The idea of Economic Cycles, which purport to show that the economy manifests cyclical behaviour which can be identified and predicted is of long provenance, having been suggested by the astronomer Herschel in 1800, and by the polymath Sismondi in 1819. Over the subsequent years, Robert Owen, Clement Jugler, William Jevons, Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, the Rothschild family, Kuznets, Kondratiev, Raymond Wheeler, Alexander Chizvesky, Hyman Minsky, Robert Elliot and Milton Friedman amongst others have assumed or put forward specific forms of cycle. Economists are sometimes suspicious of the idea of cycles, just as historians are, because they seem to be produced by ‘physics envy’ whilst at the same time do not lend themselves to what might be called proper mathematical analysis (though they can encourage people to make up silly maths-based ratios and connections.) [1] However, traders and ‘quants’—financial analysts—do sometimes use them. Policy makers and journalists like Mins...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.