The Fed Tries Boiling the Frog
If you put a frog in a pot of water and gradually turn up the heat, the frog will sit there until it boils to death. If you toss a frog into an already boiling pot of water, the shock…
Our Mountain of Silver
When the Spanish explored the new world in search of riches, they eventually reached what is now Bolivia and found a veritable mountain of silver. The flow of gold and silver to Spain from Cerro Rico (pictured) and other mines…
Grasping in Glasgow
Now that the Conference of the Parties 26th Summit on climate change (known colloquially as COP26) is over we can see how the world leaders are responding to a threat deemed by the summiteers to be existential. Various pundits pointed…
COVID-19’s Creative Destruction
“Creative destruction refers to the incessant product and process innovation mechanism by which new production units replace outdated ones. Over the long run, the process of creative destruction accounts for over 50 per cent of productivity growth.” – Joseph Schumpeter,…
Executive Order 14036
On July 9th, the Biden Administration issued Executive Order 14036, “Promoting Competition in the American Economy. It takes a “whole of government” approach to improve our free market capitalist system. Citing the trust busting of Teddy Roosevelt and the New…
Our Non-Fungible World
In 1989, Bill Gates founded Corbis to purchase and license exclusive digital rights to great works of art. Most museums were reluctant to participate. In 1995, Corbis bought the Bettman Archive of 16 million photographs for an undisclosed sum. In…
The Taxman Returns
“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing. – Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, 1665 The most recent $2 trillion tax…
SPACkle that IPO!
It is always a wonder when a besmirched and ridiculed financial product becomes mainstream. We remember how, with the artful guidance of Michael Milken, junk bonds, once known as “fallen angels” made the transition to new issue high yield securities….
A Return of that Other Bubble?
I was working on Wall Street during the crash of October 19, 1987, when the Dow dropped 22% (or about 7,000 points in today’s market). That evening, traders gathered at Harry’s Bar to commiserate. One of the old timers pulled…
The Stimuli and the People
Given the intense political animus on display in Washington in recent weeks, it is hard to imagine any rational policy agenda emerging from the chaos. The optics of a new president being installed with thousands of federal troops standing by…