London lack of supply!

Lots of Londoners think that London is - or was - immune to the House Price Crash. Lack of supply, millionaires who don't care about prices ... London price would not fall.

Would it?

I think that Pimlico is kind of central London ...

"Flat I bought for £175,000 last year is now worth less than £100,000"

It's no more a lack of supply but much more a lack of demand, 10 years of lie are coming to an end. Get ready for the british version of the credit crunch.

Is the world Austrian?

As the global crisis continue to unfold I remember a podcast on econ talk where Pete Boettke argue that the crisis we are living now is the consequence of trying to control aggregate, that are just a proxy to the reality. Central Bank would have postponed the needed adjustment by fine tuning the aggregate, every time giving incentive for people to create new bubble.

If that's the case we need to reread Hayek and reduce economic intervention and government drastically.

Unfortunately most people will ask for the opposite, they will ask for an extension of government intervention. Which would be like giving more horse power to a blind driver.

Personal Finance Tip

Don’t save too much.

Read at Freakonomics for more information, originally from Milton Friedman

French Corruption

Virgin's Branson says 'French minister asked him for bribe'


Branson told Capital that "I took the affair to the highest authorities.

"I was advised to not to make it public and to wait until the next ministerial reshuffle. A few months later, I won my case,"

Back to the Future

In France, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist League is leading the polls.

Will France fall for a workers dictatorship?

In Defense of Sweatshops

To put things in perspective after last night Panorama :

Not only are sweatshops better than current worker alternatives, but they are also part of the process of development that ultimately raises living standards. That process took about 150 years in Britain and the United States but closer to 30 years in the Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Europe Was Going Too Far

A paper I totally agree with at vox.

Decide what Europe should be all about

Rather than forcing more political integration down the throats of Europeans, European leaders should stop for a second and decide what Europe should be all about. We think it should be about deep economic integration and the coordination of policies with clearly identifiable cross-national externalities. Nothing more, nothing less.