2025

Daido Moriyama is one of the most important figures in street photography. His book How I Take Photographs offers not just technical notes, but a philosophy of seeing, walking, and…

Henri Cartier‑Bresson | Writings on Photography and Photographers “To take photographs means to recognize — simultaneously and within a fraction of a second — both the fact itself and the rigorous organization…

Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) is one of his most radical and influential works. Banned in his native Russia at the time of publication, it…

An interesting place to read this book in front of the sculpture of Rebecca at the Well Kierkegaard presents four variations on Abraham’s journey to Mount Moriah.Each version highlights a…

Notes from Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoevsky is often considered the first existentialist novel. Written shortly after Dostoevsky’s return from Siberian exile, the book is divided into two parts. It…

“Sun and Steel” is not a typical memoir. It is a visceral, meditative, and sometimes disturbing philosophical exploration of Yukio Mishima’s personal evolution—from a sickly, bookish youth to a warrior-aesthetic…

The Renaissance was a transformative period from the 14th to the 17th century that redefined art, science, politics, and education in Europe. This collection of essays explores various facets of…

The History of Financial Crises

Since 1980, banking crises have been ten times more frequent and five times more severe than in earlier eras.Two central drivers — the “two gorillas in the room”:

Risk subsidy = a policy that lowers the private cost of taking risk by shifting loss-bearing to the state (e.g., guarantees). Research design: Compare insured state banks vs. uninsured banks…

Lecture 6 — Crash and Depression (1929) 1. Crash vs. Depression 2. Competing Views on the 1920s Boom 3. Fundamental Drivers 4. Signs of Excess 5. The Fed’s Role in…

Lecture 5 — Bank Risk Management & Market Discipline 1. The Simple Balance-Sheet Toolkit 2. Visualizing Default Risk (Intuition) 3. Great Depression Case Study 4. Evidence of Market Discipline 5.…

This lecture explores the evolution of banking structures in the US compared to Canada, focusing on how constitutional design, political interests, and economic geography shaped their drastically different financial outcomes.

Lecture 3: The US and Canada — Contrasting Banking Systems Key Themes Main Concepts 1. Banking Fragility 2. US vs. Canadian Banking Histories 3. Diversification & Coordination 4. Political Determinants…

Instructor: Dr. Charles CalomirisLecture 2: John Law, the Mississippi Bubble, and the South Sea Bubble Result: Law fled France; the Mississippi Bubble collapsed.Historians’ verdict: Could have survived at more moderate…

Instructor: Dr. Charles CalomirisLecture 1: The Anatomy of a Crisis Why it matters: Asset price collapses are typically accompanied by real-economy disruptions (e.g., ~6% output losses in banking crises; median…

Modern Philosophy

Enlightenment’s resilience, Darwin’s shock, Mill’s liberty, Nietzsche’s attack “Commerce … renders war obsolete.” — J.S. Mill Principle: Even if all disagree with one, silencing the one is unjustified. Mill’s three-way…

Hegel, Marx, and the Post-Kantian Turn

Immanuel Kant and the Kantian Revolution

“The sciences, letters, and arts cover with garlands of flowers the iron chains that bind them.” “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, said ‘This is mine,’…

“It’s putting a very high price on one’s conjectures… to have a man roasted alive because of them.” — Montaigne “Question with boldness the existence of God…” — Jefferson “The…

“For I think we may as rationally hope to see with other men’s eyes, as to know by other men’s understandings.” — Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding “The floating of…

“Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted… many false opinions for true.” — Meditation I “I will at length apply myself… to the…

“The entire fabric of human reason… is badly put together… There is but one course left… to try the whole thing anew upon a better plan.” — Bacon “Unencumbered with…

Avoid anything that drains your battery- Embrace everything that charges your battery-