Recommended reading: The tragedy of the euro

Even though it is almost a year old, just yesterday I came across a book called "The tragedy of the euro" by professor Philipp Bagus from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. I have not had enough time to read it thoroughly, but what I saw in that short time span is more than enough for me to recommend it to everyone interested in knowing about the future (if any) of the European currency. You can find the full book here (PDF) thanks to the Mises Institute.

It is a story of good and noble ideas being badly applied or intentionally misunderstood. It is a story of how the fathers of what today is called the European Union tried to establish economic liberalism all across Europe, thinking of the possibilities, progress and growth an European-wide open marketplace could bring. But sadly, it is also a story of how some countries, specially France, managed to convert this great idea into a fully-fledged European super-state. A super-state with limiting regulations, the typical bureaucratic slowness and stiffness and inefficiency in general.

The book explains, with piercing clarity, the different motivations behind European countries to adopt a unified currency. Periferic countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and also France saw in the euro a great way to keep printing money and issuing debt (a necessary by-product of their deficit-prone economies). With an unified currency they would be able to hide the inflation caused by this objectionable tactics, as there would no longer be a Deutsche Mark to be compared against.

How did they convince Germany to be part of such an awful plan?

Introduction

Let me introduce myself properly before I start posting my views and thoughts on the world economy and its current situation. I have been interested in economics since very early in my life, whenever I grabbed a newspaper (those internet-less days) my attention went always to the economy and business section while other childs would rush to the sports section . I must admit that sports was my second option though... Thanks to this early start with economics I found out very soon what my view about it was, so if I had to define it in 2 words it would clearly be economic liberal which, quoting wikipedia, means the following:

"Proponents of economic liberalism believe political freedom and social freedom are inseparable with economic freedom, and use philosophical arguments promoting liberty to justify economic liberalism and the free market. Although economic liberalism can be supportive of government regulation to a certain degree, it tends to oppose government intervention in the free market that inhibits free trade and competition."

I find the above description to be quite accurate except for the part about "philosophical arguments". I do not like philosophical arguments, I am a science man so I prefer numerical and tangible arguments instead.

After this you know what you can expect from this blog, an independent, strong-minded, liberal and free view on what in my humble opinion moves (and sometimes stops) the world, the economy.

PS: I will be making some changes to the design of the blog until I am comfortable with it, please bear with me.