U.S. Economy

The Mises Circle in Naples, Florida. Recorded 26 February 2011.

During his eight years in office, Reagan increased federal spending by 53 percent, added a quarter of a million new civilian government employees, escalated the War on Drugs, created the “drug czar’s office,” and lowered the value of your 1980 dollar to 73 cents.

When the state spends more money than it receives in taxes — a fact indelibly written into the bond — it is deliberately committing an act of bankruptcy. Is dishonesty transmuted into its opposite when committed by a legal entity?

Recorded on 4 December 2010 in Rochester, New York.

Recorded on 4 December 2010 in Rochester, New York.

Historians who are ostensibly concerned about "the little guy" revere US presidents in almost exact proportion to how many people were killed by their subordinates. Beyond Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson's wars, however, is their dismal record of economic interventionism.

Jim Manzi has been challenging mainstream economists to defend their models, which tout the benefits of fiscal and monetary "stimulus." Manzi has repeatedly asked why he should put any faith in the predictions of these models.

Antitrust keeps superior products and marketing strategies from harming rivals, but halting such innovation harms consumers. It inhibits superior firms from passing on their efficiencies to consumers in lower prices.

If the Fed had been tracking repos in 2007–2008, what they would have seen was the unfolding of the financial crisis one full year before it went critical. Instead, Bernanke stopped collecting the data because he decided to abolish M3.

Why is unemployment stuck at 10 percent in the narrowest measure and as high as 30 percent for some demographics? The usual answer is that the broad economy is not recovering. That's true but superficial; it explains nothing. We have a problem of a specific kind with the job market.