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AI is for the peons, access to humans is reserved for the wealthy. Judging by the near-infinite hype spewed about AI, its power is practically limitless: it’s going to do all our work better and cheaper than we can do, replacing us at work, to name one example making the rounds. It’s going to revolutionize everything from science to marketing, all the while reaping trillions of dollars in profits for those who own the AI tools, apps, etc. All these extravagant...

The latest OPEC meeting conclusions show that the global economy is not as strong as headlines suggest and that industries all over the world are struggling to recover. Indeed, many manufacturing PMIs (purchasing managers’ indexes) continue to signal contraction.Oil prices have weakened in recent weeks despite the war in Gaza and rising geopolitical risk. At the close of this article, Brent is trading at $81.62 per barrel and WTI at $76.99. This is a mere 7% rise...

Robert Reich’s second myth is “Government Obstructs the Free Market.” (See my response to his first myth here.) He says that what we call the “free market” can only exist with a government enforcing rules about property, monopoly, contracts, and bankruptcy. Reich makes the case that big corporations and the super-wealthy have steered the government’s rules and their enforcement for their own benefit.He’s right, except for the bit about government as a necessary...

Gold price declines after the release of US Nonfarm Payrolls data for May, shows a higher-than-expected change in employment and wages. Gold was already trending lower after data unveiling PBoC reserves showed no change in May compared to April.  Short-term technical picture remains volatile as Gold whipsaws higher and then lower.  Gold (XAU/USD) falls all the way back to the $2,310s on Friday after the release of US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) data...

For lending, as in all things, necessity is the mother of invention. No matter the rate, lenders want to lend and borrowers want to borrow, with both sides tending to overdo it. The Wall Street Journal reports that the newest collateral thing is the AI chip. Wall Street heavyweight Blackstone led a $7.5 billion financing last week for CoreWeave, “a New Jersey–based startup that owns artificial-intelligence chips and associated computing gear in data centers.”The...

How ironic that the son of a Democrat president of the United States is having to pay the price for living in a paternalistic state that his own father ardently supports. Hunter Biden is currently on trial in a U.S. District Court for federal gun-control violations. Waiting in the wings is another federal prosecution for income-tax violations. It’s worth noting that what Biden did would never be considered offenses in a genuinely free society. In the...

What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order....

When it comes to political battles and controversies there is, unfortunately, a deeply-seated human tendency to emotionally attach one’s self to political leaders and candidates, rather than to principles or policies. This tendency is especially foundational to modern democratic politics in which voters are encouraged to embrace candidates on an emotional level. Once this occurs, the specifics of a candidate’s positions and principles become secondary to the...

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has finally secured an electoral mandate on June 4, 2024. However, the stock market has not reacted favorably to this mandate because the BJP was unable to surpass the magical number of 272 seats in the Lok Sabha. Both the SENSEX and NIFTY corrected themselves by approximately 6%. The market is anxious about policy continuity since the BJP does not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha and will have to govern in...

In recent days, we have had brought home to us what “show trials” are like. They are not confined to Soviet Russia and its satellite countries during the Cold War but are a very present reality to us in America today. Political opponents of Donald Trump charged him with felonies for acts that were entirely legal. The judge in the case was a political opponent of Trump and worked artfully to prevent the trial jury from hearing testimony that would have exposed the...