As Voltaire remarked in his 1759 masterpiece Candide “in this country (Britain) it is good to kill, from time to time, an admiral to encourage the others.” Admiral John Byng, shot in 1757 for losing Minorca, is generally thought to have been unfortunate in his fate. Nevertheless the treatment worked. Only two years later Sir […]

A Wall Street Journal article last weekend suggested that discomfort with novel applications of technology such as Twitter was a function of age. By refusing to sign on to Facebook or buy the latest expensive gadget one was merely confessing to being old (the author claimed to be 33, and seemed worried about the symptoms […]

The great Montagu Norman (Bank of England Governor, 1920-46) said when considering Britain’s return to the Gold Standard in 1925 “the merchant, manufacturer, workman, etc, should be considered, but not consulted any more than about the design of a battleship.” It’s quite clear that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke shares Norman’s view. He consults closely with […]

Recent economic data have caused economic commentators to begin wondering whether the U.S. economy is heading into a “double-dip,” prolonging the period in which employment and output run far below potential. Once again, this raises parallels with the 1929 crash, which led to a Great Depression that in the United States was only ended by […]