Economics

Ladies and gentlemen, computer geeks and warriors, unsheathe your swords. In an extraordinary fund-raising drive, Subutai Corporation raised $526,125 from 9,023 backers (me included) to finance the creation of a video game called CLANG, a game to be built by swordsmen using a realistic sword-like interface. No doubt the Kickstarter…

“The natural law,” says Hugh Jackman, “is that we should all have equal access, equal opportunity with the planet, but it seems the way we’ve divided it up politically or economically, that is not the case.” It certainly is not the case that everyone has equal access or equal opportunity…

You can listen to people talk about “a man with six fingers” or “a businessman who met with overnight success” all day long. But chances are that you will never meet either—and for good reason. As regards the latter, it’s because no matter how some people describe it, a businessman’s…

On “public” radio Wednesday, yet another financial guru was advising Europe to follow the lead of the United States: Bail out troubled banks (such as those of Spain) and forcibly transfer more wealth to cover high debt (as persists in Italy). Coincidentally, the same evening I read a passage by…

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced last week that the bank had lost over $2 billion as a result of some bad investment decisions. Following the announcement, Dimon hit the airwaves apologizing for what he called “sloppy” and “stupid” behavior on the part of his company, and he told the company’s…

The great producer Walmart, loathed by Marxists, “Progressives,” and Occupiers everywhere, has once again found itself at the center of a controversy. Recently, the New York Times broke the story that, for years, Walmart systematically bribed government officials in Mexico in order to secure building permits, which enabled Walmart to…

An informative video from the Foundation for Economic Education features Scott Beaulier discussing economic freedom in Africa. Beaulier focuses on two countries, Botswana and Zimbabwe. “Botswana since 1965 has been one of the most rapidly growing countries in the world averaging more than 7 percent growth per year,” and the…

Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke is “one of the most powerful men in Washington,” notes the New York Times. Of course he is: He holds near-dictatorial powers over the nation’s money supply. In a recent talk at George Washington University, Bernanke condemned the gold standard for hampering the government’s ability…

In a recent blog post, I lauded Greg Smith’s op-ed chastising Goldman Sachs for losing its focus on the long-range goal of making money with its clients and shifting its focus to a shortsighted approach of making money off its clients. I also said that I thought the media had…

Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs suffered its latest in a series of public relations problems on Wednesday when executive Greg Smith quit the firm and published his grievances against it in the New York Times. Smith accused the firm of abandoning its client-focused culture—a culture of trust, of long-term…