Pro-Peace Entrepreneur
Bob Luddy — successful businessman, champion of freedom, and founder of a private Catholic school — sent this letter to the Raleigh, NC, News and Observer, where it appeared on Saturday:
Spy on me, please
Thank goodness that Amazon has been tracking my purchases. Otherwise the store front that the tracking software created for me might not have alerted me to the existence of the first complete season of the Jetsons on DVD. That’s 24 episodes illustrating that technological advance is thrilling and meritorious without being fundamentally revolutionary to society and human nature. See this article to understand why this is important.
A Cry in the Wilderness
It is now, as the spring semester draws to a close and final exams lie graded on my desk, that I face the fruits of my long labors in Fundamentals of Economics.
Fallout from the Quattrone Verdict
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the ease with which the government prosecuted Frank Quattrone has increased pressure on major financial service firms to set aside reserves to cover liabilities resulting from future investor lawsuits. “[T]hey’re recognizing that the litigation environment is looking more hostile,” said John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia Law School.
The War Boom
FEE.org caught this revealing piece from the Washington Post: “Across America, War means Jobs”In this corner of a critical presidential-election battleground state, the economy is surging with the urgency of a boom. But it wasn’t President Bush’s tax cuts, Federal Reserve interest rate policies or even a general economic turnaround that did the trick. It was war.
Austrian Sighting: Barron’s
J. Alfred Greenspan, by Randall W. Forsyth (Barron’s May 10, 2004) (thanks Greg Kaza):
A Story Greenspan Would Not Tell
Dinner speech by Professor Otmar Issing, Member of the ECB Executive Board, to be held on Monday, May 10, 2004:
De Soto’s Embrace of the State
Hernando de Soto says that the poor need property rights but he provides no theoretical grounding for such rights, writes Gabriel Calzada.
Mises is the Other Economist
Francis Fukuyama reviews Bruce Caldwell’s book Hayek’s Challenge, and somehow manages not to put in the name Mises when discussing the socialist calculation debate (see Mises’s 1920 article). That aside, and Fukuyama’s own social-democratic outlook aside as well, it is a good review.
Stocks continue down
Stock markets continue to head lower this morning. Certainly one of the catalysts is the prospects for higher interest rates. The Federal Funds rate was pushed downward beginning in the third quarter of 2000 and has been held down at 1% for the last year (see chart). On the other hand, the bond market indicates that interest rates are heading higher.
