When History Was Made

Via The Economist, this is fascinating: “More person years have been lived in the first decade of the current century than in all of the 17th century. And nearly 80% of the economic output of the last millenium has been produced in just the last 110 years. Everyone likes to think that they live in historical times. As it so happens, we do.”

Cowen: How Would A Greek Transition Out of the Euro Go?

Tyler Cowen has some thoughts: Forget about the macroeconomics for now, I am thinking about the sheer mechanics of it. If Greece announced it was leaving the euro, it might declare a bank holiday.  For some number of days, no one can pull their euros out of the bank (otherwise all euros leave the Greek banking system).  The government would have to put a money stamping technology in place fairly rapidly.  Once the banks are reopened, withdrawn money gets a stamp and it is now a “Greek euro” or “drachma euro,” trading at a lower value of course.  Is there an indelible, irreversible money stamping technology and how long would it take to distribute it  to every Greek bank?  How

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Tyler Cowen and The Great Stagnation

I’ve long been a fan of Tyler Cowen’s blog, Marginal Revolution. It’s interesting, off-beat, and is a great source of lesser publicized news stories and research findings, with plenty of thoughtful commentary thrown in. I had been meaning to read Tyler’s recent book, ‘The Great Stagnation’, for a while now. Then the other day, while sitting in an airport, I caught this Business Week article about Tyler, titled ‘Tyler Cowen, America’s Hottest Economist.’ It’s a fascinating article about what makes him one of the more quirky and unique economists, and made me much more eager to read some of his published work. ‘The Great Stagnation’ is about why our economic growth trend has all but come to a standstill, and why

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