In discussing the Mises Institute’s June 24th full-page Wall Street Journal ad entitled “Who Needs the Fed?” on talk radio recently most of the interviewers naturally expressed skepticism over whether the Fed could ever actually be abolished and a gold-and-silver standard reinstituted. It reminded me of something Murray Rothbard said about this. If the government had monopolized say, shoe production a hundred years ago and someone suggested the privatization of shoe...
Read More »Biden’s 5% cap on apartment rents: Washington’s latest economic folly
Recently, the Biden administration introduced plans to limit increases in apartment rents to 5% annually. Far from a straightforward cap, this plan contains various nuances, which I will explain below. Nevertheless, the basic fraud on display here is twofold.First, the state continues to ignore private property rights while manipulating markets with price controls – an attempt to commandeer the market’s fundamental role of price discovery and place it in the hands of...
Read More »Dollar Mixed as Markets Digest US Political Developments
Overview: News that President Biden will not seek re-election has left investors unsure of the next step, but PredictIt.org still points to a Trump advantage of slightly better than 60-40. It is not clear yet whether Vice-President Harris will be challenged for the nomination. The dollar is mixed against the G10 currencies, with the dollar bloc and Norway weaker. The yen is up around 0.45% to lead the others higher. The Swiss franc, euro and sterling are slightly...
Read More »The cost of a hoax
The cost of a hoaxThe scandal surrounding Canada’s Kamloops Indian Residential School (1890-1969, British Columbia) is an ultracautionary tale about the damage inflicted by self-interested politicians and activists, backed by a media that toes the line. The 2021 scandal sprang from the alleged discovery of 215 graves of indigenous children. They were said to have died under suspicious circumstances at the Catholic-run school and then buried in unmarked graves behind...
Read More »The degrowth movement is antihuman, and its advocates are fine with that
The assimilation of degrowth ideas into the mainstream portends dire consequences for economic well-being. Degrowth is trumpeted as the solution to averting a climate catastrophe, but it will reverse the economic fortunes of practitioners. Sustained economic growth became the norm recently in history, and surely most people don’t want a return to a preindustrial era with episodic growth and lower living standards. The typical person today would be reluctant to trade...
Read More »‘Net zero’ and Keynesian ‘stimulus’ are making us poorer
If you read the latest OECD publication, “Employment Outlook 2024: The Net Zero Transition and the Labour Market,” you would imagine that the world has not gone through the largest monetary and fiscal stimulus in decades.The results are so poor, they are embarrassing. Furthermore, the report illustrates the impoverishment of citizens and subtly suggests that achieving the net zero goal will present an even greater challenge. Translation: You will be even...
Read More »Week Ahead: US Dollar to Extend Recovery while Stocks Correct Lower
The consolidative phase for the dollar, we anticipated last week, after its recent drop, is evolving into a proper upside correction. We expect the dollar to trade broadly firmer over the next week or so. It is also part of a larger picture, where US interest rates also look to have put in a near-term bottom and are set to recover. Ideas that next US administration may favor a weaker dollar has become a talking point. Yet, of all the forces that drive the $7.5...
Read More »Does the Fed Push Interest Rates Down? History Says Yes
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Jason Purcell joins Bob to discuss his historical analysis of yield curves (in both UK and US) going back to the 1870s, which shows that central banks do indeed manipulate short-term interest rates. [embedded content] Tags: Featured,newsletter
Read More »What Was Missing at NatCon 2024
National Conservatives are a growing movement on the political right. They are largely united by their belief in the failings of liberalism, in protectionist trade policy, a halt to mass migration, and a more Christianized nation. The attendees of this year’s conference, hosted by the Edmund Burke Foundation, focused on many topics: free trade, their desire to decouple from China, weaponization of government, bureaucracy in government, and even the building of...
Read More »The 1866 civil rights revolution
The phrase “equality of opportunity” is expressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a nondiscrimination principle. There has been much debate on whether the nondiscrimination principle is a formal right to equality before the law, reflecting the principle that everyone has a right not to be discriminated against, or whether it is a substantive right vested in specified groups (e.g., blacks or women) to give them special legal protection that members of other groups...
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