Money cannot function as money, i.e., as a medium of exchange, unless it is backed by actual, unconsumed goods. – AYN RAND
History has shown us time and again that out of control money supply expansion creates inflation. In light of the trillions of synthetic dollars that have been injected into the economy by the Federal Reserve over the past five years, most observers (this one...
Advocates of government stimulus are running victory laps on recent developments that appear to vindicate their strategy. In particular, Paul Krugman compares the sluggish growth in Europe to the somewhat-less-sluggish growth in the US to prove that stimulus was more...
With the mainstream media focusing on the country’s leveling unemployment rate, improving retail sales, and nascent housing recovery, one might think that the US government has successfully navigated the economy through recession and growth has returned. But I...
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Ronald Reagan considered those nine words the most terrifying in the English language. And the government has been offering a lot of such help lately. Most recently, of course, is the...
With the massive increases in federal spending, inflation is one of the risks that awaits us. To protect us from the political demagoguery that will accompany that inflation, let’s now decide what is and what is not inflation. One price or several prices rising...
Soon college students will come home and present parents with their grades. To avoid delusion, parents should do some serious discounting because of rampant grade inflation. If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor’s degree will have just as much...
The financial crisis is, fundamentally, a moral crisis. To end the crisis, we must acknowledge that government intervention caused it, and we must demand that the government begin removing its coercive hands from the economy. With an eye to the short term, we must demand that it scale back the powers of the GSEs, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC; and with an eye to the long term, we must demand that the government abolish these agencies entirely and restore a gold standard run by private, currency-issuing banks subject solely to the objective commercial and bankruptcy codes.
What is bankruptcy? Bankruptcy is a financial state that occurs when a person or business can no longer repay its debts. In the legal sense, bankruptcy begins when a court recognizes that the financial state of bankruptcy exists. The bankruptcy court takes...
Massive government interventions in the market in the form of myriad regulations and financial irresponsibility on the part of the government are really to blame.
Is General Motors to become a brain-dead patient in a Federal bailout ward, languishing on tax-funded life support beyond all hope of recovery? Not if Congress steps aside and lets the bankruptcy courts do justice through adjudication.
Tim Geithner is an awful choice for Treasury secretary, but not for the reasons other objectors are suggesting.
With both Barack Obama’s supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration’s policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were...
Let’s not allow Congress and members of the bailout parade panic us into allowing them to do things, as was done in the 1930s, that would convert a mild economic downturn into a true calamity. Right now the Big Three auto companies, and their unions, are asking...
Many socialist authors emphasize that the recurrence of economic crises and business depressions is a phenomenon inherent in the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, they say, a socialist system is safe against this evil. As has already become obvious and...
Here is a letter by John Allison, President & CEO of BB&T, that was sent to every member of Congress. Dear Senator/Congressman/Representative: BB&T is a $136 billion multi-state banking company. We have 1,500 branches throughout the mid-Atlantic...
Congress, the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve are hell-bent to bail out the housing and financial industries and then regulate them into rigor mortis. All this with no judicial review and a bill for taxpayers on the order of...
August 14 marks Social Security’s 73rd birthday–placing it eight years past standard retirement age. But, despite the program’s $10-trillion-plus dollar shortfall, no politician dares to suggest that this disastrous program be phased out and retired;...
We don’t look to arsonists to help put out fires but we do look to politicians to help solve financial crises that they played a major role in creating. How did the government help create the current financial mess? Let me count the ways. In addition to federal...
In one of those front-page editorials disguised as “news” stories, the New York Times blames “the lucrative lending practices” of banks and other financial institutions for helping create the current financial crisis of millions of borrowers...
Environmentalism thus stands a very strong chance of ultimately reverting to the more traditional socialism of massive government construction and engineering projects.
Alan Greenspan was Federal Reserve chairman for 18½ years — longer than the reigns of nearly half the kings and queens of England. A few years ago he was “knighted” by England’s current monarch. For years he was deified by economists and Wall...
Last month, President Bush nominated Dr. Ben S. Bernanke, currently chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, as chairman of Federal Reserve Board to replace the retiring Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan’s replacement comes at a time of...
Opinion surveys have indicated that a growing number of young people and their parents are wary of the Army’s recruiting pitch at a time when soldiers in Iraq are killed and wounded virtually every day. Spring is typically one of the more difficult periods of...
The year was 1901 and someone in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, observed that the first automobile to appear in town was driven by a man from nearby Sheboygan. A century later, the town is making its mark on another new vehicle–which has the potential to...
The re-election of Sudan to the U.N. Human Rights Commission–chaired by terrorist-sponsoring Libya in 2003–demonstrates once again the total moral bankruptcy of the United Nations. The list of atrocities and violations of human rights in Sudan is endless....
They say “truth will out” but sometimes it takes a long time. For more than half a century, it has been a “well-known fact” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt got us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That view was never pervasive...
What needs to be realized is that there are two distinct causes of generally falling prices. One is the increase in production and supply, which should never, never be confused with deflation, depression, or poverty. The other is a decrease in the quantity of money and or volume of spending in the economic system.
Last week’s announcement that the federal budget deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year (which ends on Sept. 30) brought predictable denunciations from the Democratic side of the aisle. It’s not so much that Democrats care about deficits —...
Back in the 1980s, a lot of best-selling books were written about how the United States should emulate Japan. Pursuing free market economics based on individual entrepreneurs was passe, so it was often said by Ronald Reagan’s critics. Instead, we should follow...
Depression has been defined as a persistent feeling of learned helplessness. For those who are depressed, this raises the questions: what do you feel helpless about, and why? What needs to change in order for you to feel less helpless? One area to work on is your...
News reports now indicate that WorldCom’s overstatement of its profits in the last few years may exceed the $3.8 billion initially reported, perhaps by as much as an additional $3.3 billion, maybe even more. But whatever the ultimate figure may be—$7.1 billion...
There’s a certain economic platitude that outrages me every time I hear it repeated by the financial press and political economists. Put simply, it’s the familiar comment that economic growth causes inflation. It has many variations, including “high...
Latest pro-Capitalism goodness sent weekly to your email box.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.