Why a tolerant society is not a free society
Individual freedom is the libertarian ideal, the abstract value which guides moral action. As a political idea, libertarianism emerged in the latter part of the 19th century from liberalism, the overarching political paradigm to come from the Enlightenment. Liberalism centred the individual, both as the architect of his own destiny through his faculty for [...]
How the world forgot the crimes of communism – 2: The cover-up
The crimes perpetrated by the Nazis during the second world war hold a unique place in the conscience of the world. More than 15 million people were murdered in the Third [...]
How the world forgot the crimes of communism – 1: The crimes
In the 20th century, an unfathomable catastrophe played out in Russia. As first Vladimir Lenin and then Joseph Stalin forced through their Bolshevik workers revolution and [...]
Wall Street vs Main Street in one chart
Last week, the Liechtenstein based investment company Icrementum AG published the 2020 edition of their annual In Gold We Trust research note. The whole paper is worth a read [...]
Efficient capital allocation falls victim to Coronavirus
Few problems in economics are so fundamental and so misunderstood as the issue of capital allocation. We live in a world of finite resources that need to be allocated towards [...]
Where herd mentality thrives and freedom dies
Finally, the Coronavirus lockdowns in Europe are slowly being eased. Britain is a laggard, but even here it seems that by the end of July we will have seen the back of most [...]
Why we will not clap for the NHS
A new ritual has entered the weekly routine in locked-down households up and down the British Iles: every Thursday at 8pm, the otherwise quarantined Brits flood the streets [...]
Why Quantitative Easing will hurt, not help the economy
The Coronavirus crisis will devastate the world economy. In addition to the human costs, the virus will lead to a precipitous fall in economic activity as workers are in [...]
Coronavirus, lockdowns and the ease of indoctrination
On an otherwise ordinary school day in 1967, Ron Jones, a young social studies teacher in Palo Alto, California, put his 10th grade students through an exercise which would [...]
10 reasons to end the lockdown
As most of the Western world is in strict lockdown to fight Coronavirus, those who are sceptical about the policy of lockdown find it hard to be heard. Mainstream media [...]
The cost of corporate welfare
A decade after the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and bailouts are once again on the political agenda. Back then, banks all over the world were supplied with government [...]