Measuring aggregate prices through a consumer price index is inherently arbitrary because someone decides what to measure and how. There are better ways to do it, but "fixing" the measure will do nothing to fix the ills of the Fed's monetary policy.
Paul Krugman is desperate to believe that the French economy is doing quite well. That would prove that Krugman's anti-austerity crusade must be on the right track. Unfortunately for Krugman, and for France, things aren't going so well.
Those who want a higher minimum wage often claim it is necessary to combat a rising cost of living. However, these same people often support policies that raise the cost of living and drive real wages down.
The pro-tax crowd continues to tell us that the rich aren't paying their "fair share" and that the system taxes the poor more than the rich. The opposite is true, although this doesn’t justify more taxes for either the rich or the poor.
When writing on poverty issues, many commentators emphasize the importance of work and wages, but many cultural factors, including views of family size and child rearing, can have immense effects on generational poverty as well.
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a huge spending binge, and among the new projects is what is to be the world's tallest skyscraper. Is this a warning sign of a new financial crisis?
We’re often told that some prices should be high, and some others should be low. But the real goal should not be high prices or low prices, but a price system that communicates what is valued in society.
In recent decades, the tech sector has brought us newer and better goods and ever-dropping prices. In an unhampered market, the same would happen across the entire economy. But, the Fed won't allow this to happen.
In this lecture from last week's Sound Money seminar at the Mises Institute, Jonathan Newman explains the basics of how the central bank's distortion of interest rates and the money supply brings booms and busts.
Largely forgotten in the English-speaking world today, French laissez-faire economist Michel Chevalier was an early opponent of patents, which he dismissed as a type of monopoly and an obstacle to technological and intellectual progress.
