Category: Investment

  • Real Estate

    In 1879 Henry George published a book called Progress and Poverty in which he argued that people should own the value that they produce, but that land and natural resources should belong equally to all members of society. The book, which was apparently  the first popular economics text, was one of the most widely printed…

  • Risk Management

    There are a host of “financial products” in addition to shares of stock whose justification is risk management for investors and the generation of information about what investors expect to happen.  In reality they often serve only to permit speculation about price fluctuations in financial markets.  Even mainstream economists no longer hesitate to use the…

  • Liquidity

    To understand how a “credit crunch” or “liquidity trap” can threaten an entire economy and how a bank can be “too big to fail,” it is necessary to have a better understanding of what the “products” are in financial markets. Financial markets theoretically exist for two reasons: to provide liquidity for investments and to facilitate…

  • Debt Financing

    Consumer credit loans seem benign enough except for cases where people dig themselves into a hole by using credit card debt to finance everyday expenses until things take a turn for the better. Mortgages and refinance loans can also be a problem when people bet on their home’s value increasing dramatically, and student loans often…