Over the past year, while the U.S. economy has continually missed expectations, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen has assured all who could stay awake during her press conferences that it was strong enough to withstand tighter monetary policy. In delivering...
MARKETS
Failure to Launch
The popular belief that the U.S. economy has been steadily recovering has endured months of disappointing data without losing much of its appeal. A deep bench of excuses, ranging from the weather to the Chinese economy, has been called on to justify why the economy...
QE’s Creeping Communism
Washington has joined Tokyo on the road to Leningrad.
Trade Deficit Angst
International trade operates under the same general principles as domestic trade.
Look Beyond Supply and Demand to Understand Labor
The marginal utility of human work does not diminish, as the number of workers increases. As the size of a market grows, the value of firms and workers within it rises.
Tariffs on Foreign Goods To Save Jobs
When Congress creates a special privilege for some Americans, it must of necessity come at the expense of other Americans.
Making Moral Business Choices
True self-interest cannot involve cynical exploitation of others through initiation of physical force or fraud
The Logic of Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
What actually makes for a more just society experiencing greater opportunity, improved conditions and rising standards of living for virtually all over the long run? In a nutshell, three words: freedom, competition and trade. These are Adam Smith’s “open sesame” to alleviate poverty, privilege, and inequity in society.
Free Trade, Tariffs and Quotas: “Protectionism” vs. Individual Rights
Is the protection of domestic jobs more important than the protection of individual rights?
The Free Market versus the Bureaucratic State
As Ludwig von Mises explained, an enterprise or activity is either guided by the pursuit of profit or it is not: Make profits by satisfying consumers better than the market supply-side rivals or meet the legislative mandate of the government bureau or agency by following the rules and procedures specified in your job description.
Balance of Trade: China Is Not “Killing Us” with Foreign Trade
American job losses are not the result of freer trade and an excess of imports over exports, but of government policies that prevent capital accumulation in the United States, among them policies that limit imports.
America’s National Debt Bomb Caused by the Welfare State
The Federal debt has now crossed the $19 trillion mark. When George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, Uncle Sam’s debt stood at $5 trillion. When President Bush left office in January of 2009, it had increased to $10 trillion. Now into seven years of Barack Obama’s presidency, the Federal debt has almost doubled again.
Carl Menger and the Foundations of Austrian Economics
Carl Menger is a towering figure, not only for the development of his variation on the “marginalist” theme, but for originating a still unique and distinct and highly relevant approach to economic and social analysis that still rightly bears the name, the “Austrian School.”
An Escalating War on Cash
Investors should be aware of such possibilities and consider whether to hold cash and precious metals prudently outside the banking system. Better to be even months too early than a second too late should we be left facing a bank’s closed doors.
The World is Still a Slave To The Fallacies and Defunct Economics of John Maynard Keynes
Keynes helped undermine what had been three of the essential institutional ingredients of a free-market economy: the gold standard, balanced government budgets, and open competitive markets. In their place Keynes’s legacy has given us paper-money inflation, government deficit spending, and more political intervention throughout the market.
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Refuter of Marxism and Theorist on The Economics of Capitalism
Böhm-Bawerk is famous as one of the leading critics of Marxism and socialism in the years before the First World War. He is equally renowned as one of the developers of “marginal utility” theory as the basis of showing the logic and workings of the competitive market price system, and as the early formulator of the “Austrian” theory of capital and interest.
Bill Gates Against Capitalism and Freedom
I wish that people who make millions or billions of dollars, such as Bill Gates, would stop denigrating and seeking to undermine the very system that enabled them to be successful in the first place: capitalism.
Economist Joseph Schumpeter: Father of Capitalist “Creative Destruction”
Schumpeter is famous as a leading 20th century formulator of the notion of the entrepreneur as dynamic innovator of change, and also as a master of the history of economic ideas.
Self Interest and The “Common Good”
A common exhortation heard today is: Set self-interest aside and act for the “common good.” Businesspeople in particular are accused of selfishness and are told (by media commentators, NGOs, and ethicists, among others) to serve the “common good.” This exhortation...
Individualism and Capitalism vs. Central Planning and Statism: The Political Battle of the 21st Century
If all of that dispersed and decentralized knowledge that exists in the individual minds of all the members of society is to be effectively used and brought to bear for mutual improvement of the human condition, each of us must be left free to use that knowledge as we, respectively, think best and most advantageous.
Lifting Sanctions on Iran a Mixed Bag
From a financial perspective, the New Year has been anything but happy. As of January 20th, the S&P had fallen over 9% since the beginning of the year, to levels not seen since 2014,reflecting a loss of some $2 trillion in market value. Compounding matters was the...
Statism vs. Capitalism: Why Government Cannot Manage The Economy, Part II
The more complex the social and economic system the less any single or handful of human minds could comprehend, master or manipulate the relationships for better outcomes than when the market was left free.
Statism vs. Capitalism: Why Government Cannot Manage The Economy, Part I
The “knowledge of the world” is dispersed and divided up in the minds of all the members of society, with each knowing and understanding only a small part relative to all the knowledge that exists in everybody’s minds, combined.
The New Nomenklatura: California’s “Progressive” Exclusionary Housing Market
Land prices skyrocket when the supply of land is artificially and drastically reduced, which means that housing prices become astronomical.
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