The fictions of finance gives us freedom to change what might seem like externally determined constraints; but we certainly need political systems that are better at exercising that freedom. A reply to Roger Scruton's Unreal Estates
The legal fiction of the "corporate person" has helped economic growth through making possible limited liability, fractional reserve banking, insurance and many other fictions. But it has also made it easier to divorce the moral realities of debt and obligation from economic fictions. The endless
Without massive ongoing public support the banks will fail. We should take the consequences seriously, they extend much further than bonuses
A wide-ranging conversation recorded in Cambridge, England, on November 29th 2010. Ha-Joon Chang discusses students, strikes, economic ideologies, what to do with finance, with power, nations, global governance and more
George Soros writes in the FT that the EU is making two mistakes: "One is that they are determined to avoid defaults or haircuts on currently outstanding sovereign debt for fear of provoking a banking crisis. The bondholders of insolvent banks are being protected at the expense of taxpayers. This
Professor Nouriel Roubini believes we are already pumping up the next financial markets bubble, whose collapse will dwarf that of 2008. If he’s right, we face an unthinkable political and economic disaster. Why does he think this, and can we do anything to forestall it?
The banking crisis creates a quantum of pain that we will all feel. But there are choices in the way that pain is distributed. John Mauldin considers the choices for the US economy: Argentine, Eastern European, Austrian, Japanese or a difficult glide into safety?
