Home Blog

Blog

Search

Madoff and the regulation of financial markets
Richard Wellings
18 December 2008
4 comments

The Madoff scandal is yet more bad news for the financial sector. Several major banks may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the alleged scam. An important question is whether this would...
More social housing won’t help the housing market
Peter King
17 December 2008
14 comments

The government would have us believe that one way to help households struggling to gain access to the housing market is to build more social housing. This will also have the benefit, our Keynesian...
Slam the brakes on bailouts
Richard Wellings
16 December 2008
22 comments

Following the bailout of several banks, the government is now considering measures to ‘save’ the British car industry. Such a bailout would be wrong in itself but would also set a very...
The link between ‘fiat money’ and boom-and-bust cycles
Kristian Niemietz
11 December 2008
16 comments

The online edition of the Handelsblatt, a major German business newspaper, recently featured an op-ed blaming government-created ’fiat money’ for the current financial crisis. It...
The perils of a deflationary shock
Philip Booth
8 December 2008
4 comments

Deflation means that the pound in your pocket is worth more each year. In an earlier age, deflation was regarded as benign at worst. For a couple of hundred years before 1946, moderate deflation...
The financial crisis: more transparency, less regulation
Michael Beenstock
2 December 2008
22 comments

The gut reaction to the current financial crisis is that we need more and better regulation. Few understand that regulation is part of the problem and not its solution. The solution lies in...
Why regulation fails: Baby P and Northern Rock
Philip Booth
18 November 2008
4 comments

Without wishing to trivialise the former, there are eerie similarities between the tragic case of Baby P and the failure of Northern Rock. In the banking sector, the FSA, which has virtually...
The Bank of England shouldn’t try to stave off recession
Philip Booth
6 November 2008
6 comments

The 1.5% interest rate cut came as a bit of a surprise to most people. However, we are in new territory and it is territory with which those economists who love their macroeconomic forecasting...
Welfare reform needed to prevent long-term dependency
Richard Wellings
3 November 2008
2 comments

According to official figures, almost two million people are now unemployed in the UK. That number is rising rapidly as the economy shrinks. This means extra expenditure on welfare benefits, putting...
A Keynesian spending spree won’t lead the economy out of recession
Richard Wellings
24 October 2008
6 comments

Alistair Darling’s proposed spending spree on bringing forward major capital projects suggests the government is prepared to sacrifice the economy’s long-term interests for short-term...
Marx was wrong in every important respect
John Meadowcroft
23 October 2008
2 comments

Sir – Marx’s theory of the crises of capitalism is little more than a melodramatic description of the business cycle — standard fare in economic analysis. Every original...
The government of Argentina expropriates workers’ pension funds
Kristian Niemietz
21 October 2008
10 comments

Today, the government of Argentina will announce the annulment of the country’s private pension system introduced in 1994. The savings funds of 12 million workers will be nationalised. With...
The financial crisis and the economics of institutions
Martin Ricketts
20 October 2008
2 comments

The present financial crisis illustrates clearly the fundamental importance of institutional structure to the satisfactory operation of a market economy. Looking at the present carnage it is hard...
Monetary policy a cause of depressions
Richard Wellings
16 October 2008
6 comments

Several bloggers, including Guido Fawkes, have rightly emphasised the relevance of Ludwig von Mises’ work to the current financial crisis. The writings of Mises’ pupil, Nobel...
Muhammad Yunus joins the “crisis of capitalism” choir
Kristian Niemietz
14 October 2008
16 comments

In an interview with Spiegel Online, 2006 Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus states that the current financial crisis is proof that capitalism has gone wild: “Adam Smith’s invisible hand,...
The press has managed to ignore the facts, the history and the economics of banking
Terry Arthur
10 October 2008
2 comments

On 9th October, Anatole Kaletsky, Associate Editor of The Times, wrote “Banking crises have never been resolved purely by market forces. Once a financial panic starts, government intervention...
The global financial crisis is not an argument for statism
Philip Vander Elst
6 October 2008
2 comments

When I originally set out to write my newly published IEA paper, Power Against People: A Christian Critique of the State, I was conscious of the fact that despite the success of Margaret...
Short selling, imprudence and the Archbishop of York
Philip Booth
2 October 2008
comments

Christians have a duty to be properly informed when they speak out. Catholics specifically call the sin of blundering into the unknown “imprudence”. Surely the...
Let them fail
Peter J. Boettke
27 September 2008
4 comments

The market economy is a profit and loss system. Imprudent decisions do require correction – if not by the individuals themselves, then by others who enter into the market in the hope of...
Thumbs down for Bush’s bailout
Philip Booth
26 September 2008
8 comments

Until last week, it seemed that one only needed a couple of PhDs in monetary economics and finance to make head or tail of what was going on in financial markets. It now seems that a PhD in...

IEA Brexit prize

Support us

Invest in the IEA. We are the catalyst for changing consensus and influencing public debate.

Donate now

Thank you for
your support

Subscribe to
publications

Subscribe

eNEWSLETTER