In research for my forthcoming book on global industrialization, I have been examining recently the career of the Japanese business titan Eiichi Shibusawa (1840-1931). Shibusawa, still something of a national hero in Japan, was effective head of the Dai-Ichi Bank from its founding in 1873 until 1917. More important, having while working for the Ministry […]

President Trump this week described the EU as “in many ways nastier than China.” The media responded with the usual shrieks of outrage, but he had a point. The EU bureaucracy has imposed a structure on Europe that is perpetually Socialist, deeply anti-democratic and utterly intolerant of dissent. Traditionally, the EU benefited from being democratic […]

President Trump recently threatened to remove Harvard University’s non-profit charitable status. That is an excellent idea. However, it should not be limited to Harvard, but extended to all charities, eliminating all their tax preferences. The Charity Industrial Complex, representing about 5.5% of GDP in nominal value, subtracts far more than that from our wealth for […]

In our 2010 book “Alchemists of Loss” Kevin Dowd and I examined the record of Wall Street risk management leading up to the 2007-08 financial crisis and concluded that it was seriously lacking. The universal assumption of “Gaussianity” caused participants to lose sight of the possibilities of “fat tails” where the probability of bad outcomes […]