Publications, October

Following last month's exciting change of lifestyle (I launched my freelancing business full-time – check it out!), October has been the first real month of trying my wings. So far, they seem to work.

Here are all the publications:

Notes On Liberty: (see all my posts here)

• [1] Davies' "Extreme Economies" - Part 1: Survival", best and most captivating book I've read in some time, so much so that it deserved a thorough 3-part (4-5?) review and summary. Must-read. 
• [2] Davies' "Extreme Economies" – Part 2: Failure", the second part including a visit to the Darien Gap in Panama and Kinshasa in DRC. 

American Institute for Economic Research (all my pieces here)

• [3] 'The Mythology of Cantillon Effects', a piece, long in the making. For a while, Austrians' emphasis on so-called "Cantillon effects" (= monetary redistribution) has bothered me a while. I finally found enough time to go through Cantillon's original writing. It turns out not only does every monetary system have Cantillon effects, but Cantillon himself was analyzing an increased money supply coming from gold mines – not money-printing central banks. 
• [4] 'Gresham's Law Is Not the Reason for the Corruption of Democracy', where I discussed the actual origin of Gresham's Law and the real meaning (no, it doesn't mean anything 'bad' drives out anything 'good'). 
• [5] 'Yield Curve Inversions Don't Improve Investment Outcomes', a piece that I could have audaciously named "Fama-French vs Harvey" – but then only literature-savvy financial economists would have gotten it. I reported the results that esteemed financial economists (one of which a Nobel Laureate) Eugene Fama and Kenneth French found while investigating the infamously scary inversions of the yield curve: negative relative returns, for 1-, 2-, 3- and 5-year across close to all strategies. In plain English: even if yield curve inversions predict recessions (questionable), switching from stocks to bonds earns you lower returns than simply staying invested in stocks. There is no outperformance by obeying yield curve inversions. 
• Top on Real Clear Markets on October 12. 
• Re-published at Capitalism Magazine
• [6] 'The Limits to Hostile Takeovers' So-called Hostile "take-overs" get a bad rap; greedy capitalist investors buy up a company and do all kinds of horrible things to it (like take it apart and sell its subdivisions!), somehow "obviously" destroying wealth in the process. If that's true, I always wondered, why would anybody ever sell? 
• Re-published at Capitalism Magazine
• Re-published at WallStreetWindow
• Shared at RealClearMarkets with the epic title 'Nothing "Hostile" about Hostile Takeovers'
• [7] 'The Rise of Edinburgh, Financial Empire', where I (rather favourably) reviewed Ray Perman's latest book, The Rise and Fall of the City of Money. How could I not like it, 336 pages filled with Scottish financial history?! Banks, insurance companies, financial crises, colourful characters and easy prose. Highly recommended for anyone wanted to get a fairly comprehensive outline of Scottish banks, the 1690s to the present.
• Re-published at Capitalism Magazine
• Shared at RealClearMarkets with a very nice Scottish flag as centerpiece. 

Mises Institute (see all my pieces here)

• [8] 'Difference Between Economy and Ecology', like all of us reasonable people in the age of St. Greta and Extinction-level delusions, I eventually had enough. As Ryan McMaken and Marian Tupy and Michael Shellenberger had already debunked her religious following, I looked into where the environmentalists actually go right; they do understand economic principles – they just apply them selectively to other areas. 
• Translated and re-published at the Polish Mises Institute.
• [9] 'The New York Times Gets Neoclassicals, Austrians, and Schumpeter Wrong, all in One Article', where I hit back at Justin Fox's pretty confused account of the Austrian School: it's quite a stretch to call it "neoclassical"; early 20th century Viennese intellectuals were not predominantly market-oriented scholars; Schumpeter ≠ Austrian economist. Free-market economists don't run the world, and book reviewers at the NYT should stop pretending they do.
• My third Zero Hedge appearance – very happy!
• Echoed on South African investment site Investing Matters
• Re-published at Marketworld.com

On par with my July record of 9 publications in a month, October was as good as can be expected considering the time I spent on editing and proofreading. Next month is going to blow that record out of the water!