Essays & News

  Given the state of the world today, one could not be blamed for thinking that there are more pressing matters to worry about than some people’s inability to grasp the concept of compound interest. Inflation, economic uncertainty, heightened social friction and new technological (and possibly existential) threats like Artificial Intelligence all seem more urgent. […]

  True education is not about filling the mind with knowledge, but about training it to think. Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835)     TAKE AWAY Though participating 15 year old students must be able to apply their accumulated knowledge to solve problems, the kind of input/output methods used in the PISA Study always have been […]

A few years ago, China treated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a supplicant and the country itself with benign neglect. North Korea has enormous economic problems, and Mr. Kim’s megalomania has made the country a pariah on the global stage. It was only through the brazen testing of missiles and nuclear saber-rattling that Pyongyang […]

  Election campaigns in the United States can often have a more disruptive impact on foreign policy than the candidate who wins. The president’s discretion in international relations is constrained by political realities. Yet, during the race, incumbents make decisions deemed necessary in case of defeat and take actions aimed at swaying voters. The ongoing […]

The subtitle of this essay has been borrowed from Terry L. Anderson’s conference on ‘Markets vs. Mandates. Promoting Environmental Quality and Economic Prosperity’, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Jan. 30, 2023. Permission granted. Take Away The scarcity of means to satisfy given ends is an omnipresent condition of life and all conscious human actions profoundly affect […]