Ryan McMaken | The Libertarian Institute

Search for Easy Money Fueled FTX-Crypto Collapse

by Ryan McMaken | Nov 22, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

The collapse of the crypto exchange FTX may prove to be a canary in the coal mine of the easy-money-fueled crypto bubbles. FTX’s collapse has exposed just how little due diligence is actually taking place among investors, who are apparently willing to put large amounts of cash in whatever looks like the hottest new thing and promises—without convincing evidence—big-time returns. Indeed, FTX seems to be a textbook example of how many investors are easily hoodwinked by media narratives about the latest investment genius who has magically discovered some new way of delivering unprecedented...

Housing Prices Will Keep Getting More Expensive

by Ryan McMaken | Nov 17, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

As mortgage rates have risen this year, the demand for home purchases has fallen. That has spelled trouble for the home construction business. Homebuilder confidence dropped for the 10th straight month in October. The decline in builder sentiment reflects what economist Ian Shepherdson describes as "housing...in free fall. So far, most of the hit is in sales volumes, but prices are now falling too, and they have a long way to go.” The University of Michigan's index of buying conditions for homes has fallen to the lowest level since 1982. Meanwhile, as of this week, mortgage demand for home...

The Midterms Made a National Divorce Inevitable

by Ryan McMaken | Nov 10, 2022 | Featured Articles, Politics

The votes are still being counted, but one thing is already clear: very little will change in Washington after this election. The House of Representatives will likely be controlled by Republicans, but the majority enjoyed by the GOP in the House will be small. This will provide a veto over some of the worst legislation being pushed by the Biden administration, but history has made it abundantly clear that the GOP is more than willing to compromise and “work with” Democratic administrations rather than simply kill bills. As for the US Senate, we’re still waiting on the results in Nevada and...

Powell Promises More Rate Hikes

by Ryan McMaken | Nov 3, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

The Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the target federal funds rate 75 basis points on Wednesday, marking the fourth 75-basis-point hike in a row since June. The federal funds rate is now the highest it's been since December of 2007 when the Fed was in the process of lowering the target rate as part of an effort to stimulate in the economy in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis. The target rate still remains 1.25 percent below the peak rate of 5.25 percent reached during much of 2006 and 2007. According to the Fed's press release for Wednesday's announcement,...

Abandon the Fetish for ‘Unconditional Surrender’

by Ryan McMaken | Oct 27, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

On Monday, thirty members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus called on the Biden administration to pursue a negotiated peace settlement or cease-fire with Ukraine. The letter from the Progressive Caucus is careful to praise the administration for its ongoing efforts to fund Kyiv’s war effort, but also concludes that not enough is being done to encourage a negotiated settlement. This position is heretical in Washington where the narrative is well dominated by the center-left militarist coalition that currently dominates the Democratic Party and the fading neoconservative wing of the...

Government Is Making Housing More Expensive

by Ryan McMaken | Oct 20, 2022 | Featured Articles

The average square footage in new single-family houses has been declining since 2015. House sizes tend to fall just during recessionary periods. It happened from 2008 to 2009, from 2001 to 2002, and from 1990 to 1991. But even with strong economic-growth numbers well into 2019, it looks like demand for houses of historically large size may have finally peaked even before the 2020 recession and our current economic malaise. (Square footage in new multifamily construction has also increased.) According to Census Bureau data, the average size of new houses in 2021 was 2,480 square feet. That's...

Working Harder for More of the Same in the Fed’s Economy

by Ryan McMaken | Oct 13, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

According to the establishment survey of employment, released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment increased, month-over-month by 263,000 jobs. The "job market stays strong" reads one CNBC headline, and the new jobs print was hailed as a great achievement of the Biden Administration by MSNBC pundit Steve Benen. Yet, the employment data is possibly the only data that looks good right now, and that's not much comfort since employment is a lagging indicator of the economy's direction. In fact, if we look beyond the employment survey, what we find is an economy where...

Biden Says the Pandemic is ‘Over’ (He Better Act Like It)

by Ryan McMaken | Sep 22, 2022 | Featured Articles

On 60 Minutes last Sunday, President Biden declared "the pandemic is over," but quickly added "we still have a problem with COVID, we’re still doing a lot of work on it." Biden then reiterated: "But the pandemic is over" and his evidence was the fact "no one’s wearing masks. Everyone seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing, and I think this is a perfect example of it." Biden's prevaricating position that "it's over" but "we still have a problem" is exactly what we've come to expect from the regime when it comes to covid. After all, the Biden administration still...