Someone asked me the proper way to view deposit contracts, in the context of a discussion about fractional-reserve banking (FRB). He noted that in my A Libertarian Theory of Contract I state that contractual obligations can either be “to do” or “to give”; and that “to do” contracts are generally not enforceable due to specific performance, but can only result in damages if non performance actually occurs. This implies that the only real enforceable obligations are “to give” something.
“Last year, according to the IMF, the U.S. pumped an extra 1.1% of GDP into the economy. Germany did next to nothing.” WSJ
“The latest figures showed German exports had grown at their fastest pace for nearly three years at 7%, with particularly strong growth in demand from rapidly-growing economies such as China.” BBC
[How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present. By Thomas J. DiLorenzo. Crown Forum, 2004. 295 pages.]
An interesting piece of correspondence today from a person who observed how easy money dramatically transformed the technology industry, from rationality into mania.
I am deeply involved in the technology industry-- specifically computer software and the Internet-- and I lived through the tech bubble. What impressed me about the tech bubble was not only the mania and the crash, which you describe quite well, but also how much damage the tech bubble itself did to my industry.
NYT: After a brief tirade against the sport by the president on national television last month, pro-Chávez officials have moved in recent weeks to shut down two of the country’s best-known golf courses, in Maracay, a city of military garrisons near here, and in the coastal city of Caraballeda. “Let’s leave this clear,” Mr. Chávez said during a live broadcast of his Sunday television program. “Golf is a bourgeois sport,” he said, repeating the word “bourgeois” as if he were swallowing castor oil.
