Month: September 2021

The Bear’s Lair: China should adopt Song Dynasty virtues

China can claim to have invented in its Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279) the policy of easy credit that has led to its recent real estate debacle. Yet the Song’s use of paper money was much more careful than that of today’s China (or of its decadent Western competitors). In other respects: its respect for merit, […]

The Bear’s Lair: Losers from higher rates

The August Consumer Price Index’s rise of 5.3% over the preceding year demonstrated that inflation is far from a transitory phenomenon. In these circumstances, it is likely that the Fed will attempt to hold rates close to zero for as long as possible, and then raise them too slowly to prevent inflation from accelerating further. […]

The Bear’s Lair: 2019, 1999, 1928 or 1825?

It is becoming increasingly clear that, at some time before AD 5,000 humanity will enter another Dark Age, in which life will be “nasty, brutish and short,” living standards will be abysmal, and both human potential and human knowledge will be very limited. If we are very lucky, we will eventually emerge from that dark […]

The Bear’s Lair: Social media make crowds madder

Charles Mackay’s 1841 classic “Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds” established the truth that crowds communicating with one another through the media can make “mad” decisions, in investment and other areas. Modern social media have immeasurably increased the amount and intensity of such communication; there are clear signs that it has also increased […]