investment

Economics, as my pet parrot and brilliant economic advisor Maynard knows all too well, is all about supply and demand. And “aggregate demand” is the subject of the 46th item in our series, Economics for Amateurs (EFA).

A key concept in Keynesian economics — and a possible explanation forwhy economies can get stuck in a recession — is the idea of a "liquidity trap". Economics for Amateurs (EFA), part 38.

There is a very easy way to make opponents of capitalism go beserk. All you have to do is say two words. These are not "Adam Smith" or "market forces", but "hedge funds". We don't really understand what they do, but we don't like it.

Maynard, my pet parrot, has been behaving very strangely this past week. If I didn't know him better, I would say he is in love. But there is more to it than that: he believes he has discovered that parrots are better investors than humans.

Hedge funds were one of the fastest growing areas of financial investment until the recent financial crisis. But what exactly are these funds? Find out in part 18 of our Economics for Amateurs (EFA) series.

Investment plays a key role in economics. But what exactly is investment? There are different meanings of the term in normal usage and in economics. This is the subject of the 12th item in our Economics for Amateurs (EFA) series.

The subject of the ninth item in our Economics for Amateurs (EFA) series is the accelerator. The acceleration principle shows how investment in capital assets is related to the growth of production, not its level.

Bernard Madoff has pleaded guilty to one of the biggest scams in the history of Wall Street. He scammed investors out of billions of dollars — $65 billion to be exact. The scammer could face up to 150 years behind bars. He deserves every one of them.

Profits are falling, companies are cutting back on their investments, and large numbers of jobs are being lost. That's what happens in a recession and it is nothing to laugh about. So why did recent news of lower profits make me smile?