Books

As Interest Rates Fall, Civilizations Rise

By Todd G. Buchholz,
Author of Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race

As an economist, the best measure of time I can find is the prevailing interest rate. When interest rates are high, it tells us that tomorrow counts for less. It is not worth investing today. From a business point of view, very few financed projects will payoff if interest rates are high (the “hurdle rate”). However, when interest rates are low, it tells us that we should invest today because any return will be prized more in the future. During the German hyperinflation of the early 1920s, prices and interest rates jumped higher each hour. The price of a cup of coffee could go up as the waitress was pouring. Teachers got paid at ten a.m. and brought their banknotes to the playground so their relatives could pick them up and then buy things immediately. Likewise, the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe in recent years acted like a neutron bomb on the economy. Coincidentally, in 1919, when Yeats wrote “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” interest rates were jumping sharply, the British pound slid in value, and Europe was preparing for a terrible bout of post-World War I inflation. Elsewhere, I set out “the Buchholz Hypothesis,” arguing that the crime rate is importantly a function of interest rates. This solves the puzzle of the Great Depression. Most commentators on crime say that a lousy economy leads to crime. But during the Great Depression, crime rates fell, as they did in 2008 and 2009. Why? Because interest rates fell, too. People did not give up on tomorrow, even as they suffered economic distress.
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Braille Book Goes on Sale Before Print Edition

It’s not often one reads of a Braille edition of a book being released before a print copy; in fact, it may never have happened before.

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Dethroning the King

I have never wanted to crack open a Budweiser more than in the past few days as I read Julie MacIntosh’s Dethroning the King, a page-turning account of the hostile 2008 takeover of the King of Beers by Belgian-based brewer InBev.

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Books: Vordak the Incomprehensible: How to Grow Up and Rule the World

When was the last time anyone said something nice about a super villain? (Bill Gates doesn’t count.) Naturally the last label Vordak the Incomprehensible would want attached to his name is “nice”; nevertheless, in his latest tome, “How to Grow Up and Rule the World”, the infamous bad guy charitably imparts wisdom attained from decades of super villainy onto the youth of today.

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Excerpts from Tony Hendra’s ‘The Messiah of Morris Avenue’

Tony Hendra, author of the mammoth bestseller Father Joe, attended Cambridge University, where he performed with Monty Pythons-to-be John Cleese and Graham Chapman. He served as editor in chief of Spy magazine, was an original editor of National Lampoon, and also played Ian Faith in This is Spinal Tap. He has written for New York, Harper's, GQ, Vanity Fair, Men's Journal, and Esquire. His book, The Messiah of Morris Avenue, is a satire.

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