Courses

Douglas French

Associated Scholar

Johnson Center, Troy University

Douglas French is an Associated Scholar at the Johnson Center at Troy University and adjunct  professor at Georgia Military College. He is the author of three books: Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money, Walk Away, and The Failure of Common Knowledge.

Blog Posts

Competition makes the world beautiful: The early years of rock

October 29, 2016
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History

On my way to attend “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” I looked forward to a show with so many great ‘60’s and ‘70’s hits. To my thinking, the amalgamation of rock, soul, country, and so many other genres in that time is the best music ever written. Of Rolling Stone magazine’s top 500 songs of all time, 69% are from these two decades. Besides, I often wondered what makes certain songwriters keep cranking out hit after hit. Once royalty money starts rolling in, what drives a writer to keep producing? Less than half way into Act One, it became apparent. Competition. After all, competition

Cash is not the enemy; central banks are

October 19, 2016
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The Fed & Monetary Policy

Ostensibly to foil terrorists, the European Central Bank intends to stop producing €500 banknotes. Getting rid of the bill, referred to by the sinister name ‘Bin Laden’, “will make life harder for criminals, raising their costs and increasing their detection risks,” Peter Sands, a former chief executive of the British bank Standard Chartered and enemy of big bills, told the New York Times. However, all of the public safety blather is mere eyewash. Kenneth Rogoff writes in The Curse of Cash that central bankers know getting rid of cash “would make it easier for central banks to invoke

Are Silicon Valley's Chaos Makers Smart or Insane?

September 23, 2016
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Free Markets and Capitalism

To the uninitiated, Silicon Valley’s products keep coming and improving. It’s as if the congregation of tech brainpower is incapable of making a mistake. Everything they make turns to gold it seems. Actually, that’s an illusion. Entrepreneurs pitch an endless stream of Ideas. Everyone argues over which can work. A few attract funding. Most fail. “That’s the nature of Valley success, however,” writes Antonio García-Martinez, in his fascinating new book Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley. You try ten things, based mostly on random hunches, a few key product