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:
- Four States Vote to Punish Low-Skilled Workers With Minimum Wage Hikes by Ryan McMaken
- Will San Diego Help End the NFL’s Addiction to Taxpayer Money? by Brittany Hunter
- India’s Long Road to Growth by Trisha Mani
- Markets May Tell Us More than the Pundits by Jp Cortez
- Mandating Higher Wages Won’t Fix Japan’s Economy by Mark Thornton
- Why Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Need Government Funding by Tho Bishop
- France Won’t Be Following the UK Out of the EU by Bill Wirtz
- An “Anti-Establishment” Trump Would Pardon Edward Snowden by Brittany Hunter
- The Global Anti-Cash Axis Targets Australia by Joseph T. Salerno
- Brexit and the Bureaucracy Beast by Carmen Elena Dorobăț
- Trump’s Election May Strain the Euro to the Breaking Point by Thorsten Polleit
- Instead of Draining the Swamp, the GOP is Greasing the Wheels by Tho Bishop
- Brad DeLong Labels Bastiat a Modern Liberal by Mark Thornton
- Defense Spending Must Be For Actual Defense by Ron Paul
- There Are Two Types of Credit — One of Them Leads to Booms and Busts by Frank Shostak
- Audio: Mark Thornton Discusses Marijuana Legalization on Election Day 2016
- India’s War on Cash and the Poor by Carmen Elena Dorobăț
- Secede and Decentralize: An Open Letter to Clinton Supporters by Justin Murray
- Chinese Translation of The Pure Time-Preference Theory of Interest