As I write this post, I'm sitting in a coffee shop waiting to speak to a group of senior bankers at Ulster Bank about what we can learn from the history of financial crises. The four lessons I will be sharing with them are: (1) the 2008 crisis is totally different from anything that has come before in terms of its scale and scope; (2) if bankers aren't properly incentivised, they will take on too much risk; (3) asset markets can reverse, but this is only a concern if the assets are financed via debt; and (4) politics matters - crises ultimately have a political root.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.