There are as many causes for fluctuations in economic life as there are external conditions of economizing. Each of these conditions can change and thereby effect a change in the course of the economic process. If the economy is affected to a greater extent, if farther reaching changes prove necessary and, in particular, if a lasting change in an external determinant of the economy causes disruptions in the economy for a longer period of time, then one can speak of an economic crisis.

I have previously estimated that the patent system imposes at least $42 billion in net loss to the economy annually (Costs of the Patent System Revisited).

What happens when 620,000 lenders fund 615,000 entrepreneurs, students, and other microfinance borrowers around the world? 4,033,920 unique lender-borrower connections. March 2011 Kiva loans top $2,000,000,000

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.

January 1, 2005 – June 22, 2011.

It’s increasingly recognized that our current patent system is “broken.”1 Billions are paid in ransom to patent aggressors. Patent lawyers are enriched. Patent trolls have emerged. Competitors, like Android smartphones and tablets, are shut down or delayed by entrenched patent oligopolists.

In a desperate attempt to assure Congress, and weary voters, that Keynesian stimulus spending still works, President Obama recently revealed a jobs initiative aimed at jump-starting the economy. Surprisingly enough, the econometric models that calculated that the first stimulus program would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent were inaccurate.

I’ve begun to collect some of the sillier arguments I’ve heard for IP. A few of them are listed below. (Note: I am giving a Mises Academy Webinar this Friday, Sept. 23, “Obama’s Patent Reform: Improvement or Continuing Calamity?“; my Mises Academy course “Libertarian Controversies” starts tonight.)

Intellectual property is a concept that is inherently flawed. In particular, missing is the absolutism that is central to the ownership of property. And this flaw caused me to drop intellectual property as a requisite attribute of liberty.

I taught computer law in 1998-1999 at South Texas College of Law. How things have changed. The course would now probably be called “Internet Law” or Cyberlaw, though much of the subject matter would be similar (online contracts, spam, computer/Internet related crimes, intellectual property as applied to computer related issues, privacy and data collection, and jurisdictional issues).