Why gold and bitcoin make lousy money

A desirable property of a monetary instrument is that it holds its value over short periods of time. Most assets do not have this property: their purchasing power fluctuates greatly at very high frequency. Imagine having...

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Hva mener egentlig Høyesterett om strukturerte produkter?

Høyesterett har avsagt en uklar dom. Finansklagenemda må avgjøre hva retten egentlig mente. Det er fortiden full forvirring om hvordan dommen mot DNB i den såkalte Røeggensaken skal tolkes. DNB har forstått det slik at de er dømt en klønete regnefeil. Andre har brukt ord som “knusende sier”. Forbrukerrådet...

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Monetary policy in a liquidity trap

Krugman has an interesting article today, Monetary Policy in a Liquidity Trap. I (sort of) agree with much of it. But I believe that a few comments are in order. Consider this statement:So, at this point America and Japan (and core Europe) are all in liquidity traps: private demand is so weak that even...

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Poor Germany

Well, here's an eyebrow raiser: Germans Among Poorest in Europe: ECB Study.  The paper is available here: The Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The cross country comparison of net wealth can be found...

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