“For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of bubbles” — William Shakespeare, Richard II (slightly adapted!)

While I was writing about the Asian economy last week, I was struck by one fact: The only country of the 10 surveyed whose economy and stockmarket have performed well in the last few months is Malaysia, defier of the IMF, the currency markets and conventional globalist economic wisdom. Moreover, as reported by United Press […]

Today’s political climate is heavily influenced by the long economic boom of 1982-2000 that culminated in the asset price explosion of the past few years. Business transactions, the capital and labor markets and political attitudes have all been heavily influenced by the boom, and will be very different once it is realized that the long […]

Around the world for the last twenty years, economists, governments and regulators have been singing the praises of “democratizing” markets — breaking open cartels and restrictive practices to produce the jungle of competition that is pure capitalism.

With the Fourth of July this week, it’s about time this column celebrated the true unsung patriots of the free market — short sellers, who speculate against stocks they believe to be overvalued. Without them, fraud and manipulation would go unpunished and the free market would be a corrupt sham.

The World Trade Organization judgment Friday that the U.S. use of “Foreign Sales Corporations” was an illegal export subsidy appears to have been correct on the merits, but raises the question of whether, now that the world economy is in downturn, we will see resurgent protectionism.

He was hailed as the “greatest businessman alive,” with admiring cover-picture profiles in Time and Fortune magazines. His company, a huge diversified business built up by both acquisition and internal growth, had 44 consecutive quarters of increasing earnings, with sales increasing by 30-fold.

(Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a column on Global Warming. Part 1 on Monday discussed the approach to take in thinking about the problem. This part discusses possible solutions.)

(This is Part 1 of a column on Global Warming, which discusses the approach to take in thinking about the problem. Part 2, which discusses possible solutions, will appear Tuesday.)

A modern economy requires a very high level of trust in order to function properly. In recent decades, a number of factors, from baby-boomer morality to the rise in corporate leverage, have lessened the trust element in the economy, both in the United States and in Europe (in Asia, there has been a modest contrary […]