All across the economic dashboard, inflation indicators are blinking red. Most recently, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, rose 5.7% from November 2020 to November 2021. That’s the biggest year-over-year surge since September 1983. Many mistakenly attribute today’s rising prices solely to supply chain woes, and government officials are happy to fertilize that mythology—as Kamala Harris reflexively did last week in her rambling, didn’t-do-the-reading response to a question from Margaret Brennan: The truth is, in the words of...
deficit
Lunatic With a Plan: Erdogan and Turkey’s Economic Woes
Since the first assault on Turkey’s finances in 2018, which I wrote about multiple times (here, here, and here), I’ve been the lone voice telling everyone that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a lunatic but he’s a lunatic with a plan. That plan is to de-dollarize the economy of a valuable member of NATO geostrategically. Since the first shots across the bow by the Trump administration at Erdogan’s toying with those powers east of the Bosporus (Russia, China and Iran) the Turkish lira has been the primary mode of attack against Erdogan. Erdogan has pursued what has been deemed unorthodox...
The Blowback of 75 Years of Dollar Hegemony
There is no question. The United States dollar dominates world commerce. In 2019, it made up 88% of global trade, and no other currencies came close. This dominance gave the United States power over any other country that exports anything from anywhere. For example, due to the mechanics of the petrodollar, oil is settled in dollars regardless of where it comes from. Consequently, not only does this frustrate U.S. rivals by making them vulnerable to trade sanctions, but ultimately causes them to craft savvier innovations to conduct commerce. This is what the Central Intelligence Agency...
Biden’s Keynesian Course: Riding the ‘Multiplier’
White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain tweeted on Wednesday: “Stronger COVID measures produce STRONGER ECONOMIC outcomes. That’s why jobs, growth, and economic activity are UP this year, significantly over last year.” Actually, jobs and economic activity have rebounded because governors are no longer locking down businesses, schools, and daily life. But Biden’s team is painting its latest COVID decrees as the key to renewed prosperity. Biden’s team is tacitly invoking a long history of multipliers to justify government interventions. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes popularized the...
The Fed’s Big Flub Up
What do the Federal Reserve and neoconservatives have in common? They both refuse to admit that their policies—the neocons’ promotion of perpetual war and the Fed's manipulation of the money supply—are complete failures, having produced the opposite of the promised results. The latest example of the Federal Reserve engaging in Bill Kristol-like levels of denial is the Fed’s continued insistence that the return of 70s-style inflation is a “transitory” phenomenon resulting from the end of the lockdowns. The Fed has acknowledged the “transitory” inflation will last until at least 2022, yet...
The Government Is Coming for Your 401K
Quiet conversations are occurring in the halls of Congress, think tanks, NGOs, and academia on how to continue the enrichment of the public sector elites and their various complexes (military, education, financial, healthcare, and “non-profits”). The “wise men” know China's ability to absorb our inflationary monetary and fiscal policies is near capacity. Yes, the “undesirables” (mostly working class) are on their way out but with inflation rising the Federal Reserve cannot just keep printing money and monetizing the debt. A “wealth” tax on billionaires is not going to fly and will not...
What We Have to Gain from a National Default
The Biden administration's rhetoric on the debt ceiling has become nothing short of apocalyptic. The Treasury Department has announced that a failure to increase the debt ceiling "would have catastrophic economic consequences" and would, as NBC news claims, constitute a "doomsday scenario" that would "spark a financial crisis and plunge the economy into recession." Apparently, the memo went out to the debt peddlers that they are not to hold back when sowing maximum fear over the thought that the U.S. might government might pause its incessant debt accumulation even for a few days. The...
The Best Speech I Never Gave
Prices convey information, even the price of zero. There is often more latent intelligence signaled by prices than by the claimed good intentions of political zealots—even those on the side of peace and liberty. On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I tromped to the National Mall in Washington to make a speech on the evils of the War on Terror. Antiwar demonstrators had organized Camp Democracy, a few blocks in front of the U.S. Capitol on the Mall. The speaking gig was arranged by a lady from the Veterans for Peace who I met at the 2004 National Libertarian Party convention....
Raising the Debt Ceiling Is Raising Your Taxes
With Thursday’s passage of a continuing resolution that funds government operations until December 3rd, Congress dodged one fiscal cliff, but a bigger one looms ahead. The federal government has maxed out its credit, and if Congress doesn’t raise the statutory debt ceiling by October 18, the Treasury won’t be able to cover all of Uncle Sam’s obligations. With Democrats controlling the House, Senate and White House, Republicans have declared they’re leaving it entirely up to the Democrats to raise the ceiling through the budget reconciliation process. Democratic leaders and their...
Abandoning the 1980s: A Strategy for the GOP
In 2022, the Republican Party has an opportunity to not just win back the House of Representatives but for the first time in a hundred years repudiate the constant creep of statism and Marxism eroding our liberties. But the GOP needs to drop its 40-year plus “game plan.” To be blunt, it is time to drop “cutting taxes," “increasing defense” budgets, and giving lip service to federalism and limited government. The greatest threat to liberty, living standards, and our natural rights has been driven by deficit spending. We expect Democrats to continue with socialism and authoritarianism but...