Joakim Book
Research Fellow
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From the Land of Financial Bubbles
“For the aspiring startup today, perhaps working away in the venture-cap lands of overpriced unicorns, the history of bubble allegations teaches you one thing: be right or be a bubble. Until the dust has settled, nobody can really tell.” ~ Joakim Book
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Lockdowns Don’t Prevent Coronavirus Spread
“What the new study from Northern Jutland shows is that an extreme form of lockdown didn’t work in one of the most law-abiding societies in the world. Why, then, should we expect lockdowns to be effective anywhere else?” ~ Joakim Book & Christian Bjørnskov
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More or Less Democratic
“Jones’ discussions are interesting and many of his proposals should definitely be introduced, but they don’t go far enough. Instead, we could do with much less democracy and much more individual liberty.” ~ Joakim Book
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Bitcoin’s Impressive Year in Perspective
“No matter what your opinion is on bitcoin, its financial returns are no longer astronomical. Plenty of upstarts, small caps, established companies and even other cryptocurrencies posted that kind of return in the strange financial year that was 2020. Welcome back to the lower troposphere, bitcoiners ‒ or as the rest of us call it:…
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Feelings Over Facts Is Dangerous to Human Liberty
“If we redefine “harm” to mean whatever we want it to mean, we can rule over others. If your speech causes me discomfort, that’s harm. If your clothes offend me, that’s harm. If your moral or political opinions are different from mine, you’re harming both me and everyone else that I am angelically trying to…
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Oxford’s Stringency Index is Falling Apart
“In the spring, when the ranking roughly seemed to reflect what was happening in various countries, nobody objected to it ‒ or even looked under its hood. Now, after its strange rewriting of history and poor use of the Nordic countries show very misleading stories, nobody should trust it without looking at the details.” ~…
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The Year Populism Was Right and the Experts Weren’t
“Deep down 2020 has taught us that officials don’t have a clue, that they don’t control what they pretend to control, and that their measures aren’t targeted to or calibrated for stopping the spread of a virus.” ~ Joakim Book
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The Rescue From Madness
“With governments around the Covid world suspending everything that people value, we suddenly warped society. Truth-speakers are only listened to if they are politically expedient. We impaired the workings of a free society, voluntarily, for a promise that someone, somewhere might not catch the flu.” ~ Joakim Book
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You’re Not Underpaid ‒ But LeBron Is
“The value of your work isn’t what you say it is; it’s what others say it is, and more so what they’re willing to part with to get that. Even without the particular NBA rules LeBron couldn’t stand up and say his basketball skills are worth a trillion dollars a year. That’s for others to…
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Value Is What I Say It Is
“The disdain for private commerce pours through the pages of The Deficit Myth, but never so much so as when Kelton imagines the transition for a newly unemployed worker. Rather than ‘sort boxes at a private retailer,’ she says, the worker in her scheme will ‘perform a useful job in public service.’ Everything that’s wrong…
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From the Land of Financial Bubbles
“For the aspiring startup today, perhaps working away in the venture-cap lands of overpriced unicorns, the history of bubble allegations teaches you one thing: be right or be a bubble. Until the dust has settled, nobody can really tell.” ~ Joakim Book
-
•
Lockdowns Don’t Prevent Coronavirus Spread
“What the new study from Northern Jutland shows is that an extreme form of lockdown didn’t work in one of the most law-abiding societies in the world. Why, then, should we expect lockdowns to be effective anywhere else?” ~ Joakim Book & Christian Bjørnskov
-
•
More or Less Democratic
“Jones’ discussions are interesting and many of his proposals should definitely be introduced, but they don’t go far enough. Instead, we could do with much less democracy and much more individual liberty.” ~ Joakim Book
-
•
Bitcoin’s Impressive Year in Perspective
“No matter what your opinion is on bitcoin, its financial returns are no longer astronomical. Plenty of upstarts, small caps, established companies and even other cryptocurrencies posted that kind of return in the strange financial year that was 2020. Welcome back to the lower troposphere, bitcoiners ‒ or as the rest of us call it:…
-
•
Feelings Over Facts Is Dangerous to Human Liberty
“If we redefine “harm” to mean whatever we want it to mean, we can rule over others. If your speech causes me discomfort, that’s harm. If your clothes offend me, that’s harm. If your moral or political opinions are different from mine, you’re harming both me and everyone else that I am angelically trying to…
-
•
Oxford’s Stringency Index is Falling Apart
“In the spring, when the ranking roughly seemed to reflect what was happening in various countries, nobody objected to it ‒ or even looked under its hood. Now, after its strange rewriting of history and poor use of the Nordic countries show very misleading stories, nobody should trust it without looking at the details.” ~…
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•
The Year Populism Was Right and the Experts Weren’t
“Deep down 2020 has taught us that officials don’t have a clue, that they don’t control what they pretend to control, and that their measures aren’t targeted to or calibrated for stopping the spread of a virus.” ~ Joakim Book
-
•
The Rescue From Madness
“With governments around the Covid world suspending everything that people value, we suddenly warped society. Truth-speakers are only listened to if they are politically expedient. We impaired the workings of a free society, voluntarily, for a promise that someone, somewhere might not catch the flu.” ~ Joakim Book
-
•
You’re Not Underpaid ‒ But LeBron Is
“The value of your work isn’t what you say it is; it’s what others say it is, and more so what they’re willing to part with to get that. Even without the particular NBA rules LeBron couldn’t stand up and say his basketball skills are worth a trillion dollars a year. That’s for others to…
-
•
Value Is What I Say It Is
“The disdain for private commerce pours through the pages of The Deficit Myth, but never so much so as when Kelton imagines the transition for a newly unemployed worker. Rather than ‘sort boxes at a private retailer,’ she says, the worker in her scheme will ‘perform a useful job in public service.’ Everything that’s wrong…