After more than a decade of chained stimulus packages and extremely low rates, with trillions of dollars of monetary stimulus fueling elevated asset valuations and incentivizing an enormous leveraged bet on risk, the idea of a controlled explosion or a “soft landing”...
Economics
TGIF: Free Exchange Is Win-Win
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 17, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
With the possible exception of the political class and its cronies, most of us would be healthier, wealthier, happier, and freer if the public knew how to engage in "the economic way of thinking." The late Paul Heyne, who wrote a popular textbook by that name (now in...
‘ESG,’ the Threat to Liberty You Haven’t Heard Of
by Tommy Salmons | Jun 16, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
In March of 2020 COVID-19 spread to the shores of the United States, introducing a medical threat that had all the signs of devastating families from sea to shining sea. But in the shadows, slipping in under the veil of a potentially deadly pandemic, another threat...
The Fed’s Rate Hike Is a Shot in the Dark
by Ryan McMaken | Jun 16, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) today announced an increase of 75 basis points to the target federal funds rate, raising the rate to 1.75% from 1%. June’s meeting today was the third meeting this year at which the FOMC has raised rates....
TGIF: The Libertarian Solution
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 10, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
"What's the libertarian solution to social or economic problem X? How about problem Y or Z?" No libertarian needs to wait long before hearing such questions. But strictly speaking, the libertarian philosophy offers no solutions to specific problems. That's not what it...
How to Beat Inflation? End the Fed
by Ron Paul | Jun 8, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
President Joe Biden has unveiled a three-part plan to fight inflation—or at least make people think he is fighting inflation. One part of the plan involves having government agencies “fix” the supply chain problems that have led to shortages of numerous products. Of...
It’s 1979, Not 2009
by Thomas Eddlem | Jun 7, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles
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,...
TGIF: Heartless Immigration Restrictions Need Replacing
by Sheldon Richman | Jun 3, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles, Justice, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Some elements of the right-wing are spreading the fear that Democrats are engineering a take-over of America by replacing white voters with nonwhites through liberal immigration policies. It's come to be known as "the great replacement," and in its ugliest form, it is...