The nightmare scenario is that once again tax cuts and deregulation take the blame, allowing Bernie Sanders or a socialist candidate to ride another populist wave, only this one headed far left, into the White House of 2020.
Peter Schiff
Bush Trumps Reagan
The optimism that has followed the election of Donald Trump has pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the threshold of 20,000, a level that will be both a nominal record and a symbolic milestone. Although this is not the way most observers had predicted that 2016...
King of Debt Takes the Reins
As many people expect great changes from Trump, it is worthwhile to look at what the Reagan Revolution actually wrought.
King of Debt Takes the Reins
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 provides the best recent precedent for the unexpected triumph of Donald Trump (in my opinion, the other post-war Republican takeovers of the White House --Ike in ’52, Nixon ’68, and W. in ’00 – did not constitute a real break from...
King of Debt Takes the Reins
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 provides the best recent precedent for the unexpected triumph of Donald Trump (in my opinion, the other post-war Republican takeovers of the White House --Ike in ’52, Nixon ’68, and W. in ’00 – did not constitute a real break from...
Midnight in America
Stunned political analysts are missing the most plausible argument explaining Donald Trump's unexpected victory. The misreading of the American electorate stems from the political class’ acceptance of mistaken (and increasingly insane) economic dogma that has arisen...
The Next Recession Looms Large
Currently economists and market watchers roughly fall into two camps: Those who believe that the Federal Reserve must begin raising interest rates now so that it will have enough rate cutting firepower to fight the next recession, and those who believe that raising...
Big Policies, Bigger Failures
Economics is far simpler than most in academics or government would have you believe. To make accurate predictions all you really need is an honest appreciation of the self-interest that is at the heart of free market transactions and an ability to understand how...
Central Banks Are Choking Productivity
If the Economy were a car, productivity would be the engine. Heated seats, on-demand 4-wheel drive and light-sensitive tinted windshields, are all very nice. But they mean little if the engine doesn’t turn and the car just sits in the driveway. The latest productivity...
Speak Loudly and Carry No Stick
Theodore Roosevelt’s famous mantra “speak softly and carry a big stick” suggested that the United States should seek to avoid creating controversies and expectations through loose or rash pronouncements, but be prepared to act decisively, with the most powerful...
Brexit is Just What the Dr. Ordered
Janet Yellen should send a note of congratulations to Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, the British politicians most responsible for pushing the Brexit campaign to a successful conclusion. While she’s at it she should also send them some fruit baskets, flowers,...
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A Fed official walks into a bar and says the economy is improving and rate hikes are appropriate. The patrons order another round to celebrate. Then disappointing data comes out, the high fives stop, and the Fed official ducks...
King of Debt Seeks Presidency
During a lengthy interview on CNBC the week before last, Donald Trump, fresh from becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, came as close as any major presidential contender ever has to saying that America is not capable of repaying her debts in full, and that our...
Make America Great Again
Donald Trump’s critics have heaped scorn on his calls for protective tariffs to deal with America’s widening trade imbalance and the resulting loss of higher–paying blue collar jobs. Some have accused him of trying to turn back the clock in pursuit of a cheap populist...
Negative Rates May Be Positive for Gold
As 2015 came to a close, most investors believed that 2016 would be a year dominated by a series of Fed rate hikes. That conviction solidified in mid-October when comments from multiple Fed officials convinced many that prior hints that the Fed would stay at zero...
Negative Rates Will Kill Growth
For years I have argued that ultra-low interest rates act more as an economic sedative than a stimulant. This idea has elicited laughter from the economic establishment. But it is becoming clearer that rates set by central banks that are far below the levels that free...
Two Down – Two to Go
The Federal Reserve’s years-long campaign to sheepishly back away from its own policy forecasts continued in earnest last week when it officially reduced the four expected 2016 quarter point hikes, suggested back in December, to just two. Given the deteriorating...
April Fools in March
It may be almost impossible to underestimate the gullibility of professional Fed watchers. At least Lucy van Pelt needed to place an actual football on the ground to fool poor Charlie Brown. But in today’s high stakes game of Federal Reserve mind reading, the Fed...
Mission Accomplished
On May 1, 2003 on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln then President George W. Bush, after becoming the first U.S. president to land on an aircraft carrier in a fixed wing aircraft (in a dashing olive drab flight suit), declared underneath an enormous "Mission...
The Fed’s Nightmare Scenario
Operating under the mistaken belief that a modest dose of inflation is either a prerequisite for, or a by-product of, economic growth, the nation’s top economists have been assuring us for quite some time that inflation will stay very low until the currently mediocre...
Peddling Fiction, Ignoring Fact
In his seventh, and final, State of the Union address this January, President Obama, clearly looking to bolster his legacy as the president who vanquished the Great Recession, boldly asserted that “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling...
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