Tag Archives: Featured

The destruction of ‘phantom wealth’ via default has always been the only way to clear the financial system of unpayable debt burdens and extremes of rentier / wealth dominance. The notion that the world could always borrow more money as long as interest rates were near-zero was never sustainable. It was always an unsustainable artifice that we could keep borrowing ever larger sums from the future as long as the interest payments kept dropping. The only real solution...

The Soho Forum is a monthly debate series held in Soho/Noho, Manhattan. A project of the Reason Foundation, the series features topics of special interest to libertarians and aims to enhance social and professional ties within the NYC libertarian community. Moderated by Gene Epstein, former economics editor of Barron’s, The Soho Forum features some of the most highly regarded speakers across varied fields. At each event, the audience actively engages with the...

Perhaps one of the more astute observers of Russian foreign policy in recent decades has been John Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago. He has spent years warning against US-led NATO enlargement as a tactic that would provoke conflict with the Russian regime. Moreover, Mearsheimer has sought to explain why this conflict exists at all. Why, for example, doesn’t the Russian regime just accept US-led expansionism in the region? Or perhaps, more precisely, why have...

Part I of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland There’s been a flurry of articles, news stories and headlines lately over the developments in the FOREX market, specifically over the moves of the EUR/USD currency pair. As headwinds on all levels, economic, geopolitical and social, got a lot worse in recent months for the Eurozone, the news-breaking, headline-dominating “parity” event finally came about, with the euro even breaking below parity on July 13,...

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to argue that private property rights, as understood by classic liberal thinkers, by those who embrace Austrian economic theory, and by all members of an enlightened society, are not only the cornerstone, but also the last defense of human civilization and the Western way of life in particular. Nothing stands a chance without this premise. No prosperity can ever come about or even be maintained, none of the civil liberties and human...

A recent essay on the Mises Wire triggered quite a bit of discussion among a group of Austrian school economists. Paul H. Kupiec and Alex J. Pollock’s “Who Owns Federal Reserve Losses and How Will They Impact Monetary Policy?” became the focal point for a wide-ranging discussion of monetary issues that got to the heart of our monetary and overall economic future. The Fed Cannot Go Bankrupt The article itself is a fairly straightforward explanation of how the Fed...

Cancel Culture ist ein Phänomen, das viele für eine merkwürdige Besonderheit der akademischen Welt der Anglosphäre hielten. Hin und wieder treibt sie Wurzeln auch in anderen Ländern. Wenn aber irgendeine Region bisher verschont geblieben ist, dann war es wohl Osteuropa, denn sie hat im Laufe ihrer bewegten Geschichte einiges an Totalitarismus und Gesinnungskonformismus erleben müssen. Die Menschen dort haben noch ein ausgeprägtes inneres Frühwarnsystem und sind in...

Investors crave certainty. They want to know that there are definitive signals for them to follow as they adjust their investments to fit the current market and economy. They want to know that A leads to B leads to C. Tea leaf readers are always in high demand on Wall Street and they continue to find employment despite their almost universally dismal track record. In this case, it is demand that drives supply rather than the other way around. The constant demand for...

Since the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has clamped down on critical media and opposition inside the country. Sputnik Russia has threatened Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung with legal action after it published critical reports and a caricature of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a letter to NZZ editor Eric Gujer published on Saturday on the Russian Embassy in Switzerland’s press service website, it said it was “outraged” by publication of an “insulting...

The price exchange in the foreign exchange market was a story separate from the macro developments. The euro traded below parity for the first time since 2002. The yen fell to its lowest level against the dollar in 22 years. Sterling, the dollar-bloc currencies, fell to their lowest levels since 2020.  Yes, the stronger than expected rise in the US June CPI, above 9%, helped spur speculation that the Fed could raise rates 100 bp in a couple of weeks. Still, the...