Tag Archives: Featured

Overview: The US dollar is enjoying a mostly firmer bias ahead of today's CPI report. Sterling is the strongest among the G10 currencies after a more resilient than expected labor market report. The dollar extended its gains against the Japanese yen to a new high since last November, but the market seems cautious as it approaches JPY150, where large options expire today. On the other hand, emerging market currencies are mostly faring better. The Mexican peso and...

According to mainstream economics textbooks, one of the primary functions of money is to measure the value of goods and services exchanged on the market. A typical statement of this view is given by Frederic Mishkin in his textbook on money and banking. “[M]oney ... is used to measure value in the economy,” he claims. “We measure the value of goods and services in terms of money, just as we measure weight in terms of pounds and distance in terms of miles.” When money...

Each week we encounter mouthwatering policies implemented by the newly elected libertarian president of Argentina Javier Milei. He has the libertarian community in awe. His arrival to politics with an openly antisystem discourse shook not only the local scene in Argentina but also the rest of the world. But how? The respective libertarian parties in each country barely get enough votes to even appear on the main grid on election night! There are numerous reasons as...

Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank fell like dominos in March–April 2023. The United States Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) intervened in an unprecedented way to stall the domino effect. They waived the FDIC’s $250,000 cap on insured deposits at the failed banks, and the Fed instituted the Bank Term Funding Program to bail out any and all banks that run into trouble meeting...

Overview: The foreign exchange market is quiet. The Lunar New Year holiday shut most Asian markets. That, coupled with the light news in Europe, have served to keep the dollar in narrow ranges against the G10 currencies. The Swedish krona, Norwegian krone, and Japanese yen are posting minor gains against the greenback. The New Zealand dollar, which was strongest major currency last week (1.4%) is off by almost 0.5% today, making it the weakest today. RBNZ Governor...

Is the regulatory choice a tradeoff between safety or “breaking a few eggs” via free markets? The logic of allowing for free and unhampered markets is compelling. Original Article: Are Free Markets More Dangerous than Regulated Markets? [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

Under Obama and Biden, the banking sector has been weaponized against industries American leftists don't like.  The Obama administration acted as if its regulatory targets did not deserve due process, and the program ravaged far and wide. Original Article: Biden and Forgotten Federal Financial Tyranny [embedded content]...

Scott R. Sehon tries to be intellectually honest in his critique of capitalism and his endorsement of socialism, but David Gordon writes that Sehon needs to better know the arguments favoring capitalism. Original Article: If One Wishes to Discredit Capitalism, One Should at Least Understand How It Works [embedded content]...

The Biden administration’s Middle East policies are going to produce the same kind of blowback that led to the 9/11 attacks. The more reckless Biden becomes, the more American lives are placed at risk. Original Article: Biden's Middle East Policy Puts Americans at Risk [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter

According to a new report from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics last Friday, the US economy added 353,000 jobs for the month of January while the unemployment rate held at 3.7%. CNN news was sure to tell us that this was a "shockingly good jobs report" and it "shows America's economy is booming."  At this point, many of us who follow these numbers have become accustomed to the routine: the BLS reports "blowout" jobs numbers each month, and the...