Private business unceasingly gets a bum rap in major print. No matter the rise in living standards or technological advances brought about through market forces, there will always be some wiry, neurotic journalist bemoaning over social justice and demanding that capitalism kills. Socialism has proven itself to be impoverishing and murderous. Even Sweden, every liberal's favorite exemplar of successful welfarism, had to concede to free enterprise reforms in the 1990s to avoid economic catastr... (more)
Economists and other social scientists have a long history of conducting analyses based on cross-sectional international data. Sometimes these studies examine a handful of countries; sometimes they examine scores of countries. The studies with the larger samples are, it seems, generally viewed as more solidly based than those with smaller samples.
It is common among economists for objections to particular studies to take the form, "But what about country X? It certainly did not fo... (more)
In the wake of the Cyprus banking crisis, Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Precious Metals says, "There's no question a crisis is on its way. The end game is a huge crisis." With that in mind, Schiff says, "Why would you leave any extra money in a bank to get zero percent interest. . . . I think pull your money out, and put it into some kind of investment. . . . anything o... (more)
For years we have been warned by Keynesian economists to fear the so-called "liquidity trap," an economic cul-de-sac that can suck down an economy like a tar pit swallowing a mastodon. They argue that economies grow because banks lend and consumers spend. But a "liquidity trap," they argue, convinces consumers not to consume and businesses not to borrow. The resulting combination of slack demand and falling prices creates a pernicious cycle that cannot be overcome by the ordinary forces ... (more)
The Fed has been printing so much money it does not flow evenly through the sysyem. Bubbles are created and Marc is concerned about a systemic crisis approaching.
Stocks continued mostly going up last week. Gold bounced up and down… but held above $1,600. Most people would much rather have stocks than gold.
Most of the time, they are probably right. Gold pays no dividends. Nor does it invent new things or open up new markets… or do any of the other things that make stocks go up.
And now most people seem to think that there is a recovery under way… and that the authorities have everything under control. So who needs gold? ... (more)
Bitcoin is an unregulated, uncontrolled online currency – worth more than Ł500m, it's the world's fastest growing. It can be used to buy drugs, move money across the world, or get rich quick. The people behind Bitcoin speak to the Guardian's James Ball at their home in a squat in central London.
In 1913, exactly a century ago, the United States was a flourishing, economically advanced country. Its real output per capita was the world's highest. It produced a great abundance of agricultural products and was a leading exporter of cotton, wheat, and many other farm products. Yet it also had the world's largest industrial sector, producing as much manufactured output as France, Germany, and the United King... (more)
Murray N. Rothbard used to say that it is impossible to convince the economically illiterate with reductios ad absurdum. Why? This is because the very purpose of this type of logical argument is to embarrass our friends on the Left (and the Right too, sad to say, see below) by taking up the premises of their proposals and applying them to cases not contemplated by them. But suppose they are unable to be embarrassed? Suppose they cannot grasp the fallacy of their own position even when it is obvi... (more)
Following an interview on Fox Business during which I discussed the situation in Cyprus and the potential broader implications of the crisis, Lou Dobbs, apparently now more optimistic about the U.S. economy, was very dismissive of my comments. But instead of just countering my arguments, he also impugned my character. He effectively... (more)
Is there anyone better at wasting money then the U.S. government? Despite the sequester and all of the talk about “deep cutbacks”, the federal government continues to waste money in some of the most outrageous ways imaginable. For example, does the U.S. government really have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the size and shape of the reproductive organs of ducks? Does the U.S. government really have to spend 1.5 million dollars to study why so many lesbians are overweight? ... (more)
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Puerto Rican lawmakers are hoping their island paradise will join the ranks of the Bahamas and the Caymans as a tax-friendly playground for billionaires.
The US Internal Revenue Service spent $60,000+ of your money to produce this terrible Star Trek spoof. Despite being really bad, the film does demonstrate the culture of government: You, the citizens, are tax cattle to be farmed for the state. Without genius central planners civilization itself would fall.
There’s no way it could happen in the United States. That’s the conventional wisdom on this side of the pond about the ECB’s bailout of the banks in Cyprus. That caper looks as if it may take a chunk out of the hides of at least some bank depositors on the tiny Mediterranean island.
So far, the Cyprus parliament can’t pull the trigger on a plan to tax insured and uninsured bank deposits to pay a share of the bailout. However, a bank holiday has been declared and Cypriot depositors... (more)
This week financial analysts, economists, politicians, and bank depositors from around the world were outraged that European leaders, more specifically the Germans, currently calling many of the shots in Brussels and Frankfurt, could be so politically reckless, economically ignorant, and emotionally callous as to violate the sanctity of bank deposits in order to fund a bailout of Cyprus. The chorus of condemnation may have been the deciding factor in giving the Cypriot parliament the confidence ... (more)
