Despite Greece’s almost complete lack of financial integrity, neither NATO nor the EU can afford the political cost of a Greek exit from the EU.
Economics
Imagine a Highway
If roads were private the owners would have an incentive to provide capacity, safety, and invent a pricing mechanism that would enable traffic to flow freely.
Price “Gouge” Me, Please!
Artifically low prices resulting from government decree causes an artificial shortage which results in long lines, empty stations, and lack of incentives for more supplies.
Cargo Cult Economics
Creating paper money does not create goods.
The Ticket to Prosperity: Free Markets and Rule of Law
The basic ingredients for Hong Kong’s progress were not foreign aid and other handouts from Western nations but instead law and order and a free market.
The Next Bubble
When our government subsidizes home purchases, recklessness is invited.
Self-Enforcing Discrimination
Minimum and maximum prices are but two ways do-gooders handicap poor and discriminated-against people.
Consumers’ Sovereignty and Natural vs. Contrived Scarcities
One of the great myths about the capitalist system is the presumption that businessmen make profits at the expense of the consumers and workers in society. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the free market, consumers are the sovereign rulers who determine...
Falling Interest Causes Falling Wages
Monetary policy is actually putting the hurt on labor. Let’s look at why.
Ruinous ‘Compassion’
Minimum wage laws reduce employment opportunities for the young and the unskilled of any age.
Greek Problems Born from Socialism
The real issue is whether Greece’s decades-long experiment with failed debt-financed socialism will be allowed to survive much longer.
The Myths Underlying Today’s Currency Wars
One myth driving the irrational policies of central planners is the idea that a depreciating currency is good for a domestic economy.
Spontaneous Order
Central planning creates the kind of inefficiency that brought down the Soviet Union. While Americans shopped in malls full of goods, Russians waited in long lines.
Fairness and Justice
Knowing results alone cannot establish whether there is fairness or justice.
Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics
“Whether one is a conservative or a radical, a protectionist or a free trader, a cosmopolitan or a nationalist, a churchman or a heathen, it is useful to know the causes and consequences of economic phenomena.”
Hurts So Good: When Exactly Are Falling Prices Bad?
Falling consumer prices are good for the consumer and the economy, but they are bad for central banks looking to maintain asset bubbles and for governments looking for a graceful way to renege on their debts.
The Most Common Error in Economic Debates
Have you ever been in an argument about whether we should raise taxes and then someone tosses out a real whopper? “The top tax rate for decades after World War II was over 90% and look how the economy boomed!” Or perhaps you read a Paul Krugman column where he said...
The Doctor-Laborer Inversion
The battle over minimum wage is raging. Emotions are running hot. Some cities are setting the bar very high. For example, Seattle is mandating a $15/hour wage. Economically, the issue is very simple. Minimum wage laws do not raise anyone’s wage. This is because it’s...
Israel Kirzner: Entrepreneurship, Competition and the Market Process
On October 13th, the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics was announced in Stockholm, Sweden, with French economist, Jean Tirole, the recipient for his work on developing models to better assist governments in regulating private enterprise. A couple of weeks earlier, Reuters...
Embarrassing Economists
There are economists, most notably Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who suggest that the law of demand applies to everything except labor prices (wages) of low-skilled workers.
Predatory Journalism Against The Freedom To Price
Editorial demagoguery against “predatory” lending might well be called predatory journalism — taking advantage of other people’s ignorance of economics to score ideological points, and promote still more expansion of government powers that limit the options of poor people especially.
Why is the Gold Standard Urgent?
After President Nixon’s gold default in 1971, many people advocated a return to the gold standard. One argument has been repeated: consumer prices are rising. While this is true, it wasn’t compelling in the 1970’s and it certainly doesn’t fire people up today. Rising...
The Wrong Idea About Inflation
I write often about inflation, and often emphasize that it is not about rising prices. It is important that we define our concepts correctly. Inflation is monetary counterfeiting. Here is a quick graph I made to underscore the point that although the quantity of...
Perception vs. Reality at the Fed
Credibility at the Fed is about subtleties and about perceptions, as opposed to reality.
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