Hernando de Soto is a Peruvian economist who made enough money in Europe to retire before he was 40. Instead he began studying what makes some countries rich and keeps others poor. His advocacy for formal property rights to lift citizens of developing countries from poverty made him an assassination target for Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist group. He has outlived the Shining Path.

By Hernado De Soto

Here we are, three years into the global financial crisis, and we’re still flying blind. We don’t even know what we don’t know. What we do know is that we’re stuck in a huge contraction of private credit; no one is making enough loans and investments to expand or start businesses and get the economy growing. The remedies applied by U.S. and European governments tried to treat the symptoms — bad debts, shaky banks, floundering businesses, people losing their homes, rising unemployment, currency wars — and not the disease.

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Related reading:

Hernando de Soto Polar
Wikipedia

Introducing Hernado De Soto
Development Institute.org