Mises Wire

Week in Review: November 19, 2016

While the American media is distracted trying to figure out whether to be more outraged by “fake news” or Donald Trump not informing them of his dinner plans, the Mises Wire noted a number of important global trends this week. For one, the war on cash continues to grow. In Australia a number of large financial institutions came out with policies supporting the Australian Treasury Department’s goal of a cashless society. Meanwhile in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has banned 1000 and 500 rupee bank notes, a step backward for a country that has enjoyed substantial economic growth thanks to its rejection of protectionism. Japan’s own Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the other hand is making the same mistakes as Herbert Hoover as he tries to prop up the Japanese economy by mandating higher wages.

In Europe, while it seems France is unlikely to leave the EU, politicians continue to try to come to grips with both Brexit and Trump’s election. Thorsten Polleit suggests Trump could be what finally breaks the euro, while Carmen Elena Dorobăț worries “the UK might end up replacing European bureaucracy with a homegrown version.”

On a brighter note, at least the NFL may be weaning itself off its addiction to taxpayer money.

On Mises Weekends this week, our friend James Rickards joins Jeff to discuss The Road to Ruin, his latest book outlining what financial elites have planned for the next financial crisis. Rickards highlights a number of policy tools governments and central bankers have created for themselves, and points to their handling of recent crises in Croatia and Greece bail-in approach as patterns for the rest of the world. But with the Federal Reserve and their peers around the world still unable to normalize their balance sheets following 2008, the real question is “who is going to bailout the central banks?” Jeff and Jim discuss the answer to that question, and how people can protect themselves in an interview you won’t want to miss. 

And in case you missed any of them, here are the articles featured this week on the Mises Wire:

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