Hard to know what is more shocking: A president of the United States stating in a Buenos Aires speech last week that there is “no difference between capitalism and communism, choose whatever works” (see video link in the endnote) or the fact that this statement has not received coverage.
Reuven Brenner holds the Repap Chair at McGill University’s Desautels faculty of Management. The article draws on his Force of Finance.
Learning from their whooping crane failure?
Birth rates in western countries have declined to far below replacement levels of 2.1. Why did these countries’ last few generations give up having kids?
Despite being an icon of economic liberty, Smith did not think that government intervention was always bad: it depended on the circumstances
What are the main issues that David Cameron negotiated with the EU and put up for the coming referendum?
Japan’s, the US’s and Europe’s central banks and governments continue to fly by the seat of their pants, since none of their policies restored prosperity since the 2008 crisis. Incomes stagnate, labor force participation is at historical lows, and though measured unemployment dropped, the fact that there are no pressures whatsoever on compensations suggests that the decline in unemployment rates no longer signals better times. In Canada, the drastic drop in prices of natural resources and the value of debt backing that industry has brought particular shock-waves to finance, insurance, and
On a flight back from Moscow in 1992, following meetings with parliament members and the late Mr. Yegor Gaidar, then finance minister, I wrote up the tongue-in-cheek conversation I had with them at the time, when they all complained about Russia having only its natural resources to sell. Please bear with me how this episode is linked to Australian highest court recent decision to export “asylum seekers” to detention centers in Nauru, a minuscule, isolated island with few thousand inhabitants in the midst of the Pacific.
During a recent roundtable, I was startled when a participant brought me a recent Financial Times (Nov. 10, 2015) article, titled “Shareholders think they own the company – they are wrong,” subtitle elaborating “So whose is the business? No one’s, just like the river Thames.” Eh?
Written by Reuven Brenner
Over the years, some economists carried out laboratory experiments and argued that people are inconsistent in ways they assess risks and probabilities. They concluded that it is misleading to rely on other economists’ view of risk, and that economics cannot be separated from psychology. This field of study is known today as “behavioral economics” (Kahneman and Tversky its founders), which, as briefly shown here, is neither “behavioral,” nor “economics,” nor makes sense.
Written by Reuven Brenner
George Akerlof’s and Robert Shiller’s (Nobels in economics) new book, titled Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception declares on its first page that people “do not do what is really good for them; they do not choose what they really want.” It appears that a main preoccupation of economists – the self declared “behavioral economists” prominent among them – is to show how dumb people are as consumers and in assessing risks.
Over at Asia Times, I argue that France will do nothing in response to the Paris massacres but round up the usual suspects.
Article written by Professor Reuven Brenner
As in the United States, Canadians voted for “Hope and Change” on Oct. 19, 2015.
These are exactly the words Justin Trudeau, the 43-years old elected head of the Liberal party, repeatedly used in his victory speech in both English and French. I could not avoid wondering if Mr. Trudeau’s team used the same public relations firm that Mr. Obama used in his first campaign, or if he just borrowed the slogans.
Written by Reuven Brenner
Europe is now facing a prospect similar to what the US has been facing for decades: the march of millions upon its borders. But whereas the US got millions of immigrants fleeing Mexico for a better life, the potential millions moving on Europe come from failing states from around the world: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya – and through the latter, from Nigeria, Eritrea and other.
This op-ed is written by Professor Reuven Brenner.
Od kilku miesięcy Larry Summers powtarza tezę, że mamy do czynienia z „długotrwałą stagnacją”, przez co rozumie trwały spadek zagregowanego popytu na świecie, zwłaszcza w USA. Bernanke twierdzi, że niskie stopy procentowe to winna cyklu koniunkturalnego i czynników nadzwyczajnych, a nie Fed – co z kolei krytykuje Krugman.
This op-ed is written by Reuven Brenner, the Repap Chair at McGill University’s Desautels faculty of Management.
Much has been written on the “Dutch Disease” – how countries relying on their natural resources often fall on hard times, failing to develop. A Chinese observer, Laozi, in 81 BC had this to say: “A country is never as poor as when it seems filled with riches” (in Yan Tie Lun, A Discourse on Salt and Iron). Only these days, the natural riches are oil (in Canada, Norway, Russia, Middle East) and in Australia, iron ore.
Though it was recently announced that productivity in the US rose 1.3% from the previous quarter, Alan Greenspan is worried about the collapse in productivity: “I think it’s the most serious problem that confronts not only the United States but the world at large and more exactly the developed world especially. American productivity is not significantly different from zero growth in the last 6 or 8 quarters.
... Reuven Brenner holds the Repap Chair at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. The article draws on his Force of Finance (2001).
