Andy Duncan is wild for Doug French’s book: “You know you have crossed into the Austrian light when you wake up one morning and everything has become clear. From that point forward, for the rest of your life, you realise that almost every societal problem you encounter, no matter how simple nor how complex, is usually something to do with involuntary coercion, threatened violence, or some other failure of state interference in the free market. No matter how well the dead hand of government has camouflaged itself, the underlying coercive cause of the problem usually presents itself in short order, whether to explain a failing health system, a rogue schools system, or even a perennial shortage of your favourite vitamin in a local health food store. Doug French, the current President of the Mises Institute and a former Las Vegas banker, is one such clarity-seeking Austrian.”
Also, Henry Manne corrects the record on insider trading here, illustrating why Manne’s collected works is worth owning and mastering: “I was more surprised, however, to see you repeating the oldest myth in the whole field, one that even the SEC gave up on as wrong many years ago and which frankly is no longer a part of the respectable debate on this topic: that a trade by an insider “disadvantages” the party on the other side. (I will let pass the peculiar mistake of relating this by inference to a duty owed to existing shareholders when insiders are selling—how about insider sales to perfect strangers to the corporation? Is there an inchoate fiduciary duty?). I challenge you to show me any way in which the anonymous buyer or seller in an exchange transaction is harmed because that transaction just happens to involve an insider on the other side. In fact, you cannot.”
