April 29, 2013 – 10:00 am
Adam Smith called the crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus and rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama the greatest events in human history. They led to, for the first time, a truly global trading economy, where the Eurasian trade economy was extended to, and profoundly changed by contact with, the Americas. […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History
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Tagged Adam Smith, Atlantic passage, Bank of France, bills of exchange, bimetallism, Black Death, Brazil, British East India Company, British Empire, Castile, cavalry, chariots, china, Christopher Columbus, clipper ships, coin debasement, Constantinople, Crisis of the 3rd Century, Deng Xiaoping, Eastern Roman Empire, eunuchs, Eurasian disease pool, Eurozone, FDR, Ferdinand II of Aragon, foraging, forced labour, foreign humiliations, globalisation, gold standard, Granada, Great Depression, Han dynasty, history of trade, horses, Indian Ocean, industrial revolution, Isabella of Castile, knight service, labour camps, Leninism, Mamluk Egypt, medium of account, medium of exchange, mercantilism, Music, Nazism, nomads, opium, Opium Wars, Ottoman Empire, Peasants' Revolt, Portugal, price level, Price Revolution, Prince Henry the Navigator, Qin dynasty, Qing dynasty, railways, Reconquista, Roman Empire, russia, Saharan passage, selenium, serfdom, Sharia, silk, Silk Road, silver, silver standard, slave trade, slavery, Spain, spices, Stalinism, steamships, Sudan, Suez Canal, Thirteenth Amendment, Trebizond, US Constitution, US Federal Reserve, Vasco da Gama, West Africa, Western Roman Empire, WWI
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Foreign Secretary William Hague has opened a new British embassy in Mogadishu – the first time the UK has had one in Somalia since 1991. The UK is the first European Union country to reopen an embassy in the country since the Federal Government of Somalia was established last year. Mr Hague said Somalia had […]
By DeusExMacintosh
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Posted in Britain, Funnies, Law, Politics
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Tagged foreign and commonwealth office, foreign secretary, hassan sheikh mohamud, maritime law, mogadishu, piracy, pirates of the caribbean, somali pirates, Somalia, william hague
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April 26, 2013 – 10:30 am
The term that is. There seem to be few usages that are a greater barrier to clear thought and debate than free markets. Whether used as a term of sneering abuse to create straw-person arguments or as a slogan of the right and proper, it is ready-made to close minds and abstract away from the issues […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History, Law, Marriage, Middle east, Personal liberty, Public Policy, Racism, Religion, Sexuality, Taxation
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Tagged American Revolution, Arnold Kling, banking, barriers to entry, building design, Cato Institute, Clarence Thomas, David Boaz, Debt, discretion, discrimination, economic freedom, Equity, free markets, gains from trade, German Constitution, house design, Latin America, liability, logical fallacy, Political donations, rules v discretion, social mercantilism, time inconsistency, too big to fail, transaction costs, Wells Fargo, zoning laws
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It has long been my view that Gerard Henderson and Michael Danby and Colin Rubinstein do not actually accept the logic behind having freedom of speech. Instead, they have jumped on the fashionable bandwagon that seeks to control how one’s ‘group’ is portrayed, hence their support for legislative piffle like s 18 (c) of the […]
By skepticlawyer
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Posted in Free Speech, Law
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Tagged Catallaxy, Chris Berg, gerard henderson, group rights, individual rights, Institute for Public Affairs, IPA, John Roskam, Racial Discrimination Act, RDA, Section 18 (c), sinclair davidson, war on terror
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April 23, 2013 – 12:10 am
A Michigan judge whose smartphone disrupted a hearing in his own courtroom has held himself in contempt and paid $25 for the infraction. Judge Raymond Voet has a posted policy at Ionia County 64A District Court stating that electronic devices causing a disturbance during court sessions will result in the owner being cited with contempt, […]
April 22, 2013 – 10:46 pm
Chrissie Amphlett and the Divinyls provided a decent chunk of the soundtrack to my young life; reports of her early death (aged 53) hit me in the childhood memories, hard, much like the arrest of Rolf Harris, or pictures of Berliners crawling over the remains of the Wall. I have, by saying those things, disclosed […]
By skepticlawyer
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Posted in Books, Fark!, Literature, Popular culture, science fiction
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Tagged Ayn Rand, Bleak House, Chrissie Amphlett, cultural capital, DC Comics, Dr Who, Ender's Game, geekiness, geeks, high culture, Jane Austen, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, literary criticism, National Organisation for Marriage, Orson Scott Card, Reason Foundation, Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, the Divinyls, Tolstoy, Ursula Le Guin
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April 22, 2013 – 10:30 am
Novelist Kerry Greenwood (the author of the Phryne Fisher books, now a successful TV series), has recently published a book on the Somerton Man mystery, Tamam Shud: the Somerton Man Mystery. The book interweaves Kerry’s memories of her late father–a wharfie who loved telling stories–and her memories of Adelaide with the famous mystery of the unidentified man […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Art, Australia, Books, Events, History, Society
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Tagged Castle, Drizzt Do'Urden, Dungeons & Dragons, Faerie, fiction, I am a Dark Elf, J R R Tolkien, Kate Beckett, Kerry Greenwood, Non-fiction, On Fairy Stories, Phryne Fisher, Richard Castle, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, secondary belief, Somerton Man, Sydney Review of Books, Tamam Shud, true crime
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April 20, 2013 – 12:30 am
A giant mountain of maturing cheddar cheese is to be used as security for a pension fund. Twenty million kilos of Cathedral City cheddar will now back up pension funds of workers at Dairy Crest, one of the UK’s biggest cheesemakers. Some 20,000 pallets of the cheese, nearly half the company’s total stock, have been […]
By DeusExMacintosh
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Posted in Britain, Economics, England, Fark!, Funnies
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Tagged business, cathedral city cheddar, dairy crest, finance, pension deficit, pensions, retirement, superannuation
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April 19, 2013 – 10:30 am
Assets are items that produce income or retain value across time periods. Gold is a pure store-of-value asset, as it produces no income. Bonds are pure income assets, as they have no value apart from the income they produce–they are best thought of as a congealed money stream, their value being set by that money […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History
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Tagged 1880s land boom, 1890s Depression, asset bubbles, busted bonds, Carmen Reinhart, efficient market hypothesis, Kenneth Rogoff, positional goods, Scott Sumner, This Time Is Different
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