Joakim Book
Who Bears the Burden of Dollars’ Falling Purchasing Power?
“Inflation is not a one-trick pony, with an easily predictable outcome. Rather, it does several things at the same time. Looking at claims like the eradication of a dollar’s purchasing power is misleading: it is not the case that inflation has ripped off savers by eradicating 97% of their savings’ worth.” ~ Joakim Book
The Economic Performance of Coronavirus Sweden
“Economically, as far as we can tell, Sweden has been comparatively successful, but the projections between various economic institutions and statistics agencies still vary way too much for us to be entirely certain about this. In a year where models and forecasts have been widely off the mark, we should interpret this conservatively.” ~ Joakim…
Welcome to the Frankfurtian World
“Wherever one turns, the political discourse seems entirely uninterested in the Enlightenment project – the values of 17th and 18th century philosophers imploring us to use reason to approach scientific truth and an intelligent and civil society.” ~ Joakim Book
Who Owns Leftover and Abandoned Bar Food?
“Figuring out the exact property rights isn’t worth the hassle: it’s too little and too rare to care about enforcing whatever legal right might be applicable in various jurisdictions. In practice, the ownership of leftover food is up to the social norms in the country you’re in, or even the attitude of the staff at…
On Externalities and Noise
“There is no world where trade-offs don’t apply, where we can have all the nice things we want without anybody, anywhere, getting upset. Externalities are everywhere, but if we want to live prosperous lives, some part of those lives will be impacted by others. Get over it.” ~ Joakim Book
David Goodhart’s Road to Somewhere
“Goodhart frequently emphasizes that the trends in opinion that he reports are not figments of his imagination, but real opinions held by real people. That much seems accurate, and as a description of British political beliefs, his book makes useful contributions. He has failed to show why the fact that some people are convinced by…
What Greta Thunberg Forgets About Climate Change
“Perhaps Greta’s message for politicians to listen to the scientists and take real action has hit home. In one sense, they are already well on the way to following her advice. They read chapter 10 of IPCC’s AR5 report, where they learned that climate change is important – but that other socioeconomic developments matter much…
One Size Never Fits All
“One-size-fits-all solutions in our political discourse are often made to work for every topic globally. Reality is not like that, as both economic and ecologic matters frequently assert.” ~ Joakim Book
Don’t Mention the Virus
“If we avoided the hysteria that eagerly thought this pandemic was either the end of globalization or the end of the human race, we all thought this would be a temporary nuisance in our lives. Instead, the virus is deceptively permanent and I don’t mean biologically. We haven’t really moved on from corona – it…
Are Humans Naturally Nice?
“Drawing superficially on many different fields with narrative case-studies to illustrate a major point keeps the story refreshing – but risks becoming detached, unconvincing and plainly wrong.” ~ Joakim Book
