Turkey's economy is reeling under inflation rates likely reaching 170 percent. Not surprisingly, the worst of it is felt by regular people just trying to make a living.
The standard line is that the Federal Reserve System has two mandates, keep unemployment low and create price stability. Mark Thornton notes that the real agenda is found elsewhere.
Progressives are fond of telling us that we are under a "social contract" with the government, in effect justifying whatever abuses authorities inflict. Putting up with massive inflation is the latest iteration of this so-called contract.
Radical Charles Dunoyer wanted "the municipalization of the world" by which states would be broken up and forced to compete both with the private sector and with countless other states.
The Fed's entire "strategy" can be summed up as "hike 'til it breaks, cut 'til it inflates." That's the best all those PhDs at the Fed have managed to come up with.
An enduring progressive myth is that thanks to Western technologies and compassionate NGOs, American agricultural scientists saved the developing world via the Green Revolution. Not surprisingly, the truth is found elsewhere.
Joe Biden says the pandemic is over in an attempt to get a few more votes. But the administration certainly isn't acting like the "pandemic is over" in terms of actual policy.
While people from poor countries seek to live in places like the USA because of its stable institutions and welfare state, could migration of people from stable countries to less-developed ones make those countries better off?
One doubts that the so-called Inflation Reduction Act will reduce inflation. However, it will wreak havoc on the US economy with its lethal mix of taxes, regulations, subsidies, and outright crony capitalism.
