• "Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued.... Woods has opened up an area of historical analysis that should invite further study."
    -Journal of American History

  • "During these times that challenge our freedoms there is no one more qualified to make U.S. history relevant to the fight against big government than Thomas Woods."
    -Barry Goldwater Jr.
    Former Member of Congress

  • "I strongly recommend Woods's work."
    -The Honorable Ron Paul,
    U.S. House of Representatives

  • "Written with great clarity and fluency, making the complex philosophical and theological concepts approachable."
    -Journal of American Studies

  • "A must-read."
    -Barron's

  • "An excellent reading source for anyone interested in financial markets, and much more so for anyone interested in learning about capitalism without all the misinterpretations being thrown about in the financial media."
    -Asia Times

  • "Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read."
    -Catholic Historical Review

  • "An engaging and important contribution to scholarship on the history of American Catholicism."
    -Journal of the Historical Society

  • "Woods and [co-author Kevin] Gutzman appeal to both left and right in this constitutionalist jeremiad…. The authors' exegeses of the Constitution and court decisions, heavy on original intent arguments, are lucid and telling."
    -Publishers Weekly

  • "A marvelous read. Every chapter taught me something new and unexpected."
    -Tom Bethell, senior editor,
    The American Spectator

  • "The hottest book today is Meltdown, by my friend Tom Woods."
    -Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst,
    FOX News Channel

  • "Should be required reading."
    -Economic Affairs (London)

  • "Woods, one of the best classical liberal [libertarian] scholars of his generation, has once more placed us in his debt with this lucid and tightly argued book."
    -David Gordon, The Mises Review

  • "Tom Woods is one of my dearest allies in the struggle against wrong-headed and dangerous economic policy."
    -Peter Schiff

Get Up to Speed on the Euro, Painlessly

A writer I know who sends out daily email alerts to subscribers letting them know about new articles reports that practically no one opens emails whose subject line involves the Euro. Americans either have no interest in the subject, or they think the topic is so far over their heads that it’s not worth bothering.

But it is very important, and it is not over your head. You can get up to speed on it very quickly, thanks to economist Philipp Bagus and his short book The Tragedy of the Euro. (Read it free in pdf or epub.)

If you don’t have time for that, there are other options. There’s Andy Duncan’s review of the Bagus book. There’s this interview with Bagus himself. And there’s this formal lecture by Bagus:

Unlearn the Propaganda!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    This is interesting to me because if I find some words hardly used to describe something makes me what? This is like a theoretical exercises. Theoretical do not mean results they mean ideas. I have found in all cases of economic theory and emphasis to show I am smart versus the expertise to show results.

    A positive effect is simply, it supports me and those like me, a negative effect shows no support what so ever and is make believe.

    Good ideas are not the ones you spread but rather the ones you can show perform well in support of you and those like you. I would love to have this guy in the same rooms, his theories and my examples. Not sure he would fare that well because it is not as complicated as the picture he paints at all. Becoming an expert is the use of some idea, not the writing of the ideas. Symbolism and Scholars of these symbols has become the emphasis and not the activities themselves.

    Not to say Phillip is not intelligent, he is, he actually lacks experiences. To master a poor idea for old old history is not experienced, it is scholarly.

  • http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

    This is gibberish. If you have a specific criticism of Bagus’ work, let’s hear it. But this anti-intellectual, populist nonsense is unwelcome here.

  • Jason

    I’ve read ‘The Tragedy Of the Euro’ and it’s a great book. Although it’s quite short (130 pages) there’s is lots of good information. However Bagus should have written more about the different crises of the PIIGS states. Instead he focuses primarily on Greece. This is sad because it’s not that easy to get the austrian perspective on the european financial crises!

  • HansMan

    This post seems like it was written by a computer program. It’s almost coherent, but not quite there. A whole lot of words, but not much actual substance.

    http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=fake+profiles

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    I totally expect this response Mr. Woods, no disrespect sir but priding yourself on what you call intellect is a very high objective in this country. It is not what I can show, it becomes how many big words I can put together.

    The truth is these concept if drilled down came from the Rule idea, they are all bogus by result. Show me any society that is prospering out the roof by what he is saying. When I say out the roof, I mean where all communities are able to sustain with ease where it is being used.

    I can show unquestionably where it originated, how it is consistently across the board failed over and over all over the world. Economics comes from this idea of wealth and property and not from creations and achievements which WE all do. Sustainment COMES from delivering ideas people need and want to grow out lives.

    But see you will never listen to me, or even look because I don’t run around attempting to impress everyone with pretty little words. And for the record I really like your work on Nullification. But not because of the pretty words but because it is true and workable.

    I know things because I test things not because I memorize symbols like most intellects. My apologies if that is too bold for you, just stating much of what I see in my world and not what I THINK it is.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    This would be because I am not a word master, I am an experience and I simply use words to describe such. Since I have experienced many like the young man in the video I write what I have experienced.

    Show me the proof of his work. Its not the words that exemplify is it? They merely represent some idea and theory is only an idea until we fully show the experiences and results of these. I am hardly a computer but very experienced in life and not very harvard.

  • D

    It’s spooky. Like, plausible Turing contender spooky.

  • D storey

    Bill. Please. If nobody here listens to you, it’s not because we’re elitist, or that our eyes are blind to truth. It’s because you’re posting gibbering, off-topic responses. Colloquial writing, laden with metaphors and anecdotes to personify a folksy worldview and visceral insights, is populism done right and an acceptable alternative to intellectualizing. This is not what you’re doing. Your posts have so far been constipated, intractable, and rife with a sort of technical parlance, the terminology of which, like a metaphysics treatise, seems to bear particular meaning to you occluded to the rest of us. We need a glossary to puzzle out the special definitions you’re giving words.

  • JFF

    If you get past all the abysmal grammar, absent punctuation, and garbled language – quite a feat, by the way – I believe the point of the poster is that unless they can provide concrete, real-world proof that something is successful, no one should theorize about anything, particularly in writing.  Further, only “experience” begets knowledge; everything else is just intellectual, eliteist frippery.

  • D storey

    Interpreting economic data post-hoc is straightforward: either begin by psychologizing homo economicus in his hundreds of millions, or invent exceedingly crude aggregates to support your latest stimulus/makework/infrastructure development scheme. Presto, empirical science. Simple!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    Its William,

    Maybe these english words were to tough for you to understand if it was off topic. Then you attempt to write in typical greek because why have understanding when you can be intellectual and pound your chest on a stage. I laugh at all who put me down to make you feel good about you. I get you have all worked hard to think you understand this ridiculous language with its own set of baggage. But you can pretend I did not read history on language if you wish, and I bet you have mastered at least 3 unabridged dictionaries also correct?

    You can also act like you are more capable than I but you cannot prove it. I am ok with what I do, and some like my writing and (mostly intellects) hate it. And when I speak to the intellectuals in conversations they cannot even tell. That is the tests I have done and I am laughing at the nonsense. No, I did not memorize words, I have attempted 1000s of times to master it and finally after looking at how it got this way I had to ask myself what is so important? The ability to communicate and bring into being understanding or to be some professor of terms without experience? 

    But I get you love looking at everyone else and correcting them, I wonder how perfect YOU are, I am betting you suck at several things but I don”t need to be pointing them out to you do I? If these words are too easy for you I totally understand, really, it must be tough being up in the clouds thinking you are all that while the rest of us get things done all around you. And for the record you know what mutual respect means don’t you, you get what you give.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002505978871 Subvertive Freedom Culture

    Who is this guy!?  I came to see some to hear about the Euro.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002505978871 Subvertive Freedom Culture

    Nobody owes you proof man.  We’re fighting against a system that prevents us from “proving” these kind of ideas work.  That’s why we support this theorising – we want to prove it works.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    Not you, thank goodness. The euro as useless a the dollar.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Schooler/100003032488972 William Schooler

    No one does and I am fighting that very system, but so many will not look at its root. You just keep thinking you are  worthy of theories and that is all you will be. Rise above the bull being spread. Ideas are like dust particles in the wind, there are literally billions of them, but the only ones that can be viewed are the ones achieved and that comes from testing theories not spreading them around without the testing part. Thats why we are here because of assumptions. Proof is what I do and not what someone does for me, yet if I bring an argument to the able its because I have located the truth and have something to show and challenging each other is honesty. Its impossible to fight without the knowledge of how to. But if you are only interested in theories instead of application then by all means try to make me look bad so what, you can look good? I have gone far past theories in my life, have you?