Writing in the Investment Monitor on March 18, 2021, Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, was urging the replacement of the present economic system. According to Schwab, the present system is deficient, since it only benefits a small minority of the population while leaving all the others at a visible disadvantage. Schwab is of the view that a system that strives at attaining maximum profits, which he labels as shareholder capitalism, is bad news...
Read More »Cronyism, Not Welfare, Is China’s Big Problem
After three decades of promarket reforms, extreme poverty in China has been virtually eradicated. So President Xi Jinping now has the leverage to shift his attention to reducing the wealth gap in Chinese society. In a speech to the Chinese Communist Party in August, Xi touted “common prosperity” for all Chinese as an essential requirement of socialism and modernization. Western pundits have welcomed China’s drive for more income redistribution and consumption, but...
Read More »In a Free Economy, Prices Would be Going down, Not Up
Whenever politicians and media outlets discuss inflation, they invariably use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as their measure. The CPI is only one of several price indices on top of the various measures of the money supply that underlie aggregate price changes. Strictly speaking, the CPI does not measure inflation per se, but rather the consequences of monetary expansion on consumer products. In macroeconomics, the CPI is one of the key indicators of economic health,...
Read More »Why Bureaucrats Aren’t Like Private Sector Workers
Bureaucratic management means, under democracy, management in strict accordance with the law and the budget. It is not for the personnel of the administration and for the judges to inquire what should be done for the public welfare and how the public funds should be spent. This is the task of the sovereign, the people, and their representatives. The courts, the various branches of the administration, the army, and the navy execute what the law and the budget order...
Read More »There’s Nothing Hawkish About the Fed’s New Tapering Plan
The Federal Reserve concluded its November Meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday. According to the FOMC’s statement, the Fed now plans to taper beginning in mid-November by cutting back its asset purchases by 10 billion in Treasury securities and 5 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Right now, the Fed buys $80 billion in Treasuries and $40 billion in housing-backed securities each month. So, according to the FOMC statement: Beginning later...
Read More »Employer Vaccine Mandates: When the Feds Pay the Piper, they Call the Tune
Advocates for vaccine mandates—led by the Biden Administration—are apparently unconcerned that the mandates are likely to drive down total employment and reduce access to government services. In many cases these are the same services that mandate-pushing politicians have always insisted are utterly “critical” and must be expanded. Instead, the party is taking the position that the drive for vaccination must be placed before all other values in society, including...
Read More »Thanks to Central Banks, the Old Investment Rules Don’t Apply Anymore
Thanks to central banks’ easy money policies, historically low interest rates and a desperate search for yield have created new danger zones for investors trying to stay out of trouble. Original Article: “Thanks to Central Banks, the Old Investment Rules Don’t Apply Anymore” Sixty percent equities, 40 percent bonds. What has been considered the golden rule of portfolio theory for decades is of less and less value to investors today. Because central banks have...
Read More »What “Inflation” Really Means
Most commentators label increases in the prices of goods and services over a period of time as inflation. Ludwig von Mises however, held that the popular definition of inflation is erroneous. He wrote in Economic Freedom and Interventionism (p. 99), Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country, means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today...
Read More »The Great Reset, Part VI: Plans of a Technocratic Elite
In previous installments, I introduced the Great Reset idea1 and treated it in terms of its economic2 and ideological3 components. In this, the sixth installment, I will discuss what the Great Reset entails in terms of governance and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4-IR), closing with remarks about the overall Great Reset project and its implications. According to Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the 4-IR follows the...
Read More »Marxism versus Libertarianism: Two Types of Internationalism
There are two main philosophical and ideological schools of thought that include the problem of internationalism in their principles. The first is liberal internationalism, which developed within the framework of classical liberalism. The second is orthodox Marxism and its various derivatives that entertain the idea of proletarian internationalism. The concept of internationalism has different origins, meanings, and practical implementations in the two schools of...
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