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Editor’s Note: Interest rates and inflation are certainly connected to efforts on the parts of central banks to loosen and tighten the money supply. These relationships, however, are much more complex than many people suppose. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, with constant talk about what the Fed will do next, expectations are an important factor in how markets respond to central bank actions. In his article “Ten Great Economic Myths,” Murray Rothbard addresses some of...

I hope everyone here is hungry because the banquet of consequences is being served.I’ve coined a new portmanteau word to describe America’s descent: kleptocrapocracy, a union of kleptocracy (a nation ruled by kleptocrats) and crapocracy, a nation drowning in a moral sewer of rampant self-interest in which the focus is cloaking all the skims, scams, rackets and bezzles in some virtuous-sounding garb, a nation choking on low-quality junk ceaselessly hawked by...

When David Card was recently awarded the Nobel Memorial Price in Economic Science (along with two other economists), I figured Paul Krugman would weight in, since Card, along with the late Alan Krueger, authored an economic study almost thirty years ago that allegedly debunked standard economic theory on the effects of a binding minimum wage. Krugman did not disappoint. As is his M.O., Krugman cherry-picked his information and then went on to claim that the...

Alhambra’s Bob Williams answers the question, “What do I do if I choose the wrong Medicare Plan?”. [embedded content] [embedded content] You Might Also Like Weekly Market Pulse: Perception vs Reality 2021-10-18 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities Some see the cup as half empty. Some see the cup as half full. I see the cup as too...

Yield. It’s on the tip of every investor’s tongue, but it’s much harder to find than it used to be. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (like the early 1980’s) one could simply open a savings account, purchase a CD or US 10-year notes, and earn between 7% to 14%. The idea of earning 14% on treasurys seems the stuff dreams are made of. And you must be dreaming if you think you can find that kind of yield today. Interest rates are at zero, near zero, or negative...

Containers are piling up at ports, ships are waiting to offload cargo and store shelves are sitting empty. Are all the quick fixes enough to fix the real problems in our supply chains? Headlines over the past few weeks about our global supply chain woes are enough to make anyone start stocking up on toilet paper and other essentials (again!). Goods from steel and lumber to toys, bicycles, and semiconductors are all facing delivery delays and higher prices, causing...

The government and the mainstream media’s favorite economic statistic is gross domestic product (GDP). If GDP goes up, then the economy is doing well. If GDP shrinks, then the economy is doing poorly, or so it is assumed. It all seems so simple. But GDP tells us no such thing. The economy may be doing poorly when GDP rises. Likewise, the economy may be doing well when GDP falls. How can this be? Although the official statistical components that make up GDP are rather...

Der Bundesrat hat Dr. Alberto Franceschetti und Marzio Hug in den Verwaltungsrat der Eidgenössischen Finanzmarktaufsicht FINMA gewählt. Die beiden italienischsprachigen Experten aus dem Finanzsektor treten am 1. Januar 2022 die Nachfolge der per Ende Jahr ausscheidenden Mitglieder Franz Wipfli und Bernard Keller an. Der Bundesrat hat in seiner heutigen Sitzung Dr. Alberto Franceschetti und Marzio Hug als neue Mitglieder des Verwaltungsrats der FINMA gewählt. Sie...

No government looking to massively expand its size in the economy and monetize a soaring deficit is going to act against rising prices, despite claiming the opposite. One of the things that surprises citizens in Argentina or Turkey is that their populist governments always talk about the middle classes and helping the poor, yet inflation still soars, making everyone poorer. Inflation is the gradual erosion of the purchasing power of the currency. Governments will...

Overview: After a couple of sessions of taking on more risk, investors are taking a break today.  Equities are mostly lower today after the S&P 500's six-day advance took it almost to its record high, while the NASDAQ's streak was halted at five sessions.  The Nikkei's nearly 1.8% slide paced the Asia-Pacific session, where most bourses retreated.  Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is off about 0.15% near midday after rising approximately 0.65% over the past two...