Illustration by DALL·E Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Being more generous when defining Man The question of the “us” extends however beyond the borders of the Homo sapiens species. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) in his Essay on the origin of Inequality held the view that we’ve been most ungenerous in our manner of assigning the status of human being.…

First free access, then getting rid of money altogether

I’ve just heard from Jacques Attali who is currently in Shanghai that he will need to be in New York on Thursday morning. This will make it impossible for him to give the lecture planned at the VUB on Wednesday April 17. I’m sure this will be especially disappointing for those of you for whom…

The Financial World and its Regulators The panel discussion which took place after my lecture. Participants were Mathias Dewatripont (BNB-ULB), Jean Bellemans (Vesalius), Thierry Philipponnat (Finance Watch) and Guy Roelandt (Belfius Ins). The moderator was Steven Rombaut, from vrt, the Flemish Belgian radio and television.

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel invites you to participate in an Invited Talk and a Panel Discussion, both steered by Paul Jorion, on October 24th and October 25th, 2012. Law, Ethics and the Business World – The Invited Talk and the Panel Discussion are part of the Academic Chair ‘Stewardship of Finance’ founded by Vrije Universiteit…

Guest post. Translated from the French by Tim Gupwell Here is a summary of the situation. Newly named Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras is continuing to put together a government which was voted in on the basis that it would renegotiate a bail-out plan which is falling apart anyway. In supporting him without sending in any…

Guest post. Translated from the French by Tim Gupwell Financiers loathe risk, though they don’t mind so much if it is others bearing it. When they refer to it they juxtapose terms of risk aversion or, its opposite, appetite for risk, but this is only another of their manners of speaking (of which they have…

Guest post. Translated from the French by Tim Gupwell. A Euro trading this morning at 1.2389 dollars, and sharply rising bond rates, reveal that capital continues to flow out of the Euro zone and that investors are selling Spanish and Italian bonds (both tarred with the same brush) whenever they can. They are also seeking…

An English translation by Jean-Loup Komarower of the post « ÉBULLITION DU MONDE » ET PROPRIÉTÉ PRIVÉE Two questions have to be resolved initially: is new wealth created in the production of goods and services and if it is, how can its amount and value be determined? In addition, are the opposing parties that in our contemporary world…

Mr. Alan Greenspan, who headed the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, for nearly twenty years, has recently committed an article in the Financial Times entitled “Frank-Dodd Fails to Meet test of our times.” (March, the 29th). The Dodd-Frank Act is a several thousand page long jumble of 243 separate regulations, thought of as a…

… to say the least. And the reason wasn’t laziness, it was just simply the success of the French version of it which has taken all my energy, plus that of François when he joined me, plus that of Julien, when he joined the team. But this blog is about to be revived and the…

We will ponder: “Might the financial crisis be followed by national crises?” Alessandro Giraudo – Chief Economist, Tradition Viel (in the studio like myself) Ondine Smulders – The Economist (calling in from Athens) A (to be determined) Reuters Breakingviews’ journalist (calling in from London) Podcasts : First part. Second part.

“Combinatorial Magic”Download