In the new 2011 edition of his magnum opus Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned, Australian economics professor Steve Keen comes out guns blazing, blasting the “Panglossian view” of neoclassical economics that did so much to get us into the credit boom and bust that we are still struggling to recover from. Keen, unlike most...Read More

The art of investing is an exercise in making decisions under conditions of uncertainty. But today, it seems that the cloud of uncertainty is a little thicker than usual. During times like these, I like to do what your college professor might have called “cheating.” I like to look over the shoulders of other investors...Read More

For centuries the Islamic world dominated the West militarily, economically, and culturally.  As late as 1683, when Ottoman forces laid siege to Vienna, Muslim military domination was a legitimate fear for the Christian world. Excluding the sophisticated Byzantine Empire—which Muslim Arab forces nearly conquered and Muslim Turkish forces did conquer in 1453—and some of the...Read More

Procrustes was a character from Greek mythology with an odd sense of hospitality. He would abduct travellers passing by his home, dine with them, and then invite them to spend the night in his guest bed. But being a bit of a perfectionist, he wanted them to fit in the bed just right. So those...Read More

Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity believed two dilapidated buildings in New York would be ideal shelters for the city’s homeless. The city actually agreed with them and offered to sell the building for one dollar each. Yet two years later, the shelter remained unfinished and Mother Teresa’s nuns gave up in despair. New York’s bureaucracy...Read More