What Is Not Seen

Welcome to my weblog

In his essay “What is seen and what is not seen” the 19th century economist, Frédéric Bastiat remarked

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

Often the subsequent effects, following the cause and emidiate effect are misinterpreted or simply forgotten in the following discourse. As the title says, this web log will try to shed some light on the often overlooked effects of economic affairs, or as Bastiat would have called them; the unseen.

Henry Hazlitt, the great popularizer of Bastiat put it beutifully when he spoke about the art of economics, as it

…consists in looking not merely at the immidiate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

From this perspective, this web log deals with topics I find interesting and important, taken from the rich plethora of past and present economic events.