As Employment Increases in Response to a Fall in Wage Rates, the Rate of Profit Rises, Not Falls
MARKETS
Broken Windows, Broken Principles
Economic success requires recognition, not evasion, of the fact that the principle of cause and effect applies just as inexorably in financial policy as it does in the scientist’s lab. Only when we reestablish acceptance of this idea can we hope to reverse course and return to the road of long term prosperity.
Tax Cuts and the “Trickle Down” Economics Straw Man
Among the suggestions being made for getting the American economy moving up again is a reduction in the capital gains tax. But any such suggestion makes people on the left go ballistic. It is "trickle down" economics, they cry. Liberals claim that those who favor tax...
The Fundamental Obstacles to Economic Recovery: Marxism and Keynesianism
While the influence of Marxism stands directly in the path of a fall in wage rates and prices, by blocking its way with laws and threats, Keynesianism aims to prevent any attempt to overcome these obstacles by allegedly demonstrating the futility and harm of doing so.
False Solutions and Real Problems: The Housing Crisis Revisited
Someone once said that Senator Hubert Humphrey, liberal icon of an earlier generation, had more solutions than there were problems. Senator Humphrey was not unique in that respect. In fact, our present economic crisis has developed out of politicians providing...
Message To The Bailout Boys: Bankruptcy is Economically Valuable
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 charge...
Blame Socialist Government Policies Not Capitalism for the Financial Crisis
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.
Obama’s “Logic” on the Mortgage Crisis
In his "Remarks by the President on the mortgage crisis" on February 18, Obama stated: Our housing crisis was born of eroding home values, but it was also an erosion of our common values, and in some case, common sense. It was brought about by big banks that traded in...
Change Under Obama
The President’s statement reveals a great deal about his understanding or, more correctly, lack of understanding of economics.
Let General Motors Go Bankrupt
Shifting the financial pain of business failure onto society at large is unjust.
Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government “Stimulus Packages”
The blind rush into massive “stimulus packages” is the culmination of generations of economic ignorance transmitted from professor to student in the guise of advanced, revolutionary thinking—the “Keynesian revolution.”
Government Bailouts are Unjust: Let Bankruptcy Courts Take the Wheel
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.
Upside Down Economics
From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the...
Soviet Show Trials with Wall Street Bankers in Shackles
Those seeking to deify the government and raise it above the citizens, that they are encouraging a servant to forget his place and to become the master of those whom it is his duty to serve.
As Wall Street Bonuses Go, So Goes the Liberty of All of Us
"There will be a time for [Wall Street executives] to make profits and there will be a time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time." So said President Obama on January 29 to reporters (source: "The Kudlow Report," CNBC). So we receive President Obama's...
The Real Problem With Tim Geithner for Treasury
Tim Geithner is an awful choice for Treasury secretary, but not for the reasons other objectors are suggesting.
Lured To Disaster by “Affordable Housing”
Behind the housing boom and bust was one of those alluring but undefined phrases that are so popular in politics-- "affordable housing." It is hard for me to know specifically what politicians are talking about when they use this phrase. But then politics is about...
Congress’ Financial Mess
Today’s housing mess can be laid directly at the feet of Congress and the White House.
Falling Prices Are the Antidote to Deflation
A disastrous economic confusion is the belief that falling prices constitute deflation and thus must be feared and, if possible, prevented.
Teaching Economics
Many professors, mostly on the liberal side of the political spectrum, use their classrooms to proselytize students. I have taught economics for the past 40 years and challenge anyone to find even one student, among the thousands who went through my classes, who can...
Another Great Depression?
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 and-- more...
Bailout Parade Panic and The Benefits of Bankruptcy
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...
Free Trade versus Protectionism
There's a growing anti-trade sentiment in our country. Much of the dialogue is grossly misinformed. Let's try to untangle it a bit with a few questions and observations. First, does the U.S. trade with Japan and England? Put another way, is it members of the U.S....
Planned Chaos: The Alleged Inevitability of Socialism (Part 11 of 11)
Many people believe that the coming of totalitarianism is inevitable. The "wave of the future," they say, carries mankind inexorably toward a system under which all human affairs are managed by omnipotent dictators. It is useless to fight against the unfathomable...
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