Today was the second lecture, last week Bert was not able to do it, as he had to be at a meeting with the chancellor and China government. He did excuse himself.

Today he did cover the differences between “economic policy” and “trade cycle policy”, did explain the drivers and the need for drivers for change or market demand. He did cover the Lorenz curve, the Kuznets curve, he did talk about why Germans are more afraid of inflation, whereas Americans are more afraid of depression.

He did talk about the differences of managing need or stimulating need (US: Trains were build privately, but need was territory, so union pacific and western pacific did have an interest in building the train, Europe: Trains were build by governments to regulate need and build an “useful” infrastructure). (also see: Allmende)

He did start the day with the question, when ecology started to become important in financial politics. Answer is: 1962, with the book Silent Spring

As always, I can not cover or retell everything he mentioned or covered, but these are the things I remember (besides the talks about all Western being based on the Trains (he did ask about the main topic of the movie Once Upon A Time In The West) and the Exit Game (if you were promised money, based on the requirement to give a part of that money to someone else, and the second requirement that that someone else needs to accept that part, how much would you give away)).

As always, very refreshing, it’s a real good start for each week.

Matthias