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	<title>THE PURITAN GIFT weblog</title>
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	<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com</link>
	<description>A book related blog by Kenneth &#38; William Hopper</description>
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		<title>THE PURITAN GIFT weblog</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com</link>
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		<item>
		<title>WHAT IS A PONZI SCHEME AND ARE WE ALL INVOLVED IN ONE GREAT BIG ONE?</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/what-is-a-ponzi-scheme-and-are-we-all-involved-in-one-great-big-one/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/what-is-a-ponzi-scheme-and-are-we-all-involved-in-one-great-big-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:55:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2816</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: The end of the year is a time for reflection on the events of the past year and on the outlook for the next one. It is tempting at a time like this, and in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis, to be pessimistic and to view the attempt to save [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2816&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Will</media:title>
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		<title>WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT BANKERS’ BONUSES AND OTHER SIMILAR ABUSES?</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/what-should-we-do-about-bankers-bonuses-and-other-similar-abuses/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/what-should-we-do-about-bankers-bonuses-and-other-similar-abuses/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:31:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2805</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: In last week’s column I argued that the huge rise in bankers’ bonuses and other senior executive remuneration which occurred in the last thirty years was due to the operation of a “Visible Hand”, rather than Adam Smith’s famous “Invisible Hand”. In other words, to put it bluntly, senior executives in most [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2805&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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		<title>ARE BANKERS’ BONUSES FIXED BY A VISIBLE OR AN INVISIBLE HAND?</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/are-bankers-bonuses-fixed-by-a-visible-or-an-invisible-hand/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/are-bankers-bonuses-fixed-by-a-visible-or-an-invisible-hand/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:49:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2801</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: There has been much discussion in the last few weeks about the huge size of bonuses paid to senior American and British bankers. The principal argument offered by the defenders of the existing system is that banks exist in a market place and that, if you restrict the size of bonuses in [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2801&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Will</media:title>
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		<title>WHAT HAS THE BI-METALLIC STRIP TO DO WITH DEMOCRACY?</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/what-has-the-bi-metallic-strip-to-do-with-democracy/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/what-has-the-bi-metallic-strip-to-do-with-democracy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 03 Dec 2011 15:41:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2796</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1979, many people believed that the world had entered on a new phase in which democracy had triumphed for all time, supported by free markets. If this was true, it followed that a golden future lay ahead for all [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2796&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Will</media:title>
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		<title>HOW DO YOU CONVERT A CASINO BACK INTO A GENUINE MARKET?—PART TWO</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/how-do-you-convert-a-casino-back-into-a-genuine-market-part-two/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/how-do-you-convert-a-casino-back-into-a-genuine-market-part-two/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:09:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2791</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: In last week’s column, I argued that our financial markets have become casinos which serve little social purpose and do enormous harm. I also asked how they could be converted back into what they were a generation ago, i.e. places where prices were set according to genuine supply and demand for the [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2791&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Will</media:title>
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		<title>HOW DO YOU CONVERT A CASINO BACK INTO A GENUINE MARKET?</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/how-do-you-convert-a-casino-back-into-a-genuine-market/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/how-do-you-convert-a-casino-back-into-a-genuine-market/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:58:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2785</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: In last week’s column, I discussed the role of speculation in a market place, arguing that small amounts actually do some good, providing what is called “liquidity”, but that large dollops of speculation distort prices in such a way that they no longer reflect the true balance of supply and demand. In [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2785&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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		<title>WHEN SHOULD WE COMPARE A MARKET WITH A CASINO?</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/when-should-we-compare-a-market-with-a-casino/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/when-should-we-compare-a-market-with-a-casino/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 13 Nov 2011 16:58:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2777</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: The answer to the question in our title was provided by the world’s greatest economist, John Maynard Keynes in 1936, when he said, reflecting on the Great Depression of that decade: Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2777&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	
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		<title>ANGELA MERKEL COULD BE EUROPE&#8217;S GEORGE WASHINGTON</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/angela-merkel-could-be-europes-george-washington/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/angela-merkel-could-be-europes-george-washington/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 09 Oct 2011 09:22:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eurobond]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eurobund]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european parliament]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[federation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[george washington]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[merkel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united states of europe]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2770</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: When I represented Greater Manchester West as a Conservative in the first elected European Parliament between 1979 and 1984, I made only one speech but I made it over and over again. The burden of my song was twofold: (a) the European Economic Community, as the European Union was then called, was [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2770&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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		<title>LONG LIVE SIR JOHN VICKERS, ECONOMIST!</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/long-live-sir-john-vickers-economist/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/long-live-sir-john-vickers-economist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:52:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2767</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellow Puritans: In my column for June 26, I suggested that we should “kill all the economists”. Needless to say, I did not mean this literally – economists are entitled to life, like anyone else. I was simply expressing my feelings about a group of professionals who, on the whole, had done an appalling [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2767&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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		<title>IN MY OPINION, WE LIVE IN A THREE-SPEED WORLD</title>
		<link>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/in-my-opinion-we-live-in-a-three-speed-world/</link>
		<comments>http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/in-my-opinion-we-live-in-a-three-speed-world/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:09:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Will Hopper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thepuritangift.wordpress.com/?p=2763</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dear Fellos Puritans: There is a common saying to the effect that that we all live in a “two-speed world”, meaning that the human race exists within two distinct groupings of nations, which expand (or fail to expand) at different speeds, one slow and one fast. The first of these is the developed world – [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=thepuritangift.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4000809&amp;post=2763&amp;subd=thepuritangift&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html">Will</media:title>
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