The real issue is whether Greece’s decades-long experiment with failed debt-financed socialism will be allowed to survive much longer.
MARKETS
Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. – AYN RAND
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.
Staples Fails To Defend Itself Against Obama Attack On Moral Terms
Obama did not build Staples, nor any other profit-making company offering value to its customers and employees. Yet he’s the one with life-or-death control over all companies. His moralistic tone of “shame” shows how he really believes it.
A Salvo in the Battle for the Gold Standard
The gold tax is the key to socialized money. We can never have a free market in money if gold is penalized with a tax every time the dollar loses value.
Koch Brothers are Heroes
If the Kochs’ views were the same as George Soros’, I don’t think anti-capitalists would not complain as much.
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.
“The Greater Good” versus Self-Interest for Profit
The notion that business should sacrifice its self-interest—profit—to some undefinable “collective good” is ludicrous.
Fairness and Justice
Knowing results alone cannot establish whether there is fairness or justice.
The Swiss Franc Will Collapse
The coming destruction has nothing to do with the quantity of money. It is a story of what happens when interest rates fall into a black hole.
Three Errors About Business Ethics
There is a moral code that is consistent with long-term profitability of business.
Switzerland Wins As Its Central Bank Surrenders
The situation that forced the Swiss to abandon the peg will soon be faced by bankers of much larger countries in the coming years, the implications of which can have more profound implications for global financial markets.
The Hidden Perils of Low Interest Rates
Investors may continue to benefit for some time from the consistent boosting of financial markets by central banks. However, the longer a major correction or even a crash takes to develop, the more sudden, deep and devastating it may be.
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.”
The Better Option
It’s a lot easier to patronize another business than to get government to fix the problem.
Trust Reputation, Beware of Regulation
Trust — society depends on it.
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.
Capitalism Brings Prosperity To All
Long-term wealth can only be created by earning it: by trading value for value for win-win outcomes.
A 1920-21 Recovery Myth
The U.S. was able to recover relatively quickly from at least one deep slump despite authorities’ refusal to resort to either fiscal or monetary stimulus.
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...
Free Banking and The Dollar
While I’m all for monetary freedom and competition, I’m also for reforming the U.S. dollar, which for me means freeing it from control by discretionary central bankers.
Black Gold Loses Glitter
While it is true that the new drilling techniques have revolutionized energy production in the U.S. and Canada, the increase in production has been mostly negligible on the global stage.
We Are All Free Banking Theorists Now*
If even economists who’ve never heard of free banking, or who dismiss both it and the people who take it seriously, nevertheless subscribe to some free banking theories of their own, where do their theories come from?
The Clock is Ticking in Switzerland
While other countries were undermined by the promises politicians made with a printing press, the Swiss economy prospered thanks to the discipline provided by gold.
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...
It’s The Economy, and They’re Not Stupid
The sharp rebuke to the Obama administration delivered by the mid-term elections should not be construed as an endorsement of the GOP, which remains as unpopular as ever.
Fans of Central Banking Have an Achilles Heel
Central planners constantly run into the problem that people are not willing cogs.
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.
Governments Need Inflation, Economies Don’t
Inflation is not needed to grow economies but to grow governments.
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...
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