2021: The New Europe - Niall Ferguson, Economic Historian

'Life is still far from easy in the peripheral states of the United States of Europe (as the euro zone is now known).' Welcome to Europe, 2021. Ten years have elapsed since the great crisis of 2010-11, which claimed the scalps of no fewer than 10 governments, including Spain and France. Some things have stayed the same, but a lot has changed. The euro is still circulating, though banknotes are now seldom seen. (Indeed, the ease of electronic payments now makes some people wonder why creating a single European currency ever seemed worth the effort.) But Brussels has been abandoned as Europe's political headquarters. Vienna has been a great success.

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The Crisis of Credit Visualized

I like this because it makes a complex topic simply and shows the value of vizualising complexity.

The Economic Legacy of Ebenezer Scrooge - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review

Consider a contrast between two visions of the festive season — the first, a time for consumption (thoughtless, aggressive, pushy, relentless); the second, a time for what you might call cultivation (the human stuff that really matters, lasts, and multiplies). While, admittedly, business has done its bah-humbug brain-dead best to try and shamelessly commandeer Christmas in the haggard name of crass, vulgar consumerism, try as the masters of the universe might, they can't stop the holidays from being about the deeper elements of an authentically well-lived life: lasting relationships, human intimacy, animating passion, enduring ideals, higher purpose, shared values, meaning (and maybe a homemade fruitcake or two). In fact, when you stop to think about it, the stuff that makes the holidays resonant with happiness is exactly the opposite of the nakedly self-interested, hyperrational, profit-maximizing, utility-seeking behavior that's supposed to, in the gleaming vision of orthodox economics, unleash prosperity.

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Keynesian Economics and Its Importance in Understanding the GFC

The importance of how we might understand what has occurred with the Global Financial Crisis is wonderfully summed up in this essay on The General Theory, the title of Keynes economic opus written just after the depression

A Cultural Fix for Risk Management Failure

How to create a culture that combines healthy risk taking with effective risk management. Want to buy a pile of second mortgages with a loan-to-equity value of 99 to 1, and scant documentation on borrower qualifications? (By the way, those borrowers might not live in the homes they’re mortgaging.) And, sure, it’s possible the borrowers are lying about their income and job status. (But who cares?) Today, even considering such a package seems ridiculous. Yet most of these loans, part of

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