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Tag Archives: Featured

America’s Fiat Money Gestapo: The Untold History of the Secret Service

There is an untold story in American monetary history. Some are reluctant even to discuss it. I’m referring to the US Secret Service’s very own role in the destruction of sound money in America. As constitutional, sound money in the form of physical gold and silver coins—whether minted privately or not—became an annoying impediment to expanding the size and power of the federal government, central planners began circulating unbacked paper proxies and formed...

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Negative Leverage: The Fed’s Latest “Gift” to Apartment Investors

The Federal Reserve’s inflation of the money supply and interest rate manipulation distort capital markets through, among other things, the creation of asset bubbles. As the cost of borrowing decreases and cheap money floods an economy, speculation in capital markets increases, leading to prices unmoored from fundamentals. Underlying these asset bubbles is a certain investor psychology—one based on expectations, encouraged by Fed actions over the last thirty-five...

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Wonka: A Tale of Evil Businessmen and Cronyism

Wonka (2023) is a prequel film to the beloved story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Wonka tells the story of a young Willy Wonka, an up-and-coming chocolate salesman and magician, who challenges a chocolate cartel’s dominance. As one could imagine, the film is full of scenes that cast private enterprise in a negative light. The main villains are stereotypical movie businessmen who will do anything, even murder, to achieve their ambition for higher...

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The Dollar Goes Nowhere Quickly

Overview: The dollar continues to consolidate broadly after the dramatic price swings at the end of last week. For the most part, the greenback remains inside yesterday's ranges, which were inside last Friday's. The G10 currencies are a little heavier today, except the Japanese yen and Norwegian krone, which are posting small gains. Indeed, the greenback is near session highs against most of the major currencies as we go to print. Emerging market currencies are more...

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Headline Math, Women’s Wages, and a Very Bad Deal in Higher Education

Headline math is a simple percentage expressed as a fact without context. Its design is to create an emotional response, support an opinion, or generate a click past the paywall. Once articulated, it exists in speech as a noun. W. Brian Arthur’s paper “Economics in Nouns and Verbs” explains the use of nouns to express a conclusion as fact, excluding further discussion. Student loan statistics for women are presented as facts, needing no further thought or...

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It Began with Carl Menger: The Austrian Intellectual Triumph

Near the end of the nineteenth century, the European intellectual scene witnessed a remarkable theoretical contest known as the “battle of methods,” or in German, Methodenstreit. This intellectual clash stood out due to the confrontation between the precepts of methodological and subjective individualization, equipped with a subjectivist and individualizing worldview of the method. It was represented by figures such as Carl Menger (considered the founder of the...

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Consolidation Featured

Overview: After dramatic intraday price swings after the US jobs data and service ISM figures before the weekend, the dollar is consolidating today in mostly narrow ranges. The prospect for a March cut by the Federal Reserve finished last Friday virtually unchanged (73% vs 70%) and is about 66% chance today. There was interest in Dallas Fed's Logan's suggestion that the tapering of QT be discussed, though it seems to simply confirm what many has suspected as the use...

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