Reading: "Whispers Underground". Random thought on economics. Links.

Reading: "Sharps", "Redshirts", "The Day Parliament Burned Down". Watching: "Side Effects". Economics: Austerity and the Laffer Curve. Links.

A review of Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber.

I found out about this book while reading Marginal Revolution. Tyler Cowen's short comment is the best summation:

Do you seek an overly verbose, sometimes fascinating synthesis of economic anthropology, early 20th century credit theories of money, and the history of debt?  The book overinterprets early historical evidence and falls apart as it approaches contemporary times, still it has a vitality which many other tracts lack.

The first few chapters function as Graeber's prolegomenon to the history starting out with some critique of the unquestioned assumption that debt is somehow a sacred obligation. It is followed by a satisfying refutation of the barter myth of the origin of currency. This of course enraged doctrinaire Austrians who believe that Mises' regression theorem, which presupposes a barter economy and insists that money must have originally been a commodity, is necessarily true. They subsequently bashed the book in reviews on Amazon.

The Occupy 99%ers are upset at not having the money to pay bills or get by. The Conservatives don't understand this.

Reading: "The New East End". Watching: "Impressionists", "Antics Roadshow". Economics: why isn't the developed world recovering? Links.

Some thoughts on the background, responsibility, causes of and responses to the English riots of 2011.

Was getting a bit big to embed in a normal diary.

Reading: "The Grand Slave Emporium". Economics: Budget. Web.

When I was young, 15 or 17, I made several attempts to read the Economist Magazine in the school library. It was nihilist, left-wing agit-prop. My self-image was as a reasonable center-right person and I was put off, not least because the magazines cynicism seemed so similar to the teenage angst that I was actively rejecting.

That would be be around 1976. Now that I am nearly fifty I know that the Economist magazine is a right wing part of the establishment. The sophisticated reader can discern subtle nuances, separating pro-market from pro-business, separating those for whom "free markets" is a cloak and those for whom it is a creed. Nevertheless one is left to wonder: how did my young self get it so wrong?

Detailed justification of my teenage views inside, based on September 12th-18th 2009 print edition of the Economist.

Bring on the girls.

Also: ReadyBoost?