s what makes us richer. Why is this important? Because it explains why we can restart the economy after the COVID-19 shutdown. We know how to do stuff. We hit pause, to blunt the virus storm, now we can hit restart. We haven’t forgotten how to do the stuff that made us rich. Lots can… Read More »WWIT About the Economy

Skin in the Game

Back in 2002 I read Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb and became a fan of his writing. Since then I’ve read all of his books and in each one I’ve learned actionable new things. I just finished reading Skin in the Game and I think it is his most accessible and thought provoking book yet. Taleb does not pull punches and there are no sacred cows. Be prepared to be challenged and offended but read this book. “Forecasting (in words) bears no relation to… Read More »Skin in the Game

Economics and Dictators

“Dictators are rarely good economic managers.“ WSJ editorial referring to Turkey and Venezuela For every Lee Kwan Yoo there are ten Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castros