When people speak of “old school economics,” they generally mean the application of economic thinking that involves what we might call “common sense.” That would include permitting a price system to work, protecting private property, and so on. But there is more.
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While F.A. Hayek contributed much to the Austrian School of Economics, he also supported the establishment of the welfare state, believing that it was compatible with the rule of law. Ludwig von Mises, however, knew that the welfare state is the ubiquitous slippery slope.
Thanks to increasingly broad car-seat laws, a third child often requires the purchase of a larger, more expensive vehicle. At the margins, this has an effect on fertility.
Regulators with the European Union want people to believe that the “dead hand” of government regulation actually enhances competition. The only thing their actions enhance is more government power.
One of the outcomes of the American Civil War was the movement toward centralization of political power in Washington. The Reconstruction regime imposed upon the former Confederate states following the war was an overt attempt to further impose federal power there.
As monetary authorities continue to inflate the money supply, they inflict more and more damage upon the currency. Unfortunately, as the economy falters under the inflationary regime, the “solution” always is to ramp up inflation.
Home prices continue to rise as the government tries to further intervene into the housing markets, all in the name of the “American Dream.” However, remember that these massive increases in housing prices began when the government decided to make housing more “affordable.”
What if we could have eavesdropped on a conversation between Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen? It might have gone as follows....
While Henri Bergson did not point his intellectual abilities toward politics, lesser men who were unscrupulous commandeered his ideas to promote their own collectivist ideologies.
Remember when progressive governments outlawed church gatherings but sanctioned sex orgies? Yes, it really happened.
When discussing the homeless situation in the US, Star Trek does not usually come to mind. However, one episode from about three decades ago was both insightful and prophetic in presenting what would be homelessness in San Francisco.
In the past four years, a number of monuments honoring the Confederacy have been torn down or removed. As we have seen before, however, the activism behind this movement will not stop with just taking down Confederate symbols.
Ask most people why our economy is advanced, and they will likely will answer, “Technology.” Yet, technical knowledge is meaningless without capital development, and capital development is impossible without real savings.
What does ChatGPT know about money? More than one might think. George Ford Smith asks the AI program some questions about money and gets some surprising answers.
The Ukraine war rages on and while the media and political classes repeat the “Putin started it” mantra, the evidence points elsewhere. The US government and its European allies have provoked Russia for years, hoping it would lead to an outbreak of war.
After Trump narrowly escaped another assassination attempt, the establishment seems uninterested in the motives of the would-be shooter. Perhaps that’s because he’s echoing the same simplistic narratives about the Ukraine war and Trump that they demand we all believe.
The Fed’s specialty is propaganda through data, with a long record of failure. This is by design. Their communication tools must work in overtime, particularly in the face of a decision like this, to avoid “spooking markets”, though this veneer is easy to see through.
Banking systems around the world have huge effects on our lives, yet few people understand how banks work. Worse yet, even fewer understand the malign powers of central banks and how this system undermines economies. Thus, it is important to demystify these systems.
The Fed is desperate for you to think that “this time is different.” Unfortunately, Powell can’t seem to come up with explanation of why that is the case.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. In our present age of inflation, we are reminded of how Diocletian and other Roman authorities ordered price controls and other measures to hold down prices. None of these edicts were successful in bringing down prices.
