Thinking Out Aloud

This is based on a comment I made here . The idea of the Euro was simple—a Deutschmark for everyone who signed up. With Deutschmark interest...

The term ‘totalitarian’ was originally coined by Mussolini : ironic, since Fascist Italy was not a totalitarian state. Most land, industry ...

This is the second part of my review of Charles Higham’s The Civilization of Angkor . The first part is in my previous post . "Sun King...

Charles Higham’s The Civilization of Angkor is very much focussed on the rise, achievement and decline of the civilisation of Angkor : of w...

Equality involves considerable complexity under apparent simplicity. The US Declaration of Independence famously declared that: We hold the...

Much of the history of the last few centuries is the history of emancipation, sometimes labelled that, sometimes labelled differently. Catho...

This is based on a comment I made here . Looking at the on-going crises of the eurozone, the problems of the UK , the serious economic slu...

This was based on a comment I made here . In the late 1920s, most developed economies were on the gold standard. The Bank of France and the ...

It is a striking thing, that those who look for racism always seem to find it. Another triumph of human analytical ingenuity and confirmatio...

Based on a comment I made here . Bill Woolsey made the observation that: Critics treat nominal GDP as the product of real output and the pri...

There is no such thing as “ real wages ”. Economists talk about “real wages” but what do they mean by that? In a monetized economy, prices a...

This is based on a comment I made here . Perhaps we need a bit of Socratic dialogue with the inflationphobics. Q: What has caused more damag...

Loath as I am to disagree with an economic historian as eminent of Peter Temin, his paper The Great Recession in Historial Context (pdf) ha...

In farming (i.e. agrarian) societies it has been standard for about 8 out of 10 people to be farmers. The land/labour ratio is a crucial det...

The short answer from history to the question of how stupid can a central bank be? is: a central bank can be really, really stupid. I am us...