21st Century
A New Generalplan Ost
“What are you doing next week?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone, “Nothing that I cannot move or delay,” I replied; recognising the voice as Linas, a Lithuanian with whom I [more…]
Economics
Economics
Let’s stop kidding ourselves
Columnists write glibly about the “cost-of-living crisis” as if it were an affliction visited upon our unsuspecting community and that, as usual, it is the duty of government to cure it. The fact that the [more…]
Economics
Thinking Properly About Public Welfare
The debate over publicly funded welfare can be solved very quickly. There is constant demand for more welfare: more money for longer periods of time for those out of work, more money for the handicapped [more…]
Economics
Meiyouren Yuedu Pinglun, Part Two
没有人阅读评论 Meiyouren Yuedu Pinglun (Nobody Reads the Comments) So what do Chinese people think about their country? Below are translations of three comments appended in Chinese (and hence not intended for foreigners) to a video [more…]
Economics
Is gold too expensive to buy right now?
This question has been at the center of a great many conversations I’ve been recently having with clients and friends. The way I like to answer it is with another question: Expensive compared to what? [more…]
Economics
Meiyouren Yuedu Pinglun, Part One
没有人阅读评论 Meiyouren Yuedu Pinglun (Nobody Reads the Comments) “SINCE 1978 China has liberated more people from poverty than any other country in history, partly because China before 1978 consigned more people to poverty than anywhere [more…]
Business
The Case for Abolishing Regulatory Agencies
Regulatory agencies are not needed and actually retard whatever good they are suppose to prevent or mitigate. I’ll give just three quick examples. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) The underlying rationale for the CDC [more…]
21st Century
Kenya’s ‘Hustler Man’ Vs. Burkina Faso’s ‘Upright Man’
The differences in the performance of the “Hustler Man” in Kenya and the “Upright Man” in Burkina Faso is a function of genuine belief in transformational leadership, on the one hand, and mere self-serving populist [more…]
Business
There’s no mystique about growth? – But step-one is to restore sanity
Over the years, my essays have charted the government’s descent from an ignorance of economic principles, all the way to sheer insanity. And there can be no reprieve while the public mind festers in the [more…]