There are no more rabbits for the Fed monetary magicians to pull out of their hats. In an economy addicted to artificially low interest rates, any more moves by the Fed will trigger an economic downturn. Original Article: There Is No Fed Magic Trick to Achieve a Soft Landing [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter
Read More »The Chinese Economy: Market Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
China rose from poverty after the Mao years only because its political leadership embraced private property and a market economy. Unfortunately, today the Communist leadership is moving back to socialism. Original Article: The Chinese Economy: Market Socialism with Chinese Characteristics [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter
Read More »The State as Modern-Day Superstition: Unraveling the Illusions of Authority
To progressive elites, the state (at least one run by progressives) is omniscient and all-powerful. To anyone with understanding, the state is an entity usually run by gangsters. Original Article: The State as Modern-Day Superstition: Unraveling the Illusions of Authority [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter
Read More »Touch-and-Go
In this week's episode, Mark interprets the Fed's new economic projections for the economy, in which the Fed "doubles-down" on current economic growth and the economy's prospects moving forward. Essentially, the Fed is saying that they are taking us from the "touch-and-go" economy of the last three years to a touch-and-go landing, where the economy will take off and perform much better than anyone anticipates. Don't bet on it. Be sure to follow Minor Issues...
Read More »Bank CEOs Have Their Heads in the Clouds
Bank CEOs always have their heads in the clouds. First, pessimists never earn a seat in the corner office. Plus, it takes a good-sized ego to climb to the top of a bank bureaucracy. A person running a bank believes they can sail the ship through any stormy economic weather. Take John Allison. He’s the chairman of a bank holding company, Home BancShares. He told the Wall Street Journal about a time when the regulator of Home BancShares, the Federal Reserve, was...
Read More »Defending the Undefendable Investments
The people presented in this book are generally considered villainous, and the functions they perform, harmful. Sometimes society itself is damned because it spawns such reprehensible characters. However, the thrust of this book will concentrate on the following propositions: They are guilty of no wrong-doing of a violent nature;In virtually every case, they actually benefit society;If we prohibit their activities, we do so at our own loss. ...
Read More »Are Workers Being Paid Their Product? Watch Out for Misleading Charts
Dr. Jonathan Newman joins Bob to break down the data used in a popular productivity vs. pay graph. They show why you should be wary of charts coming from agenda-driven institutions and how you can spot manipulated data. The charts mentioned during this episode are available at: Mises.org/HAP414Charts Gene Epstein on the Bob Murphy Show: Mises.org/HAP414a The Economic Policy Institute 2022 Paper: Mises.org/HAP414b The Economic Policy Institute 2015...
Read More »Dollarization in Argentina Will Not Promote Freedom
Javier Milei’s sensational performance in the Argentinean presidential election primary confirms the very real possibility that an anarchocapitalist who quotes Rothbard and Mises could become Argentina’s next president. If elected, there is little doubt that Milei will implement proposals aimed at profoundly reshaping Argentina’s economy along free market lines. Unfortunately, a controversial idea to fully dollarize the Argentinean economy seems to have become his...
Read More »Is the US Banking System a House of Cards Waiting to Topple?
Decades of low interest rates have ruined saving in the US economy, and banks are going to pay dearly for it. Original Article: Is the US Banking System a House of Cards Waiting to Topple? [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter
Read More »“Social Justice” Is Neither Social nor Just
Social Justice Fallaciesby Thomas SowellBasic Books, 2023; 224 pp. Thomas Sowell has given us a penetrating criticism of the approach to justice taken by many political philosophers, especially John Rawls and his innumerable followers. He says that they construct an image of the way society ought to be but fail to ask whether their plans are feasible. His criticism is well-taken, although he does not offer an adequate account of the rights that people have. He says...
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