Prevent the Comeback of the Cold Warriors! (tags)
What lessons were learned from Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iraq and Afghanistan? Can countries become incapable of learning? Is preemptive war, confusion of offense and defense, a Hitlerian perversion? Does cooking intelligence create cynicism instead of public spirit?
Charles Dickens as Economist (tags)
Ultimately the whole industrial revolution appears like a fairytale that becomes true. At the end of the 19th century, the GDP in England was six times as high as 1834. Human possibilities of life and consumption improved to a tremendous extent. Dickens described this exciting process.
Ideology and Morality: What the Financial Crisis teaches about functioning of democracy (tags)
Moralizing is a form of argumentation found in many ideologies and academic systems of thought.. State interventions, we were taught, are bad because they run counter to the objective laws of the market.. The market is a social institution that we interpret in different ways..
Politics in the Crisis Trap (tags)
A discontinuance of debt-financed economic programs leads to an economic slack period resulting in stagnation and recession. Crisis policy finds itself in a philosophical paradox. The political class can only choose between more indebtedness up to state bankruptcy (with hyper-inflation) or harsh austerity programs.
"We are the Greatest Backwoods of the World": Interview with Norman Birnbaum (tags)
"I am astonished or shocked at this total submissiveness toward my country. Intelligent people fade out the shady sides of our country, the broad trails of blood of our military interventions and the cynical contempt of the govt for its own citizens.. "