Connor O'Keeffe | The Libertarian Institute

The Early Bird Stops the Central Bank’s Digital Currency Designs

by Connor O'Keeffe | Feb 6, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles

Whether you like it or not, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are coming. That’s the message in a recent tech column in the Wall Street Journal. A similar tone can be found coming from organizations like the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund, and the Atlantic Council. Reading these sources could lead you to conflate so-called CBDCs with autonomous trucks or artificial intelligence (AI) writers—technology that meets the needs of consumers so well that it’s hopeless to resist. But that isn’t true. CBDCs are not a groundbreaking new development in financial technology....

Stop Confusing Globalization With Globalism

by Connor O'Keeffe | Jan 5, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles

After the 2008 financial crisis, calls rang out across establishment publications and the executive offices of Wall Street that we were witnessing the death of globalization. The calls grew louder and more numerous after Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet the data appears to dispute this narrative. Global trade hit a record $28.5 trillion last year with projections to grow in 2023. The pace, however, is expected to slow. The reason for this is less a problem with globalization itself and more the historic setbacks that globalism has...

We Need More Energy, Not Energy Regulation

by Connor O'Keeffe | Dec 13, 2022 | Featured Articles

Energy is a highly regulated industry across the world. There is less debate about the need for government control when it comes to the oil and gas sector. The arguments that most people accept for government intervention in energy, whether in the name of energy access, national security, or climate change mitigation, all share the same general premise: that energy is too important to be left to the whims of the free market. But this year, the world has been thrust into an energy crisis, not by the free market or any natural disaster, but by politics. What 2022 has demonstrated is that the...

How to Sell Progressives on Lower Taxes

by Connor O'Keeffe | Nov 29, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

As Democrats and Republicans across the country fought over control of Congress in this past midterm election, progressives in Massachusetts and California continued with one of their favorite pastimes: trying to raise taxes on the rich. In Massachusetts, voters were presented with a proposal to add a 4.00 percent tax on annual incomes above $1 million in addition to the state’s current flat tax of 5.00 percent. In California, Proposition 30 aimed to establish a 1.75 percent tax on annual incomes over $2 million. The Massachusetts proposal passed while Californian voters rejected Prop. 30....

‘Greedflation’ Is a Red Herring

by Connor O'Keeffe | Nov 21, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

Even as price inflation slows and we move past June’s peak, progressives continue to push the concept of “greedflation”—that this year’s price inflation is caused by corporate greed and price gouging. This is inaccurate, based on bad economics, and it blames a consequence of the problem rather than the problem itself. If we want to address the real issues in the economy and avoid similar pain in the future, we need to get serious and drop “greedflation” from the discussion. The standard response to the assertion that this episode of price inflation has been caused by greed is to point out...

2022 Was Another Nail in the Modern Monetary Theory Coffin

by Connor O'Keeffe | Nov 14, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

It’s been a rough year for advocates of modern monetary theory (MMT). After nearly two years with all the budget deficits and money printing MMTers could have wanted, the doctrine’s popularity seems to have faded now that we’re well passed the honeymoon phase. Twenty twenty-two has clearly demonstrated that creating a lot of new money and running massive government deficits does, in fact, come at a cost. We should let this theory die before it causes any more destruction. MMT is a school of thought born and raised on the internet during a thirty-year period of low price inflation with...