( Finance and the Good Society by Robert J. Shiller, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012, 288 pp.) What defines a “good society” and how can we use finance to achieve it? Robert Shiller takes the former question as settled, and dedicates his 2012 book Finance and the Good Society to the latter: what is wrong with modern finance,
No two countries’ responses have polarized commentators over the past five years more than the contrasting post-crisis policies in Iceland and Ireland. In a paper published in Economic Affairs (available here as a PDF) I contrast the policies enacted by Iceland and Ireland, perhaps the two countries most affected by the liquidity freeze of 2008. A
With all the discussion over the need for healthcare in the U.S., one question is never asked: is a person’s health insurable? The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises helped clarify what types of events are open to insurance when he defined two types of probability. Case probabilities are those events for which we know some of the factors that
Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (New York: Random House, 2012). No two buzzwords define the present crisis more than “contagion” and “robustness” in the world of economists and policy wonks. The current interrelated nature of the financial system has bred a fragile situation where the success of the greater
A currency is only as safe as the bank that stores it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the recent turmoil in the bitcoin community. One the primary advantages of bitcoin , perhaps even the greatest advantage of the cryptocurrency , is the ability to do away with traditional banking institutions. By providing an option to transfer payments
Global debt now exceeds $100 trillion, according to the Bank of International Settlements. Over the past five years, debt has increased by about $30 trillion. What’s more, governments have been the largest issuers . Low interest rates have attracted governments to the appeal of using debt to fund public projects today. As the saying goes, there’s
By Ron Paul Officially, US debt stands at more than $17 trillion. In reality, it is many times more. The cost of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq may be more than six trillion dollars. President Obama’s illegal invasion of Libya cost at least a billion dollars and left that country devastated. The costs of US regime change efforts in Syria
Today at the Circle Bastiat Ron Paul offers sage commentary on the Ukraine where he asks and answers with a resounding NO, “ Can we afford the Ukraine ? A good follow up appears in the Wall Street Journal where William Easterly argues that both U.S. and private aid is misguided and misspent. Too much ‘aid’ supports tyrants and is contra-productive
It’s not just the auto industries of Canada and the United States that are plodding along towards a slow demise. The auto industry in Australia will soon be a piece of history, according to Iain Marlow writing for The Globe and Mail. With the pullout of General Motors’ owned Holden by 2017, Australia will be the only other G20 country (along with
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.