Stock markets tumbled this morning when the January Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came in hotter than expected. If you are wondering what the connection could be, the answer is that higher-than-expected price inflation means a longer-than-expected wait for the Fed to cut its interest rate target. It’s clear that financial markets are addicted to
Murray Rothbard called Richard Cantillon the “father of modern economics.” While that title is often given to Adam Smith, Rothbard suggested that all the good things in Smith were first discovered by Cantillon or other pre-Smithian economists and that virtually all of Smith’s original ideas were “a significant deterioration of economic thought.”
Five days before the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, Tho Bishop wrote about how the Fed and other agencies are preparing for a crisis without telling everyone they are preparing for a crisis. In his article, he showed how the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were working on a policy that would require banks
When Nvidia reported high fourth quarter earnings for 2023 in February 2024, it sparked a general rally in stock markets. Stock markets in the United States, Japan, and Europe jumped to all-time highs after a few days of slight declines. It seems strange for one company’s earnings call to have such a widespread effect, but many are saying that
Per Bylund has called for a new Methodenstreit in economics. He’s referring to the late-nineteenth-century debate between Carl Menger, representing the newly dubbed “Austrian School,” and Gustav Schmoller, representing the German Historical School. The Historicists derided Menger’s causal realism, in which the laws of economics are derived from
Total public debt reached $34,001,493,655,565.48 at the end of 2023, with over $2.5 trillion added since the end of 2022. The U.S. Treasury reported $6.1 trillion in outlays, but only $4.4 trillion in receipts for the 2023 fiscal year, resulting in a deficit of almost $1.7 trillion. Figure 1: Cumulative receipts and outlays of the U.S. government
About a month ago, I called out Paul Krugman for blaming economic pessimism on Republicans. He compared the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index to what he sees as a “surreally good” economy and came to the conclusion that the survey respondents must be warped by partisanship. Instead of honestly reporting about their views about the
Jonathan Weil at the Wall Street Journal reports that Republic First Bancorp (not to be confused with First Republic Bank, which failed earlier this year) is in trouble . It is suffering the same kinds of problems that sank Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank in March 2023. What’s funny is that even though Republic First
Last year, Joseph Salerno cautioned against the use of year-over-year CPI inflation rate calculations . This way of calculating the annual inflation rate is backward looking, because the most recent monthly rate is heavily outweighed by the previous eleven months’ rates. In contrast, calculating the annual inflation rate by compounding and
Having trouble finding an old Mises Wire article? It appears that Google has demoted and delisted Mises.org content, especially if it is over two years old. For example, try finding Ryan McMaken’s 2016 article, “ Has the CIA been Politicized? ” with a Google search. You will probably find webpages that have reprinted the article, and you may see
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.
