The big news this week was Tucker Carlson’s unceremonious firing by Fox News. The reasons for Tucker’s firing are still unclear. And even Tucker’s emergence from his man cave on Tuesday for two minutes did nothing to quell the speculation. What it did do was...
Central Bank
New Florida Bill Would Ban Central Bank Digital Currencies
by Michael Maharrey | Apr 3, 2023 | Featured Articles
A bill introduced in the Florida House would ban the use of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the state. Rep. Wyman Duggan (R) brought House Bill 7049 (H7049) to the House Commerce Committee on March 28, and the committee voted along party lines to officially...
An Asset Backed Currency Could Be Our Monetary Fix
by Zack Sorenson | Mar 30, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
According to the St. Louis Fed, there are three functions of money. First, as a store of value. Second, as a unit of account. Finally, as a medium of exchange. The enumeration of these functions represents an attempt to present money and the banking system as...
EU Planning to Invest Frozen Russian Assets, Give Returns to Ukraine
by Kyle Anzalone | Mar 27, 2023 | News
The European Union is developing proposals on what to do with assets seized from the Russian central bank by member states. According to European officials, the bloc may invest the money and hand the returns to Ukraine.
Big Tech, As Brought To You By the Federal Reserve
by Norman Singleton | Mar 27, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
New York Times Technology writer David Streitfeld recently examined the role the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies played in the rise and, if not fall then at least slippage, of many technology companies. Immediately after the bursting of the housing bubble (which...
Real Estate Markets Are Addicted to Easy Money
by Ryan McMaken | Mar 8, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
On Friday, residential real estate brokerage firm Redfin released new data on home prices, showing that prices fell 0.6 percent in February, year over year. According to Redfin's numbers, this was the first time that home prices actually fell since 2012. The...
Cheap Money Didn’t Fix the Economy (Shocker!)
by David Stockman | Mar 7, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Some big, round-numbered interest rate thresholds have been passed in recent days including 4.0% on the 10-year UST, 5.0% on the 2-year UST and 7.0% on the 30-year mortgage. These all come at the end of extended round trips, of course, so the question at hand is how...
News Roundup 2/27/2023
by Kyle Anzalone | Feb 27, 2023 | News Roundup
Russia Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Ukraine is preparing to launch attacks to recapture Crimea by forming new military units and sending troops to train in other countries. AWC German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel...
News Roundup 2/22/2023
by Kyle Anzalone | Feb 22, 2023 | News Roundup
Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced that Moscow is suspending its participation in New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia. AWC An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told POLITICO on...
Searching for Economic Solutions in Game Theory
by Zack Sorenson | Feb 9, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
The left and right-wings of economic thought spend much of their energy trying to refute each other, but an integration of both perspectives might be worth considering. The right-wing of economic thought has conclusively demonstrated that the value creating ability of...
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,...
Bubbles R-Us
by David Stockman | Feb 2, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
The Wall Street Journal today brings word that a professor Efraim Benmelech of the finance department at Northwestern University thinks the Fed is hurting housing and the consumer too much. Opined he, ...those higher interest rates are making mortgages more expensive...
1/27/23 Ryan McMaken on How the Fed Is Ripping Us Off
by Scott Horton | Jan 31, 2023 | The Scott Horton Show
Download Episode. Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute joins Scott to discuss the ill effects central banking has on the country. McMaken wrote an article recently pointing out that the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, is technically bankrupt. Scott has...
The Idea of Making a ‘Trillion Dollar Coin’ Is Still Dumb
by Ryan McMaken | Jan 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles
Here we go again. Every few years in Congress there is a purely political battle over the debt ceiling. We're supposed to be horrified and worried that the U.S. might default on some of its debt. Some commentators will insist the U.S. has never defaulted, and that...
Blog
The Non-Existent Difference Between National Socialism and Democratic Socialism
Summary: National Socialism and Democratic Socialism both advocate institutionalized violence by the state against peaceful people only differing in rhetoric. The most popular self described Democratic Socialists in America today are Senator Bernie Sanders and...
A Response to My Memorial Day Critics
My article against Memorial Day drew a lot of ire and attention. This should not have been surprising; I was making a controversial statement. What did surprise me, however, was that many critics were self-described libertarians or former libertarians. There were many...
Ignoring Political Gossip & Sticking to Principle
https://youtu.be/ZwWHjYVY4tg In the private sector, firms must attract voluntary customers or they fail; and if they fail, investors lose their money, and managers and employees lose their jobs. The possibility of failure, therefore, is a powerful incentive to find...
The Myth of “Hyper-Rugged-Isolationist-Individualism”
Myth #1: Libertarians believe that each individual is an isolated, hermetically sealed atom, acting in a vacuum without influencing each other. This is a common charge, but a highly puzzling one. In a lifetime of reading libertarian and classical-liberal...
The Lesson From Germany and Korea
Institutions are, of course, in some sense the products of culture. But, because they formalize a set of norms, institutions are often the things that keep a culture honest, determining how far it is conducive to good behaviour rather than bad. To illustrate the...
Occupational Licensing Increases Prices and Deprives People of Options
When you shop online, vendors usually give you a bunch of different ways to sort your options. Take Amazon: One popular sorting option – especially for customers with low income – is “Price: Low to High.” You’ve probably used it yourself many times. This...
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