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Empirically, Interest Rate Manipulation Doesn’t Work

Empirically, Interest Rate Manipulation Doesn’t Work

by | Dec 19, 2022 | ,

It’s an economic article of faith among almost every school of economic thought that central banks raising interest rates curtails economic growth and lowering interest rates stimulates short-run economic growth. The problem with this assertion by nearly every economist is that the data backs up the inverse proposition. Lower real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates are statistically associated with slower short-term and long-term economic growth as well as short-term higher prices for housing. Low interest rates are also the regular and ongoing policy of the Federal Reserve Bank. Both...

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Inflation Cheats the Working Man

Inflation Cheats the Working Man

by | Sep 14, 2022 | ,

What would the political left (and for that matter, the right) do if they found that one of the biggest factors in income inequality was not top income tax levels, but inflation? It might lead to a revolution and a grand coalition among people of ideologies across the political spectrum against the political establishment. Income inequality is clearly a complex phenomenon, subject to many variables. But the intuition behind the rich getting richer from lower tax rates is probably a little easier for people to accept at face value than the argument that the rich are getting richer from...

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Inflation Doesn’t Pay

Inflation Doesn’t Pay

by | Sep 8, 2022 | ,

One of the most unexamined—and almost unmentioned—economic realities of post-gold standard America is the change in America's economic growth rate since the gold window closed in 1971. Does inflation change the rate of economic growth? The Federal Reserve Bank claims on its website that “inflation that is too low can weaken the economy.” Therefore, the Federal Reserve Bank claims it wants permanent inflation as policy: “The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) judges that inflation of 2 percent over the longer run, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption...

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It’s 1979, Not 2009

It’s 1979, Not 2009

by | Jun 7, 2022 | ,

Break out your mom's bell-bottoms and dad's leisure suit from your parents' attic. It's 1979 again (at least economically) Don't listen to the perpetual doomsayers who claim this is the beginning of the big crash. It's not. Yes, the American economy is a huge mess, and the economy is going to get a lot worse. But no, it's nothing like the housing crisis of 2008 or the 1929 stock market crash that began the Great Depression. It's not even remotely similar. There Won't Be a Housing Crash It's true the housing crisis of 2008 was created by some of the same factors we have in our economy today:...

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Capitalism Puts the Poor First

Capitalism Puts the Poor First

by | Mar 22, 2022 | ,

The socialist left says the evidence capitalism oppresses the poor is that free markets relocate factories to the poorest nations in order to pay the lowest wages. And when wage rates rise in poor nations like South Korea and Japan, they move their factories over to new poor nations like China and Indonesia, and then again likewise on to the next poor nations like Vietnam and Bangladesh. I see that as evidence of the opposite; it's evidence of free markets bringing jobs to the poorest-of-the-poor, raising their living standards to humane levels over a generation or two, and then moving on to...

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A Four-Step Guide to the Cancel Culture Playbook

A Four-Step Guide to the Cancel Culture Playbook

by | Mar 14, 2022 |

Cancel Culture only has a total of four plays in its playbook: Accuse of misinformation/fringe opinion Accuse of racism Accuse of sex abuse Accuse of national security threat/threat to democracy After that, they're out of plays. And Cancel Culture nearly always uses each of these plays in order. Play #1 -Misinformation The first play, the claim of misinformation, is usually enough to get most normies canceled on social media. The psychology behind it is fairly powerful; most people don't like liars. Even among those who are disposed to treat inaccurate speech with other speech that's...

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Inflation Doesn’t Pay

The Inflationary Attack on America’s Poor

by | Mar 3, 2022 | ,

The ramp-up of money-printing by the Federal Reserve Bank since the COVID pandemic began has meant, like clockwork, an increase in CPI price inflation exceeding a seven percent annual rate. Though price inflation as measured by the CPI was temporarily delayed by the crosswinds of the shutdown-induced recession, the Fed inflation of the currency had already enriched the financial sector and created a wider income divide between the top one percent and the rest of the people. And this has not gone unnoticed by the political left, even if they remain ignorant of the real economic causes....

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How Inflation Has Been Driving Wealth Inequality In the United States

How Inflation Has Been Driving Wealth Inequality In the United States

by | Jun 8, 2020 | ,

“There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.”- Congressman William Bourke Cockran (D-NY) With the massive oncoming rush of poverty as a result of government-imposed shutdowns, Americans can expect that the progressive left will shout again in a loud chorus about how capitalism has failed the poor. But the increasing global poverty brought about by the heavy hand of government mandates to close down the capitalist system cannot be leveled against the...

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