Two geeks pointing a super-hi-speed camera at everything imaginable. Lloyd the cat also features in this video.

A beautiful illusion which is now at the center of a copyright and patent complaint.

While high prices are undesirable and visible, the effects of trying to control prices down by law are worse. This analysis highlights those unseen effects and illustrates why well-intentioned policies often have negative and unintended consequences, ultimately hurting those in the most need.

Excellent talk by Bruce Schneier. I always appreciate his perspective which considers not only technical aspects but also social, economic and political factors. In fact, his books helped start and stimulate my interest in economic thinking.

My only feedback is that corporate threats that don't involve political power (government lobbying) are curbed by competitive pressure. So I am confident about innovative and consumer-focused features and trade-offs emerging (quality, costs, privacy, security, etc.).

In a free market, interest rates and the banking system coordinate the plans of the cross-traffic of lender-savers and borrower-spenders.  If saving increases, it means consumers are more willing to wait for goods.  Their saving leads banks to offer lower interest rates, providing a traffic signal (and an incentive) for borrowers to borrow for longer-term projects that match the greater patience of consumers.  If consumers are more impatient and save less, banks raise rates, leading borrowers to go more short term to match this preference.  Each side’s behavior is consistent with the other’s, thanks to the traffic-signal role of the interest rate.

When the central bank intervenes [with an expansionary monetary policy], however, it turns all the lights green.

Prices are signals like traffic lights. Although they emerge (unlike traffic lights which are purposefully designed) they serve a similar coordination role.
When they don't function properly, or are tampered with, the result is discoordination. The interest rate is a critical price which signals the relative priority of consumption versus investment.
If people prioritize consumption higher but the central bank lowers the interest rate, then incompatible and unsustainable activities (consumption and long-term projects) clash instead of yielding to one another. Bubbles emerge not from people being suddenly irrational, but from people being misled by false signals.

Looking at the federal government budget at the scale of an average household:
Annual income: 50,000$
Annual expenses: 88,000$
Credit card debt: 320,000$

Ouch

David Friedman describes market failures as situation where individual rationality does not lead to group rationality. What is best for individuals can create adverse effects for the group.
The prisoners dilemma is an archetype of this situation. Other so-called market failures include public goods and externalities.
Friedman illustrates this with many examples. But he also shows that the problem can often be designed around with creative market-based solutions. For instance ad-funded broadcast radio.
He goes on to apply the same analysis to political situations, with problems such as rational voter ignorance, high information costs and political long-termism.
He concludes that where markets are imperfect, markets still offer the best chance of solving the problem, whereas government intervention is less likely to do so.